[CPProt.net] Central Artefact Recovery Office

[Tom Flynn]

Dear Fellow List Subcribers, 
I read Mr Fawaz Saraf's posting (below) with interest and great sympathy. I have forwarded the details of the loss to a UK company that monitors fine art and collectables auction catalogues from around the world in an effort to retrieve stolen and looted art. Registering looted objects with such companies might at least help to close down an important possible route to market for looted artefacts. Those responsible for the looting are surely just small cogs in a bigger machine and the objects they stole may well be sold on, only to re-emerge further up the food chain in the months and years to come. Some, we will have to accept, will be consiged to the subterranean network of international crime syndicates, where they will function as collateral in the funding of more nefarious activities. But some will certainly re-emerge and it will be a great challenge for the international art market to help effect their recovery. This list is already an invaluable tool in that process.

Might it not help for UNESCO or a similar body to establish a Central Artefact Recovery Office or information exchange centre for this critical period following the lootings - perhaps for twelve months on a trial basis - in order that any member of the trade, any auction house or private collector, could telephone when in doubt about origin or provenance of objects offered for sale? As other list members have already suggested, this office would need to have access to as many records relating to the missing collections as are available. Until UNESCO is able to set up its own electronic catalogue-search systems, all missing objects should also be registered with ALL the available electronic search companies. Some funds will have to be identified to cover their costs unless companies can be found who attach sufficient importance to the issue to do it for the free publicity alone.

I appreciate that something like this could be very difficult to set up. It would require resources which are already scarce. However, this is a time when all available electronic and human resources should be marshalled towards identification and recovery of Iraqi material culture. I am aware that UNESCO are planning to help the new Iraqi interim administration to address the problem. However, it will also require the international trade - in all its manifestations - to support those efforts by liaising through a proper co-ordinated network. It is an immense challenge, but surely worth the effort.

Regards
Tom Flynn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Fksaraf at aol.com 
To: securma at museum-security.org 
Cc: ifd2002 at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 2:57 AM
Subject: [CPProt.net] Iraqi Museum Numismatics Collection


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To whom it may concern,

In 1968, my late father, Abudullah Shukur Al-sarraf, donated his entire collection of rare Islamic coins to the Iraqi Museum.  At that time, the Iraqi government honored his donation by dedicating an exhibit hall at the museum for his collection.  There is a very real possibility that this priceless collection is now in the possession of fleeing members of the former Saddam regime.  It has been reported that the collection has disappeared from the museum a few years ago.

I have a list of all the coins in the collection.  The list was published in a special edition of the Journal of Numismatics In Iraq, 1968.  Following are two examples of the rare coins in the collection:

(1) An Islamic dirham of the Sassanid type minted at Nishapour in 78 AH and belonging to the Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusif al Thaqafi.

(2)  Khawarij coins believed to be struck at Kufa by Al-Dhahhak ibn Qais Al-Shaibani when he took over the city in 127 AH. 


I have been in contact with the curator of Islamic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, Mr. Richard Doty, Curator, National Numismatics Collection, Simthsonian Institute, and the British Museum to publicize the disappearance of the collection.  Any further help you can provide in publicizing the disappearance of this invaluable collection so it may be returned to its rightful owners (the Iraqi museum and the people of Iraq) will be greatly appreciated.

Sicnerely,
Fawaz Saraf
Telephone:  703 519-9639



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