thedrifter
05-08-03, 06:03 AM
Looted Iraqi Treasures Recovered Slowly
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- From a dusty library table, Marine Lt. Col. Matthew Bogdanos lifts a small pot with burned red ochre designs and holds it to the light.
One of the world's oldest examples of hand-modeled clay is back home - courtesy of a stranger who came to the gate of the Iraqi National Museum and handed it over to U.S. forces.
Work has begun on recovering some of civilization's earliest artifacts, items of incalculable value that disappeared in the orgy of looting that followed Saddam Hussein's fall. But first investigators must find out: What was there to begin with?
"To say it has proven formidable is just an understatement," said Bogdanos, who heads a 13-member team of U.S. military and customs officials investigating the pillage and compiling an inventory of what is missing.
His comments came as art experts and law enforcement officials met in France on Tuesday to create a database of items looted in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The Baghdad museum has long been recognized as the Middle East's leading archaeological collection. It held millennia-old artwork and fragile clay tablet inscriptions from the Tigris-Euphrates valley, where many of humankind's innovations began.
But when U.S. forces - and journalists - first visited the museum after days of looting, they saw hundreds of empty display cases. Iraqi antiquities officials called the theft the "crime of the century," and questioned why American troops hadn't moved quicker to safeguard the collection.
Upon closer inspection, however, American investigators and museum officials found that only 17 cases had been broken into. Thirty-eight items have now been confirmed missing and 22 damaged in the main gallery - far less than originally feared, Bogdanos said.
But no one knows the status of tens of thousands of antiquities kept at storage sites across the city, or an untold number of smaller, portable items that museum officials removed for safekeeping months before the war.
Museum officials are trying to draw up inventories of these sites, but film negatives and files were destroyed when administrative offices were trashed. The museum used antiquated, unstandardized pen-and-ink records, and some inventories are years out of date.
Despite the frustrations, at least 671 items have been returned to the museum since officials began broadcasting appeals over the coalition's Information Radio.
Hundreds of them were laid out Tuesday on a table in the reading room of the museum library, where officials had separated genuine artifacts from fakes - many of which were collected by the institution to keep them off the black market.
Among the most treasured finds was the clay pot, circa 5000 BC.
"I know that piece," said Bogdanos, a Marine reserve officer and Manhattan assistant district attorney who once prosecuted rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in a 1999 nightclub shooting.
He also has a master's degree in classical studies. "I studied that pot in graduate school."
Every day, people press urgently against the gates to whisper tips about wayward artifacts into the ears of soldiers guarding the collection. Some want money, but others appear interested in safeguarding their heritage.
U.S. officials ask no questions about who they are or how missing items might have come into their possession. But they refuse to pay for their return.
Acting on one such tip, investigators found 339 tin trunks full of ancient books, scrolls and manuscripts at a bomb shelter in western Baghdad. Local residents protecting the site resisted giving the material to museum officials, whom they associated with Saddam's regime. But they agreed to allow U.S. officials to seal the place until what's inside can be handed over to a new government.
U.S.-backed Free Iraqi Forces also recovered some 465 items near the border city of Kut when they stopped a vehicle speeding toward Iran. The troops told investigators they were offered $5,000 to allow the theft, but instead confiscated the treasures and sent the passengers on their way.
Many of the museum's gold and silver pieces are believed to be in underground vaults at the bombed-out central bank. Bogdanos' team found those vaults intact Tuesday, though no one seems to know which ones contain the artifacts or how to get into them.
Many more items were kept in five reinforced storage areas at the museum. While none were forced open, it was apparent that three of them were entered in the days after officials abandoned the museum.
"It is clear that the person who did this had intimate knowledge of the museum and its storage practices," Bogdanos said.
U.S. officials believe organized criminal groups who knew what they were looking for were involved in the looting, Attorney General John Ashcroft told the Interpol meeting Tuesday in Lyon, France.
Items returned so far range from an inscribed cornerstone from King Nebuchadnezzar's 7th-century B.C. Babylon palace to trinkets sold at the Baghdad airport gift shop.
Others - including a golden harp from the ancient Sumerian city of Ur - were found among the museum debris. The harp was in pieces, Bogdanos said, but can be restored.
Once items are identified as missing, Bogdanos' team records and transmits the information to law-enforcement agencies around the world and to the international art community.
"This is really the story of mankind," said Bogdanos' deputy, Senior Master Sgt. Roberto Pineiro. "Everyone should feel a sense of loss."
