[MSN] UP TO four tons of ancient Afghan artefacts have been seized in Britain after an unprecedented wave of looting from archeological sites in Afghanistan that has exceeded the plundering of treasures in Iraq.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

March 12, 2006 

Looted Afghan art smuggled into UK
Christina Lamb
 
UP TO four tons of ancient Afghan artefacts have been seized in Britain
after an unprecedented wave of looting from archeological sites in
Afghanistan that has exceeded the plundering of treasures in Iraq. 
"All the attention has been on Iraq but this is a far, far bigger problem,"
said Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, who heads the art and antiques unit
of the Metropolitan police. "Afghanistan is the main source of unprovenanced
antiquities into Britain. It's coming in by air freight, sea freight, DHL,
you name it. 
 
"It's so widespread that I'm getting reports of people being murdered and
clubbed to death on the planes in disputes about who should have the
antiquities." 

As the crossroads of Asia - criss-crossed by invaders from Alexander the
Great to Babur, the first Mughal emperor - Afghanistan has acquired one of
the world's richest cultural heritages. 

The three to four tons of plundered items seized by British customs
officials and police in the past two years include ceramics, stone
sculptures, Buddhist Gandharan statues, bronze weapons and coins dating back
to the 3rd century BC. 

Much of this has been stored at the British Museum in London while
discussions take place between the Foreign Office and the Afghan government
over what to do with it. Both Afghan and British officials fear that
Afghanistan does not yet have the capacity to keep it secure. 

"Afghanistan is a place so extraordinarily rich in culture that almost
anywhere you start digging you find things, but it is being ravaged," said
Robert Knox, keeper of the museum's Asia collection, who has been trying to
identify looted items. "The Afghan government has other priorities such as
feeding people, but if they don't protect these sites and things this
history will be lost for ever." 

There was an international outcry in March 2001 when the former Taliban
regime blew up the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. The shattered Kabul Museum,
where the culture minister once personally took an axe to some statues, was
seen as another symbol of the evils of the regime. 

However, just as opium production has increased exponentially in the four
years since the Taliban was ousted and a western-backed government was
installed in its place, so there has been an explosion of uncontrolled
looting in archeological sites across the country. 

The end of 25 years of war has opened up access to hitherto inaccessible
sites, but the government's failure to protect them and curb local warlords
has halted international excavations and left the way clear for looters,
often in the pay of local commanders. 

Sayed Raheen, Afghanistan's information and culture minister, says that he
is now reluctant to go to archeological sites. "When I have visited a site,
robbers start digging right there after I have left," he said. "They think
that if the minister visited this particular spot, then something must be
there." 

A number of police officers sent to protect sites have been killed. Italian
and later Japanese archeologists were driven off the old city complex of
Kharwar outside Kabul by a warlord. Many sites, such as an ancient Greek
settlement which was founded by Alexander the Great near Ai Khanoum in
northern Afghanistan, have already been plundered. 

"Afghanistan really is in danger of losing its history," said Christian
Manhart, head of communications and education at Unesco and who headed the
Afghan department for 12 years. "To Afghan farmers, digging up antiquities
is the same as digging up potatoes: you harvest them and sell them." 
Unesco has launched an awareness campaign for locals to protect their
history, but Manhart acknowledges that the real problem is poverty. 

 
 
"It's not enough to tell people that tthey should not do this - you need to
provide an alternative income," he said. 

To this end, the Afghan culture ministry and Unesco started so-called
"preventive excavations", employing local villagers on archeological digs.
But the programme ran out of funds, opening the way for looters. 

Although it is illegal to export artefacts from Afghanistan, the porous
borders that make it so hard to control drug trafficking are exploited by
antiquities smugglers using the same routes. Some go through Turkmenistan or
Iran but most leave via Pakistan. Dealers in Peshawar and Islamabad send
them to markets in London, Switzerland and Kuwait. 

According to Knox at the British Museum, the artefacts seized in London are
"just a drop in a bucket compared with what's coming out". 

"I could go out tomorrow morning and seize 10,000 more Afghan antiquities,"
said Rapley, the police specialist. "The problem is I don't have powers to
do anything about it." 

While the international community reacted with outrage at reports of looting
from Iraq, sending in Interpol and passing United Nations resolutions, the
same has not happened with Afghanistan. 

London dealers boast of offering freshly excavated Afghan artefacts. The
police have not secured a single conviction. 

"It's very demoralising," Rapley said. "It's sad that Afghanistan seems to
have been treated very differently to Iraq." 

Both the police and the museum experts say that it is hard to put a precise
value on the millions of pounds' worth of cultural treasures coming into
Britain. 

"These are freshly dug so we are dealing with items no one knew they had,"
Rapley explained. 

Additional reporting: Tim Albone, Kabul 


Cultural crossroads

330BC Invasion of Alexander the Great 


130BC Kushan kings start Buddhist period 


AD250 Afghanistan comes under Persian control 


652 Arab invasion leads to rule from Baghdad 


1219 Invasion of Mongol leader Genghis Khan 


1369 Tamerlane invades and starts Timurid empire, magnificent age for art,
until overthrown by Uzbeks 


1504 Kabul captured by Babur, founder of the Mughal empire

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/