Stolen Iraq Treasures Profiled in Crackdown List

Jennifer Hile
National Geographic Channel

July 6, 2004

The effort to fight the trafficking of looted Iraqi artifacts is stepped
up by the circulation of the Emergency Red List of Iraqi Antiquities at
Risk. The Paris-based International Council of Museums (ICOM) and Interpol, the world's largest international police
organization, based in Lyon, France, are behind the measure.

The Red List describes categories of Iraqi objects most heavily traded on the black market.

"The people on the front lines of this problem are customs agents and police officers around the world, but they don't necessarily know what a cuneiform tablet looks like, or a Mesopotamian sculpture," said Valérie Jullien. Jullien is in charge of the project at ICOM, an organization founded in France in 1946 to foster cooperation among museums worldwide.

"Our goal was to produce a document with photographs and short descriptions that would help law-enforcement agencies identify stolen objects," she said.

The Looting of Iraq

ICOM organized a meeting of experts on Iraqi artifacts in May 2003 to specify what should be on the list. The list was then published internationally as a leaflet and on the Web in English, French, and Arabic.

Since the start of the war in Iraq last year, thousands of objects have disappeared from museums and archaeological sites across the country, resurfacing for sale illegally on the international market. The Iraq Museum in Baghdad was the hardest hit—over 15,000 objects were taken, only 4,000 of which have been recovered.

The Iraq Museum is the country's premier national archaeological museum, home to all artifacts excavated within the country.

"Serious and respectable auction houses won't sell something that is clearly a stolen object, but how do you know? Often objects are listed as part of an old, arcane collection in England or some other country, and it's hard to prove or disprove where the object actually came from," said Clemens Reichel. Reichel is an archaeologist with the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago in Illinois and editor of the university's Iraq Museum database.

"The looting of archaeological objects from Iraq is an ongoing problem. Things can be found for sale on the Internet every day, so it's necessary to keep raising awareness about the problem," Jullien said.

Contraband

At the top of the Red List are any items with cuneiform writing: Similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform was the earliest picture writing developed in the region over 5,000 years ago. It's composed of horizontal, vertical or oblique strokes with triangular ends.

Plaques and sculptures made of ivory, bone, and bronze are also hot commodities on the international market. Jewelry with inlays and multicolored stones, ancient manuscripts, and antique hand-stamped coins also make the list.

In addition to stealing from museums, looters rob historical sites all over Iraq.

"Iraq is an area with 10,000 years of settled history," Reichel said. "As a very conservative estimate, there are at least 25,000 major archaeological sites. Trying to protect all of those areas is a monumental task."

It's not just the theft that causes concern. The way in which objects are looted is at the heart of the problem.

"Looters are not careful when they are excavating objects, like an archaeologist would be. A looter just digs a hole and steals what's there. The context of the objects is destroyed, and with that, any information we can learn from them," Jullien said. "Most people in the art world don't want to be a party to the trafficking of illegal antiquities. They just don't realize the magnitude of the problem. That's what we are hoping to change."

For more on Interpol, watch Interpol Investigates in the U.S. on Tuesday, July 6, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel.

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