Sempers,
Roger
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- From a dusty library table, Marine Lt. Col. Matthew Bogdanos lifts a small pot with burned red ochre designs and holds it to the light.
One of the world's oldest examples of hand-modeled clay is back home - courtesy of a stranger who came to the gate of the Iraqi National Museum and handed it over to U.S. forces.
Work has begun on recovering some of civilization's earliest artifacts, items of incalculable value that disappeared in the orgy of looting that followed Saddam Hussein's fall. But first investigators must find out: What was there to begin with?
"To say it has proven formidable is just an understatement," said Bogdanos, who heads a 13-member team of U.S. military and customs officials investigating the pillage and compiling an inventory of what is missing.
His comments came as art experts and law enforcement officials met in France on Tuesday to create a database of items looted in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The Baghdad museum has long been recognized as the Middle East's leading archaeological collection. It held millennia-old artwork and fragile clay tablet inscriptions from the Tigris-Euphrates valley, where many of humankind's innovations began.
But when U.S. forces - and journalists - first visited the museum after days of looting, they saw hundreds of empty display cases. Iraqi antiquities officials called the theft the "crime of the century," and questioned why American troops hadn't moved quicker to safeguard the collection.
Upon closer inspection, however, American investigators and museum officials found that only 17 cases had been broken into. Thirty-eight items have now been confirmed missing and 22 damaged in the main gallery - far less than originally feared, Bogdanos said.
But no one knows the status of tens of thousands of antiquities kept at storage sites across the city, or an untold number of smaller, portable items that museum officials removed for safekeeping months before the war.
Museum officials are trying to draw up inventories of these sites, but film negatives and files were destroyed when administrative offices were trashed. The museum used antiquated, unstandardized pen-and-ink records, and some inventories are years out of date.
Despite the frustrations, at least 671 items have been returned to the museum since officials began broadcasting appeals over the coalition's Information Radio.
Hundreds of them were laid out Tuesday on a table in the reading room of the museum library, where officials had separated genuine artifacts from fakes - many of which were collected by the institution to keep them off the black market.
Among the most treasured finds was the clay pot, circa 5000 BC.
"I know that piece," said Bogdanos, a Marine reserve officer and Manhattan assistant district attorney who once prosecuted rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in a 1999 nightclub shooting.
He also has a master's degree in classical studies. "I studied that pot in graduate school."
Every day, people press urgently against the gates to whisper tips about wayward artifacts into the ears of soldiers guarding the collection. Some want money, but others appear interested in safeguarding their heritage.
U.S. officials ask no questions about who they are or how missing items might have come into their possession. But they refuse to pay for their return.
Acting on one such tip, investigators found 339 tin trunks full of ancient books, scrolls and manuscripts at a bomb shelter in western Baghdad. Local residents protecting the site resisted giving the material to museum officials, whom they associated with Saddam's regime. But they agreed to allow U.S. officials to seal the place until what's inside can be handed over to a new government.
U.S.-backed Free Iraqi Forces also recovered some 465 items near the border city of Kut when they stopped a vehicle speeding toward Iran. The troops told investigators they were offered $5,000 to allow the theft, but instead confiscated the treasures and sent the passengers on their way.
Many of the museum's gold and silver pieces are believed to be in underground vaults at the bombed-out central bank. Bogdanos' team found those vaults intact Tuesday, though no one seems to know which ones contain the artifacts or how to get into them.
Many more items were kept in five reinforced storage areas at the museum. While none were forced open, it was apparent that three of them were entered in the days after officials abandoned the museum.
"It is clear that the person who did this had intimate knowledge of the museum and its storage practices," Bogdanos said.
U.S. officials believe organized criminal groups who knew what they were looking for were involved in the looting, Attorney General John Ashcroft told the Interpol meeting Tuesday in Lyon, France.
Items returned so far range from an inscribed cornerstone from King Nebuchadnezzar's 7th-century B.C. Babylon palace to trinkets sold at the Baghdad airport gift shop.
Others - including a golden harp from the ancient Sumerian city of Ur - were found among the museum debris. The harp was in pieces, Bogdanos said, but can be restored.
Once items are identified as missing, Bogdanos' team records and transmits the information to law-enforcement agencies around the world and to the international art community.
"This is really the story of mankind," said Bogdanos' deputy, Senior Master Sgt. Roberto Pineiro. "Everyone should feel a sense of loss."
Sempers,
Roger