Looted antiquities and restitutions

29 May 2022

The looting of antiquities is increasingly making the headlines. There are several reasons for this. Impressive quantities of archaeological artefacts are sometimes involved, And social media facilitate trafficking. Controls have however been tightened in several countries, and more and more scientists, politicians and others are taking action to combat this phenomenon. There has also been an increase in the return of stolen artefacts to their country of origin, sometimes allowing museums to be refurbished, as in Iraq.

The Israeli authorities seized numerous antiquities from the house of a merchant in Modi'in: cuneiform tablets, jewellery and many ancient coins. In the Israel Museum in Jerusalem there are artefacts from looting. Some are from the private collection of Michael Steinhardt, an American billionaire. Last December, the collector was obliged to return 180 objects stolen from a dozen countries. Among the objects returned was a stag's head rhyton dating from 400 BCE and stolen from Milas, Turkey. Archaeological sites are looted because of the high demand from such collectors.

Other countries, such as Lebanon or Iran, do not exercise the necessary control to stop the traffickers. Syrian and Lebanese archaeologists were shocked to discover a filmed interview with Lebanese MP Nohad Mashnouk, by journalists from al-Jadeed TV. The video, filmed in his office, showed statues looted from the Syrian site of Palmyra in 2014 and 2015 when this politician was Lebanese Minister of the Interior. Trafficking in Syrian antiquities has proliferated since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, with all protagonists participating, including representatives of some foreign countries present on site and officers of the Syrian regime. Iranian militias are also said to be involved in this trafficking.

In Iran, a bill tabled in parliament aimed at making the best use of archaeological artefacts could turn the country into a hub for the illicit trafficking of antiquities. Dozens of archaeology professors have protested that the bill, which was presented without consultation with the antiquities department, runs counter to the protection of archaeological heritage. There are laws, but they are hardly enforced against those who sell ancient objects on the internet.

In Iraq, after years of confusion, controls have been tightened. A British tourist was arrested in March at Baghdad airport after his luggage was searched. Customs officials found stone fragments and pottery shards collected from the ruins of the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu in southern Iraq. The city, listed in 2016 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been excavated by an Iraqi-Italian mission for several years. Iraqi law punishes very severely the export of any object considered to be part of the cultural heritage; this tourist is liable to capital punishment, which is of course unrealistic. Perhaps the authorities should instead consider distributing a guide to tourists explaining the proper conduct to have when visiting archaeological sites.

Many seizures of antiquities have recently resulted in the return of objects to their country of origin. The Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad has recovered more than 17,000 artefacts from abroad (USA, Japan, Netherlands, Lebanon), including the famous cuneiform tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh. After the looting of the museum in 2003, it had closed its doors, opening sporadically before closing again in 2019 for reconstruction. The renovated museum was inaugurated on 6 March this year and can once again welcome not only tourists, but also schools and students who can thus rediscover Mesopotamian civilisation. There are now 23 rooms presenting some 9,700 objects to the public.

Hopefully other objects will soon be returned to their country of origin and admired in the museums of those countries.