TRASHING HISTORY
“The mourning becomes unbearable,” writes Piotr Denisovich, a professor of Near East Studies at the University of Michigan, to other scholars.
“At my desk I keep a photo of a woman’s head made of marble, whose empty eyes have stared back since I first took this post. This amazing mask has survived for more than 5,000 years. Now, approximately 170,000 objects—vases, figurines, stele, statues, cups, diadems, and clay tablets—have been savagely ripped from their shelves and have very likely disappeared forever. Who is going to replace them?”
Though there may not be a direct answer to Denisovich’s question, a current investigation directed by the Hague has called a few to account, among them billionaire Ivo Kashoggian, who has been accused of purchasing antiquities from looters.
Though Kashoggian could not be reached for comment, a spokesperson issued the following statement: “Nine-tenths of the world’s antiquities have been acquired through non-traditional means. Every collector from the Medicis to the British Museum has, at one time or another, whether deliberately or mistakenly, acquired an antiquity through illegal means.”
Kashoggian is only the highest-profile of those who have been placed under investigation by the Hague. The course of his trial will no doubt set a precedent for the manner in which those who have been connected to antiquities looting will be brought to justice.
San Francisco Chronicle, April 21, 2003
Thank you, papillonnoirs, for this illustration of what can happen to the world’s treasures when those in charge are spoiled brats with no reverence for history. No doubt the woman’s head mentioned would have languished on some pillar in Kashoggian’s obscene temple to his own greed. The people own these treasures! Try as they might, those in power can not take them away from us!
