This is the start of the introduction to a prototype of a postgraduate investigative study that was ultimately changed, and so never went beyond the following stage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Invisible Roads: fighting today’s artefact smuggling trade
Introduction - the spoils of war
A ceremony was held in Washington, D.C. on July 25th, 2006 in which the United States returned the Statue of Entemena to the new government of Iraq. It was three years after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the capture of Baghdad by the international coalition forces. Journalist Jon Lee Anderson was on site when the invasion occurred, and described the swarming of people in the streets as the occupying force took control, and the perhaps inevitable looting that followed. While visiting Ala Bashir, an Iraqi doctor and artist, he expressed his sorrow at the pillaging of the National Museum of Iraq, which had been the headlining news of the past few days, and his hope that the Americans would soon get things under control in order to prevent the further looting of the country’s heritage. Dr Bashir responded by asking “What do these things matter? They’ve already stolen the whole country.” (Anderson, 2004: 285)
This was a political message, of course, but these words also apply strongly to the loss of Iraqi artefacts after the fall of Baghdad, as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that 7,000 - 10,000 objects was stolen from the National Museum between April and March of 2003, of which the Statue of Entemena was among the most significant (FBI, 2006).
Figure 1. Statue of Entemena
