Looted treasures
Thursday 24 July 2003
I enjoy the messages I get from people who don’t know me, responding to things I write on this website—like one today from Suzanne Charlé, mentioning a story she wrote for the New York Times: Tiny treasures leave big void in looted Iraq:
While there is still confusion about just how many objects were stolen from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad during the recent war, there is no doubt that one of its major collections is gone. In London last week, at an annual meeting of experts in archaeology, history and ancient languages of Mesopotamia, the museum’s director, Dr. Nawala al-Mutawalli, said that 4,795 cylinder seals were missing. Col. Matthew Bogdanos of the Marines, leader of the American team investigating losses of antiquities in Iraq, confirmed the theft….