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It is all so easy that one can hardly believe it is about thousands-years-old world historical treasures from the dawn of civilisation.
And yet, thousands of such items are being sold over the internet and trafficked worldwide all the time, all at the click of a mouse.
International archaeology experts say it is very difficult to ascertain whether such items are genuine or not, but the massive looting of historical artefacts from Iraq during the war waged by the US in 2003 has definitely put many of the stolen Mesopotamian treasures in private hands thanks to the internet, illegally.
International efforts to recoup the stolen items have only been launched recently and remain inadequate in the face of the global clandestine trafficking of historical artefacts.
Last February, the Federal Bureau of Investigation unveiled a new unit to tackle the multi-billion dollar market in stolen art and announced the FBI’s first recovery of artefacts looted from Iraq after the US invasion.
These were eight Mesopotamian stone seals, similar to the ones displayed by Schembri on eBay, about 5,000 years old.
The international market in stolen historical artefacts is worth as much as $8 billion a year, and is comparable in size to the market for illegal drugs, according to the FBI.
In October last year, the British Museum came in conflict with eBay in its national treasure hunt when faced with thousands of gold and silver rings, coins, jewellery and costume items from Roman Britain to medieval and Elizabethan times changing hands on the website, undermining the museum’s chances of acquiring or cataloguing them.
EBay only removes illicit antiquities from its website very reluctantly and only when provided with proof from national authorities that the artefacts on auction are illegal.
Robert K. Englund, an Assyriologist and Sumerologist at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the UCLA and a principal investigator on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative had told Salon magazine that many of these artefacts are genuine, but he wouldn’t recommend buying them. In other words, while the artefacts may be genuine, that doesn’t make them clean.
“One is ethically bound to ask where these goods were found, in what circumstances, and how they ended up in private hands,” Heritage Malta Chairman Mario Tabone told MaltaToday last week.
Also see:
karl@newsworksltd.com
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