I wonder how many soldier millionaires have been made by the War in Iraq. A small shot at wealth, a low risk of death, maybe going to war there as an individual isn't too bad.
Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
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Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#12Auction houses have some very shady practices sometimes, and I imagine it's very difficult for buyers to navigate what is legal and what's not - but also in this case, it kind of seems like maybe they should have known.
It's not very complicated to know what's legal and what's not. Was it exported from the country of origin prior to 1970? Legal. Exported with the permission of the government at the time? Legal.
The problem here was fraudulent provenance documents. Ideally, every item that goes up for auction would have its provenance investigated. In practice, that's too expensive for the auction houses.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#13> "Whenever looted cultural property is found in this country, the United States government will do all it can to preserve heritage by returning such artifacts where they belong," How does this tablet differ from any other artifact in a museum? Couldn't it be argued that any ancient artifact from another culture is stolen?
I think it's basically a function of when the artifact was taken. Older generations (I'm thinking pre 1900s) of historians, archeologists and explorers didn't think anything of it. And often in the colonial era, there wasn't a native government or state that could take possession of those artifacts. From reading history books, I think there was more of a finders-keepers mentality back then. EDIT: from reading another comment, it seems like 1970 is the cut-off.
The same actions today would be considered deeply uncool (which they are IMO), and also illegal in many jurisdictions. It's not right for a country's cultural treasures to be put on display permanently (loans are OK, I guess) in a museum thousands of miles away where most of the people of that country have no chance of admiring them.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#14>"Whenever looted cultural property is found in this country, the United States government will do all it can to preserve heritage by returning such artifacts where they belong" So what is the definition of "looted" here? Museums are full of things that fit various definitions of that word.
It's the subject of some discussion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles).
I think an extremely conservative rule is that if it was taken after the original playstation was released, that's looting.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#15> "Whenever looted cultural property is found in this country, the United States government will do all it can to preserve heritage by returning such artifacts where they belong," How does this tablet differ from any other artifact in a museum? Couldn't it be argued that any ancient artifact from another culture is stolen?
Recency.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#16> "Whenever looted cultural property is found in this country, the United States government will do all it can to preserve heritage by returning such artifacts where they belong," How does this tablet differ from any other artifact in a museum? Couldn't it be argued that any ancient artifact from another culture is stolen?
The same way that we generally speaking don't respect land rights of native people who were displaced by settlers hundreds of years ago, but we do respect your land rights, if I were to displace you, by 'settling' into your house.
There's a gradient between the two, and the line between them tends to be drawn rather arbitrarily - but it does exist.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#17> Hobby Lobby bought the tablet in a private sale, after a Hobby Lobby representative viewed the tablet in London. The auction house shipped the tablet to its New York office and, from there, hand-carried it to Hobby Lobby's headquarters in Oklahoma City, "so that Hobby Lobby could avoid incurring a New York sales tax," according to prosecutors. Oy vey. I don't know how serious this is but it's not a great look. Is t…
> Oy vey. I don't know how serious this is but it's not a great look. Is this kind of thing common in the art world?
Sure. The British museum used to be fairly brazen about the fact that they'd loot less-developed countries for cultural artifacts. Who do you think used to sponsor archaeology expeditions?
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#18> Hobby Lobby bought the tablet in a private sale, after a Hobby Lobby representative viewed the tablet in London. The auction house shipped the tablet to its New York office and, from there, hand-carried it to Hobby Lobby's headquarters in Oklahoma City, "so that Hobby Lobby could avoid incurring a New York sales tax," according to prosecutors. Oy vey. I don't know how serious this is but it's not a great look. Is t…
> Oy vey. I don't know how serious this is but it's not a great look. Is this kind of thing common in the art world? Sure. The British museum used to be fairly brazen about the fact that they'd loot less-developed countries for cultural artifacts. Who do you think used to sponsor archaeology expeditions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museum#Controversies
Err... my comment was referring to the sales tax evasion. I'm aware that the looting of cultural artifacts is an age-old practice, that's only recently been legislated against.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#19Kind of sad all around. The table was essentially rescued from ignominy. But of course it belongs to Iraq. Then it'll probably just disappear again. Sigh.
Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq
#20One of the outcomes of the US-Iraq war was Iraq's national heritage of antiquities getting plundered and sold illegally.[1] The burning of the Library of Alexandria is a potent symbol in Western culture, but the world has repeatedly suffered massive losses of cultural and historical artifacts in the last few decades. The public quickly develops historical amnesia for recent events. Compare, for example, the loss of B…
The destruction of Baghdad itself, including the House of Wisdom (large library), by the Mongols in 1258 is probably a more apt comparison.