[CPProt.net] Ancient Iraqi artifacts to be returned

[MSN and CPProt list (Ton Cremers)]

Ancient Iraqi artifacts to be returned

By David Johnston

NEW YORK TIMES


WASHINGTON - In 2003, a Marine at a U.S. military base in southern Iraq
bought eight carved stones from a trinket vendor for several hundred
dollars.

When he returned to New York, he took the stones to a Columbia University
archaeology professor, who concluded they were ancient artifacts, some
dating back 5,000 years.

The FBI, which has recovered the stones, will return them Wednesday to Iraqi
authorities at a ceremony in Philadelphia at the University of
Pennsylvania's archaeology museum, which plans to display the pieces before
they are returned to Iraq as an example of the continuing threat to the
country's cultural heritage.

The stones, called cylinder seals, constitute a fraction of the antiquities
thought to have been looted from Iraq since the U.S. invasion, according to
law enforcement officials and archaeologists.

The artifacts include catalogued objects taken from museums and a large but
uncertain number of items, such as the cylinder seals, that were pillaged
from archeological sites around the country.

Zainab Bahrani, the archeology professor at Columbia University to whom the
Marine took the stones last year, said looting in Iraq had increased almost
uncontrollably since the U.S.-led occupation.

"Tens of thousands of objects have just gone completely missing in the past
two years," she said. "It's a cultural disaster of massive proportions."

The account of the eight cylinder seals was provided by Bahrani and federal
authorities. Law enforcement officials would not identify the Marine, and he
declined to be interviewed.

The case is the first recovery of looted Iraqi artifacts by the FBI since
the war started, but last month immigration and customs officials returned
to Iraq three cylinder seals found in the suitcase of a scholar arriving at
Kennedy International Airport in New York.

"Part of the investigative duty of the FBI is investigating the looting of
archeological objects that come into the country, and we are interested in
stopping that threat," said Robert Whitman, senior investigator on the
bureau's art crime team.

The team was recently established to address art fraud, stolen art and the
widening antiquities trade.

A senior counterterrorism official said the trade in illicit antiquities was
increasingly run by organized rings of professional thieves, who use poor
Iraqis in rural areas as diggers.

Objects are funneled out of the country in concealed shipments along
smuggling routes that have been plied for centuries in a system in which
artifacts are sold for cash or sometimes for weapons that wind up in the
hands of insurgents in Iraq.

Some archaeological experts estimate that the illegal antiquities trade may
pump tens of millions of dollars into the underground economy in Iraq.

Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, alluded to the issue in a speech last
November, saying British authorities had concluded in 2003 that "there is a
link between the removal and transport of cultural objects and the funding
of terrorism."

Mueller did not identify the countries or the terrorist organizations to
which he was referring.

The bureau has long had agents who specialize in investigating art crimes,
but for the first time has deployed agents trained to fight this kind of
illegal activity in a regional network.

"Art crimes fall into three basic categories: art theft, including
antiquities; fraud; and forgery," said James Wynne, of the FBI's New York
office. The new approach, he said, "is a good way to keep us relevant and
get good cases opened around the country."

The eight cylinder seals bought by the Marine date to the Mesopotamian
period. Images were carved into the stones and the cylinders were then
rolled over clay or wax, leaving an imprint that identified the owner. The
symbols were used to safeguard doors, bags, boxes or other property.

When the Marine took the carefully boxed seals to Bahrani at her campus
office, she immediately knew what they were. She recalled opening the box
and saying "Oh, my God." The Marine bought the seals suspecting they might
be archaeologically significant, according to law enforcement officials.

After meeting with Bahrani, FBI officials said, the Marine turned over the
seals to the bureau in Philadelphia, where agents have jurisdiction over
cases in the United States that are related to the looting of the Iraqi
National Museum after Baghdad fell.

Although it is a crime to bring such artifacts into the United States, law
enforcement officials said the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia formally
declined to prosecute. Officials praised the Marine for turning over the
seals.

It is not known how often troops remove archaeological materials from Iraq.
They are warned against taking antiquities before they leave the United
States and again after they arrive in Iraq, said Maj. Flora Lee, a Pentagon
spokeswoman in Baghdad.

Moreover, she said, equipment and personal property is searched before
troops leave Iraq, and packages are examined before being shipped. It is
unclear how the Marine got the eight seals out of the country.

Early accounts of looting at the museum in Baghdad indicated that as many as
170,000 objects had been taken in the chaotic two days after April 9, 2003,
when the city fell to U.S.-led forces. Those accounts later turned out to be
overstated, but museum officials in the United States think 10,000 to 15,000
objects are missing.


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