Replies to post #559 on Liberal Free Chat Zone (NOLIB)

[AKvetch]

That sure is a different story from this one today at BBC News.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3000749.stm

Drive to recover Iraqi treasures

International experts and law enforcement agencies are combining forces on Monday in the hope of tracking down artefacts looted from Iraq.

The US was widely criticised for not stopping the looting
International experts and law enforcement agencies are combining forces on Monday in the hope of tracking down artefacts looted from Iraq.

Thousands of irreplaceable items dating back to the dawn of civilisation were taken from Iraqi museums in the lawless days following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last month.

The looting has been described as "the crime of the century".

Art experts, museum curators and law enforcement officials hope to set up a massive database of the stolen items, for use by investigators, customs officials and dealers.

"One of the key proposals is to significantly expand Interpol's existing database of stolen art to include the thousands of other items now missing in Iraq," said a statement from Interpol.

The international police organisation is hosting the two-day conference in the French city of Lyons.

Also involved is the United Nations cultural agency Unesco, and the International Council of Museums.

US Attorney-General John Ashcroft is due to address the closing session of the conference on Tuesday.

Radio appeal

Working out what exactly is missing is a major task for investigators.

Museum inventories, which may have been incomplete to start with, were destroyed or lost during the looting.

"We don't yet have a complete record of all the stolen objects, and we don't have any means to verify that a certain object is indeed coming from that collection," said Giovanni Boccardi from Unesco's World Heritage Centre in Paris.

The United States military was widely criticised for not doing more to stop the looting in Iraq.

It has begun broadcasting radio messages offering rewards to Iraqis to return the antiquities.

More than 100 items have already been handed in, US Central Command said last week.

They are said to include priceless manuscripts, a 7,000-year-old vase and one of the oldest bronze bas-relief representations of a bull.

Leading international experts in Mesopotamian antiquities, who met in London last week, have called for a further tightening up of Iraq's borders to stop looted items being smuggling out of the country.

Some experts believe some antiquities were stolen by professional thieves who knew what they were looking for - possibly working on behalf of wealthy clients.

[BillC]

Having just read a similar story in the New York Daily News, I went searching for it on the web. Accidentally, I went to the New Times site instead. There I found multiple stories about the subject, but I didn't notice any that mentioned the downsizing of the loss - but, I admit, I didn't read them all. Here's the one from the New Daily News:

"Iraq museum looting called exaggerated

"BAGHDAD - The vast majority of the Iraqi trove of antiquities feared stolen or broken have been found inside the National Museum in Baghdad, according to U.S. investigators who scoured ransacked galleries over the weekend.
A total of 38 pieces, not tens of thousands, are now believed to be missing. Among them is a single display of Babylonian cuneiform tablets that accounts for nine missing items. The most valuable missing piece is the Vase of Warka, a white limestone bowl made in 3000 B.C.

The inventory, compiled by a military and civilian team headed by Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos, rebuts reports that Iraq's renowned treasures of civilization - as many as 170,000 individual artifacts - had been scattered or lost during the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

Investigators found that intruders had taken some less-valuable artifacts from a storage room in the basement of the museum. That theft, in a little-known storage area, has raised suspicions that the thieves had knowledge of the museum and its storage practices.

Over the weekend, the investigators, armed with sledgehammers, broke through barricades built by Fedayeen Saddam gunners who fled to the museum just before the fall of Baghdad.

Important artifacts, apparently obscured in some instances by the rubble left by looters, emerged largely unscathed, they said. Investigators counted 17 display cases out of 300 to 400 cases there as destroyed.

In addition, investigators have counted 22 items that were damaged, including 11 clay pots on display in corridors. Most of those damaged artifacts are restored pieces and can be restored again, museum officials told investigators.

The most significant of the damaged pieces was the Golden Harp of Ur. But investigators determined that the golden head on the damaged antiquity, feared missing, was only a copy.

Museum officials confirmed to investigators that the original head is in a storage vault at the Iraqi Central Bank.

Knight-Ridder Newspapers"

I mention this only because while some people consider the New York Daily News to be "conservative", I consider it to be less biased than the Times, which as we all know is "somewhat" Liberal. :)

Bill