Ancient artifacts looted

[brian]

Hardly a humanitarian issue - but there's something insiduous about looting museums. Is it because of an unspoken notion of world heritage? Either way, considering the richness of Mesopotamian archaeology, this is indeed an extremely sad event.

Looters grab priceless objects from Iraqi museums

[foundationist]

Well, the search has begun to trace looted items:

International effort to recover stolen Iraqi treasures

[brian]

Advisors quit over museum looting

[foundationist.org]

More on the story of the missing Iraqi historical treasures:

Looted Iraqi art starts to surface

[Dave the Web]

It is all a terrible shame. There is a famous gold harp, I think it is Babylonian, that was among those treasures taken.

[mac1]

Hardly a humanitarian issue - but there's something insiduous about looting museums. Is it because of an unspoken notion of world heritage? Either way, considering the richness of Mesopotamian archaeology, this is indeed an extremely sad event.

I couldn't agree more, but it should be remembered that most of the really old/valuable artifacts in the world have found their way into a museum not through achaeology, but through the so called "looting" of ancient sites by people far more interested in achieving masses of wealth than bringing historical artifacts into the limelight. Its somewhat ironic that the modern day equivalents have now "looted" them again. But don't get me wrong, I can truly see the sadness in that bitter irony. :'(