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Ban Chiang is an archaeological site in Nong Han district, Udon Thani province, Thailand. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1992. Discovered in 1966, the site first attracted interest due to its ancient red-painted pottery. More recently, it gained international attention in 2008 when the United States Department of Justice, following an undercover investigation begun in 2003, raided several museums for their role in trafficking in Ban Chiang antiquities.
Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters, or rioting. The proceeds of all these activities can be described as booty, loot, plunder, spoils, or pillage.
The Iraq Museum is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq, a recent phenomenon influenced by other nations' naming of their national museums; The Iraq Museum's name is inspired by the name of the British Museum, however. The Iraq Museum contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid and Persian civilizations. It was looted during and after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Despite international efforts, only some of the stolen artifacts have been returned. After being closed for many years while being refurbished, and rarely open for public viewing, the museum was officially reopened in February 2015.
Repatriation is the return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to their country of origin or former owners.
Archaeological looting in Iraq took place since at least the late 19th century. The chaos following war provided the opportunity to pillage everything that was not nailed down. There were also attempts to protect the sites such as the period between April 9, 2003, when the staff vacated the Iraq Museum and April 15, 2003, when US forces arrived in sufficient numbers to "restore some semblance of order." Some 15,000 cultural artifacts disappeared in that time. Over the years approximately 14,800 were recovered from within and outside Iraq and taken under the protection of the Iraqi government.
American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) was a not-for-profit organization formed in 2002 by a group of politically influential antiquities dealers, collectors and lawyers in the United States, with its headquarters in New York and representatives in Washington D.C. The goal of the organization was described by Ashton Hawkins as "informing the public on arts issues." The organization is now defunct and its website (culturalpolicycouncil.org) has been removed from the web. Some of its members now actively take part in Cultural Policy Research Institute.
Looted art has been a consequence of looting during war, natural disaster and riot for centuries. Looting of art, archaeology and other cultural property may be an opportunistic criminal act or may be a more organized case of unlawful or unethical pillage by the victor of a conflict. The term "looted art" reflects bias, and whether particular art has been taken legally or illegally is often the subject of conflicting laws and subjective interpretations of governments and people; use of the term "looted art" in reference to a particular art object implies that the art was taken illegally.
The antiquities trade is the exchange of antiquities and archaeological artifacts from around the world. This trade may be illicit or completely legal. The legal antiquities trade abides by national regulations, allowing for extraction of artifacts for scientific study whilst maintaining archaeological and anthropological context. The illicit antiquities trade involves non-scientific extraction that ignores the archaeological and anthropological context from the artifacts.
The Mosul Museum is the second largest museum in Iraq after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It was heavily looted during the 2003 Iraq War. Founded in 1952, the museum consisted of a small hall until a new building was opened in 1972, containing ancient Assyrian artifacts. The museums net worth and content value are around 50 to 80 to 250 million according to museum specialists during 2013 at least. Hikmat Al-Aswad was the director from 2004 to 2011. The current director is Zaid Ghazi Saadallah.
Deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage have been conducted by the Islamic State (IS) since 2014 in Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent in Libya. The destruction targets various places of worship under IS control and ancient historical artifacts. In Iraq, between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and February 2015, IS had plundered and destroyed at least 28 historical religious buildings. Valuable items from some buildings were looted in order to smuggle and sell them to foreigners to finance the running of the Islamic State.
Archaeological looting is the illicit removal of artifacts from an archaeological site. Such looting is the major source of artifacts for the antiquities market. Looting typically involves either the illegal exportation of artifacts from their country of origin or the domestic distribution of looted goods. Looting has been linked to the economic and political stability of the possessing nation, with levels of looting increasing during times of crisis, but it has been known to occur during peacetimes and some looters take part in the practice as a means of income, referred to as subsistence looting. However, looting is also endemic in so-called "archaeological countries" like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and other areas of the Mediterranean Basin, as well as many areas of Africa, South East Asia and Central and South America, which have a rich heritage of archaeological sites, a large proportion of which are still unknown to formal archaeological science. Many countries have antique looting laws which state that the removal of the cultural object without formal permission is illegal and considered theft. Looting is not only illegal; the practice may also threaten access to cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is knowledge about a heritage that is passed down from generation to generation.
