15,000 Items Looted from Iraqi National Museum

A Puzzling Case of Disappearing Shipment of 632 Iraqi Art Objects that an American Military Aircraft Supposedly Delivered to Prime Minister's Office

BAGHDAD - As a reminder that the looting of Iraq's heritage has hardly been restricted to the militant thieves who pillaged the Iraqi National Museum after the 2003 American invasion, the United States has repatriated a group of objects, some of which were apparently taken as war booty, and others that reflect the region's history of artifact smuggling.

This step, by all accounts, is only a small one in what will have to be a concerted international effort to undo the work of all kinds of opportunistic raiders, Infoart reported last week.

The trove of objects includes a 4,400-year-old statue of King Entemena of Lagash in ancient Mesopotamia, the New York Times reports.

Some of the artifacts were smuggled out of the country prior to the U.S. invasion, such as a pair of gold earrings from Nimrud that were seized before they could be auctioned off by Christie's last December as well as a collection of over 300 cuneiform clay tablets that were identified by American authorities in 2001 and recovered from US Customs House storage in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

Archaeologist John Russell helped recover the three-foot diorite statue of King Entemena, according to the Boston Globe.

When discovered in the city of Ur in the early 20th century, it had already lost its head, which archaeologists speculate may have been removed as a trophy of war.

Russell, who teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, helped the State Department assess the losses at the National Museum in the weeks following the looting.

In 2006, State Department officials approached the archaeologist again with a photo of a statue that had been offered for sale to an Iraqi art dealer in New York. Russell thought it likely that the statue was Entemena, a sting operation was launched, and Russell confirmed the statue's identity when the would-be seller agreed to ship it to New York.

The statue remained in New York for the years to follow.

Yet questions remain regarding the repatriation of artifacts, as in the puzzling case of disappearing shipment of 632 art objects that an American military aircraft returned to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki last year.

While an Iraqi government spokesman told the Times, "We didn't receive anything," the Iraqi ambassador to the US Samir Sumaidaie expressed frustration over the confounding and suspicious loss of these objects over the course of a routine delivery.

Qahtan al-Jibouri, the state minister of tourism and antiquities and an adviser to the prime minister, said that a committee would be formed to investigate.

The New York Times estimates that roughly one half of the 15,000 items looted from the National Museum have been recovered, while the Boston Globe offers the more pessimistic assessment of one third. In any event, the recovery process is ongoing: as Ambassador Sumaidaie said to The Globe, "The looting took place over three or four days.

We have been working on this for the last seven years.

We will be working for the next 20 years, and we may never get it all back." (artinfo)