by Jon Lackman | 1 March 2006 | Ancient, News
“There was no plan to protect the Iraq Museum” during the 2003 siege of Baghdad, said Matthew Bogdanos last night at a Cooper Union lecture sponsored by Saving Antiquities for Everyone (S.A.F.E.). As a result, thousands of Mesopotamian artifacts were stolen. Bogdanos, who holds a master’s degree in classical studies, assembled a multi-agency team while a Marine colonel in Iraq to attempt to address the “continuing cultural catastrophe.” To gain the trust of locals who could provide information, “we drank tea and played backgammon.” His no-questions-asked amnesty program led to the voluntary return of over 1900 objects, he said, from a $1.50 gift-shop reproduction of the Head of Hammurabi to the famous Warka Vase, which he deemed “arguably the single finest piece known to humanity, and that’s really difficult for a Greek-American to say.” Military raids were directed at those holders of stolen objects “who needed a little more convincing.” Following the talk, Bogdanos was asked for his thoughts on Philippe de Montebello’s recent remark that “the black market, to a certain extent, is responsible for the preservation of a great many objects.” That may be true, he said, but in Iraq selling looted artwork is also a “cash cow” for the insurgency. He then sold and signed copies of his book Thieves of Baghdad, royalties of which benefit the Iraq Museum.
In a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article, Bogdanos, who now works for the Manhattan D.A.’s office, said he has “New York’s elite art market in his sights. He believes reputable dealers are the conduits connecting looted objects to wealthy buyers. ‘You want to know what will get the vast majority of them to stop?’ he asked. ‘A nice sentence among one of their own … some 65-year-old person who has never seen the inside of a jail.’”
