NPR's "Morning Edition" program today had a segment on the meeting -
general info and reactions to recovery progress so far.
|((| Ellen Chapman
|))| University of Hawaii at Manoa Library
On Tue, 6 May 2003, Andras Riedlmayer wrote:
> Can anyone provide more detail on what transpired at the Interpol meeting,
> held in Lyon, on tracking looted art objects and manuscripts from Iraq?
>
> A news report on the meeting just on the BBC's website today
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3003995.stm
> has some quotes from those in attendance but little new information.
>
> An AP report, headlined "Ashcroft: Organized Crime Stole Iraq Art"
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2643979,00.html
> quotes the US attorney-general attibuting the looting of the Iraq
> Museum to organized crime, alongside more cautious statements from
> museum experts - and from Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of coalition
> forces in Iraq - saying that there is as yet no firm evidence of an
> organized crime link. Also the following from British Museum keeper
> John Curtis:
>
> A British Museum official who recently returned from Iraq
> estimated on Monday that 30 to 40 antiquities were missing
> from the National Museum in Baghdad - fewer than initially
> feared.
>
> But John Edward Curtis also stressed that no one knows the status
> of 100,000 to 200,000 antiquities kept in storage, as well as an
> untold number of smaller, portable items that museum officials
> removed for safekeeping months before the war.
> [...]
> _________________________________________________________________________
> The Denver Post
> Tuesday, May 6, 2003
>
> Art treasures regarded among masterpieces of Mesopotamia
>
> By Kyle MacMillan, Denver Post Critic-at-Large
>
> While most aspects of the Iraqi war have stopped making headlines,
> the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad is gaining more
> international attention than any cultural tragedy in recent memory.
>
> Questions abound. What exactly was stolen? How significant was it?
> Can it be recovered? The story seems to change every day. Experts do
> agree on one thing: The losses at museums, libraries and other places
> were catastrophic even if smaller than first feared.
> [...]
>
> Information about exactly what was ransacked and who did it was
> in short supply last week at an international meeting of experts
> at the British Museum in London, which has the largest collection
> of Mesopotamian art outside of Iraq.
>
> "Regrettably, I think the real headline and the real status is,
> we still don't know a heck of a lot," said Tim Whalen, director
> of the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles. He attended
> the gathering along with representatives of such institutions as the
> Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
> [...]
>
> [Linda] Komaroff of the Los Angeles County Museum remains confident
> that most of the objects that were stolen will surface again, but
> it might take decades.
>
> "The looting that took place during and after the Second World War
> is still being sorted out," she said, "and that was 50 years ago."
>
> Even in the cases where good documentation does exist, nothing
> can substitute for the real thing, especially as technology and
> archaeologists' understanding of objects continue to evolve.
>
> Scientists are now able, for example, to return to ancient pots
> in museums and do analyses of what was cooked in them, something
> that was impossible even a few decades ago, [Robert] Cohon of the
> Nelson-Atkins Museum said.
>
> "In 1960 we didn't know what to look for. In 2003, we know what
> to look for a little bit better," he said. "New tests can be done.
> In 2030, what are we going to be able to do with this material?
> Probably wonderful things, and you need the object."
>
> FOR MORE, SEE
> http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~78~1371154,00.html
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> SEE ALSO
> "What can be done to recover Iraq's art" (Wash.Post Apr 25, 2003)
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39954-2003Apr25
>
>
> Andras Riedlmayer
> Fine Arts Library
> Harvard University
>
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