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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

#111

Post by thaumasiotes »

triceratops wrote: post #18
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Err... my comment was referring to the sales tax evasion.

It's not immediately clear to me why, when someone in Oklahoma City purchases an object from someone in London, anyone should be paying a New York sales tax.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#112

Post by craftinator »

Amezarak wrote: post #56
deathgrips wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a tragedy. Most westerners don't realize that when Europeans were living in mud huts and emptying their chamber pots into the streets, the Muslim world had plumbing, water filtration, surgery, advanced mathematics, and many more amazing scientific advances which quickly spread throughout Muslim countries due to the cultural exchange at Mecca. I wonder what the world could have been like if the Mongols had never…

All those things existed in the Roman Empire, which extended into the Middle East, until the early Muslim conquests destroyed most of the Roman Empire and all of the Persian Empire, sending the Middle East into a minor dark age. Because the region had been extremely wealthy and advanced for centuries, with plenty of intra-Empire cultural exchange, itdid eventually recover. Most (not all) of the “advances” were transl…

Based on some quick back of the napkin calculations, we'd probably be facing severe overcrowding and famine; same as if Genghis Khan had been a stillborn.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#113

Post by foobar_ »

deathgrips wrote: post #35
keiferski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The destruction of Baghdad itself, including the House of Wisdom (large library), by the Mongols in 1258 is probably a more apt comparison. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)

What a tragedy. Most westerners don't realize that when Europeans were living in mud huts and emptying their chamber pots into the streets, the Muslim world had plumbing, water filtration, surgery, advanced mathematics, and many more amazing scientific advances which quickly spread throughout Muslim countries due to the cultural exchange at Mecca. I wonder what the world could have been like if the Mongols had never…

That is a barbaric lie. It's akin to Christians taking credit for the Greco-Roman civilisation. Completely backwards. Persia / Babylon / Sumer was one of the first advanced civilisations. Arabs have contributed nothing to civilisation in terms of anything and are pretty much like the mongols for their role in history.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#114

Post by thaumasiotes »

distances wrote: post #25
MikeKusold wrote: post #10

> "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?

> 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? Lots of the early archeology exported antiquities legally. At the time most of the Middle East, Greece included, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire that granted official permissions for western archeologists to take objects or even whole buildings and edifices. I'm not well e…

> Lots of the early archeology exported antiquities legally. At the time most of the Middle East, Greece included, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire that granted official permissions for western archeologists to take objects or even whole buildings and edifices.

But this answer can't satisfy anyone who cares about the issue, because there's no good argument that these exports were legitimate, just legal. Compare the Soviet Union's early efforts to sell off treasure and art belonging to the Czar -- they couldn't do it, because no one would buy their stolen goods. (Eventually, this broke down as the Soviets stayed in power.)

Saying it's fine for the British Museum to have Greek antiquities because the Ottoman Empire, the mortal enemies of the Greeks, gave them permission to take whatever they wanted... looks ridiculous. Imagine China freely granting permission to foreign archaeologists to dismantle and export Tibetan palaces and monasteries.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#115

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

elliekelly wrote: post #37
triceratops wrote: post #7

> 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…

There’s an entire industry built around moving very expensive art so that you don’t have to pay any taxes on it. Switzerland and Monaco (and I’m sure others) have “free ports” where expensive art that is bought as an investment can be stored tax free. It’s kind of like storing the painting at the international departures gate in perpetuity. Since it would be a pity to spend so much on a painting you never get to see…

For further reading, Wikipedia has a list of freeports.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_economic_zones

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#116

Post by prutschman »

_bxg1 wrote: post #70
imglorp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They knew. Their own expert lawyer warned them in 2010. It's also their MO apparently. A second case involves Egyptian papyri. They also mis-declare things to get them into the country (ie calling them "tiles" in customs declarations). So, lying and stealing. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/nyregion/hobby-lobby-arti... 2. https://www.thedailybeast.com/hobby-lobby-scandal-widens-as-... 3. https://www.theguardian…

The comical part is that their very interest in the items is based in a religion that's nominally very opposed to lying and stealing. Fetishizing artifacts is apparently more important to their faith than doing what's right.

Opposed to lying, stealing, and worshiping artifacts, no less.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#117

Post by sandworm101 »

The tablet is real? A bunch of the Hobby Lobby / Museum of the Bible scrolls turned out to be fake.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dead-sea-s...

"Hobby Lobby said that it was new to the world of antiquities when it began acquiring historical items for its Museum of the Bible in 2009 and made mistakes in relying on dealers and shippers who “did not understand the correct way to document and ship” them."

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#118

Post by _jal »

taborj wrote: post #79
slfnflctd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This to me is the most egregious part: > [...] authorities said it bought thousands of artifacts that had been smuggled out of Iraq. Some of the items on display at the Museum of the Bible had been looted from previously unknown archaeological sites. Breathtakingly unethical.

...assuming that they knew they were looted. You could make a case that, yes of course these items were looted, and they turned a blind eye to that. But you could also make a case that they trusted a 3rd party to validate the artifacts. Don't forget this is the group that voluntarily funded research that eventually proved some of their most prized possessions were, in fact, forgeries[0], so we have to assume they hav…

They may have a moral code, but it is the sort of code that is OK with illegally smuggling artifacts that their own hired experts and lawyers were concerned were looted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal

I'd suggest being open about forgery shows they're interested in getting their money's worth from their feeders.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#119

Post by User23 »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #68
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could say the same thing about a lot of conquerors including the Arab armies. For example, when the Arab armies conquered North Africa, it was one of the richest and most developed areas in the Mediterranean. After the Arab conquest, it became a backwater and never achieved the prominence it had before. Also, in Egypt, the Great Pyramid was once covered with gleaming white limestone, but this was removed and used…

My understanding is quite different... north africa flourished for hundreds of years after the Arab conquest, particularly during the time of Andalusia which lasted almost 700 years. Even after, North Africa held quite some power from its pirating entities. It was very much a hub, controlling important sea routes. It wasn't until European colonialism that it really turned into a backwater and lost all prominence. At…

> It was very much a hub, controlling important sea routes.

That’s an interesting way of saying they were pirates and slavers who raided Europe and abducted slaves for centuries.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#120

Post by legerdemain »

deepnotderp wrote: post #106
legerdemain wrote: post #8

One 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 Burning of the Library of Alexandria was neither intentional nor absolute. A better example is the burning of the House of Wisdom by the Ilkhanate Mongols

My point was that people often point to the burning of the Library of Alexandria as some kind of pivotal tragedy in Western history. But in reality, the world loses huge chunks of unique stuff in our time, irretrievably. Stuff like animal species and human communities and one-of-a-kind historic artifacts. We then soon forget that anything was lost and tell each other just-so stories with zero historical perspective.
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