I’ve posted before about the extensive looting of archaeological sites and museums in Iraq since the US invasion. The reports were picked up on some news channels and blogs, but it wasn’t until The Art Newspaper posted this that Fox News and the pro-war bloggers wrote a battery of stories on looting in Iraq. An …
Not that it ever got supergreat. Since the invasion, there hasn’t been anything like sufficient security at the many sites of archaeological importance in Iraq. Coalition forces had been doing some policing, however, and containing the worst of the excesses seen in 2003. That was before the drawdowns began, and although police were supposed to …
Read the full post →“Looting of Iraq’s ancient ruins getting bad again”
A team of Italian and Kurdish archaeologists have discovered 10 exceptionally rare Assyrian rock reliefs at the archaeological site of Faida in northern Iraqi Kurdistan. The reliefs were carved into the banks of an ancient canal four miles long that was dug out of the bedrock in the 8th-7th century B.C. to irrigate fields. Most known …
Read the full post →“Extremely rare Assyrian rock reliefs found in Iraqi Kurdistan”
A 3,000-year-old boundary stone from Babylonia was returned to Iraq in an official ceremony on Tuesday after seven years of investigation and legal wrangling. It’s not clear when the object was stolen — experts believe it was looted during the chaos of the Iraq War around 15 years ago. It surfaced in 2012 when the …
Read the full post →“UK returns looted Nebuchadnezzar boundary stone to Iraq”
Researchers at the British Museum solved a mystery both ancient and modern when they discovered the origin site of eight artifacts looted from Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Thanks to their efforts, the objects are now on their way back to Iraq. The orphaned artifacts were in custody of the British Museum after …
Read the full post →“British Museum uncovers origin of looted objects, returns them to Iraq”