The Temple of Baalshamin was an ancient temple in the city of Palmyra, Syria, dedicated to the Canaanite sky deity Baalshamin. The temple's earliest phase dates to the late 2nd century BC; its altar was built in 115 AD, and the temple was substantially rebuilt in 131 AD. The temple would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire in a campaign against the temples of the East made by Maternus Cynegius, Praetorian Prefect of Oriens, between 25 May 385 to 19 March 388. With the spreading of Christianity in the region in the 5th century AD, the temple was converted to a church.
Since 2012, the Islamic State (IS) has produced annual reports giving numerical information on its operations, somewhat in the style of corporate reports, seemingly in a bid to encourage potential donors.
Tel Erani or Tell esh-Sheikh Ahmed el-ʿAreini is a multi-period archaeological site on the outskirts of Kiryat Gat in the Southern District of Israel. It is also known by the name ʻIrâq el-Menshiyeh, although thought to have borne the original Arabic name of Menshiyet es-Saḥalīn. The tell was first occupied in the Chalcolithic period, but its most notable remains are from the Bronze Age and Iron Age, when it was the site of a substantial Philistine city with links to Egypt. It has been identified with the biblical cities of Libnah, Gath, Mmst, Eglon and Makkedah, but none of these identifications are certain. The city was destroyed in the 6th century BCE, possibly by the Babylonians. In the Persian period, it was the site of a temple. There are also signs of settlement in the Hellenistic, Byzantine, and Mamluk periods. The Palestinian village of Iraq al-Manshiyya was located at the foot of the tell until it was depopulated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The coffin of Nedjemankh is a gilded ancient Egyptian coffin from the late Ptolemaic Period. It once encased the mummy of Nedjemankh, a priest of the ram-god Heryshaf. The coffin was purchased by the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art in July 2017 to be the centerpiece of an exhibition entitled "Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin." The Metropolitan Museum of Art repatriated Nedjemankh and his coffin to Egypt in 2019, before the scheduled closure of the exhibition.
Donna Yates is an archaeologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Maastricht University. Her research considers transnational illicit trade in cultural objects, art and heritage crime including Looted art and the Antiquities trade, and white collar crime.
The Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research Project (ATHAR) consists of a group of experts that conduct research on the looting and trafficking of antiquities.
Blood antiquities are archaeological artefacts that have been plundered during conflicts and have been used to fund these wars. The looting of archaeological sites and the illicit trafficking of cultural property is, and has been, a common practice for terrorist groups in war zones. The pieces mostly end up on the black market, art galleries and antique shops in Europe and North America, or in millionaire private collections. The looting of blood antiquities especially affects the Middle East, because it is a very conflictive area and at the same time with a great density of archaeological sites.
References
- ↑ Halime, Farah (2012-10-31). "Revolution Brings Hard Times for Egypt's Treasures". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-09-25.
- ↑ "How Tomb Raiders Are Stealing Our History". 2016-05-13. Archived from the original on May 13, 2016. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
- ↑ "The International Coalition to Protect Egyptian Antiquities | The Capitol Archaeological Institute | The George Washington University". archaeology.columbian.gwu.edu. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
- ↑ ’’.“Islamic State Financing and U.S. Policy Approaches,” Congressional Research Service.
- ↑ ’’[ permanent dead link ].”Global Databases,” Antiquities Coalition.
- ↑ ’’.”UN Says Destruction of Mideast Historical Sites ‘War Crime’,” The New York Times.
- ↑ Arraf, Jane (2020-07-31). "Facebook Has Moved To Ban Sales Of Looted Antiquities. Will It Make A Difference?". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2020-10-22.
