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The Big Business Of Looted Antiquities

August 24, 2016

Wednesday, Aug 24 2016 • 11:14 a.m. (ET)

The Big Business Of Looted Antiquities

GUEST HOST: TOM GJELTEN

Antiquities are displayed in the Kabul Museum in Kabul on August 5, 2012. Hundreds of archaeological treasures looted from Afghanistan were returned to the war-torn country’s National Museum August 5 after being recovered with the help of the British Museum. Many of the 843 artefacts were seized as they were being smuggled into Britain after some 70 percent of the museum’s contents were stolen during Afghanistan’s civil war in the early 1990s.  AFP PHOTO/ SHAH MARAI GettyImages.

Last year, the world watched in horror as ISIS destroyed key historical sites in Palmyra, Syria. But experts warn it’s not only these high profile acts of destruction that pose the biggest threat to the world’s cultural heritage. Instead, it’s a practice that dates back millennia – tomb raiding. The trade in looted antiquities is big business – and some fear it’s growing due to instability in the Middle East and North Africa. While the U.S. has passed laws restricting imports from Syria and Iraq, many argue little will change until the market for these stolen antiquities is eliminated. New efforts to curb the plunder of the world’s cultural heritage.

Guests

• Gary Vikan former director, Walters Art Museum; author of “Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Art Director”
• Sarah Parcak professor of archaeology, University of Alabama Birmingham; National Geographic Fellow
• Tess Davis executive director, The Antiquities Coalition
• Amr Al-Azm professor of history and anthropology, Shawnee State University; former antiquities official in Syria

Full interview here