Books in Iraq: lost and found

The Guardian reports an important Arabic manuscript has been recovered in London:

The book, valued at more than £250,000, turned up in a London auction room last year. Such is thought to have been the fate of many other less identifiable looted objects, but on this occasion the auctioneers were suspicious and called the police.

The four officers of the art and antiques unit of the Metropolitan police, the only squad of its kind in the UK, established that it was one of hundreds stolen from from the Awqaf library in Mosul in 1995. It is thought to have spent several years in various Middle Eastern countries.

It is a national treasure, one of the oldest surviving manuscripts on paper in Iraq, a medical treatise written in 1012 by the physician Mohammed bin Zakarai al-Razi.

It was by far the most valuable of the 464 books and other items stolen, of which 413 pieces have been recovered by the Iraqi authorities.

Meanwhile, more book recoveries in Iraq:

At least eight boxes filled with rare books belonging to the Kuwait National Museum were found in Iraq's National Museum storages. A UN source told KUNA here on Wednesday that the books were stolen from Kuwait during Iraq's seven-month occupation of the Arab gulf state which began on August, 2 1990.

From the Kuwait News Agency. Once again a reminder that the portrayal of the Iraqi National Museum's staff as first victims, then heroes, leaves out much of the picture. For a review of the missing bits, start here, here, and here.

Posted by David on July 15, 2004 8:14 PM