‘Illegal’ Syrian antiquity found on sale for £30,000 in London

[Bad Dog]

Source: Sunday Times.

AN ANCIENT stone ornament illegally removed from Syria has been found on sale for tens of thousands of pounds in an upmarket antiques shop in Mayfair, central London.

After being told that antiquities looted in Syria and Iraq may be on sale in Britain, Channel 4’s Dispatches programme sent two academics undercover to pose as collectors.

Augusta McMahon, a senior lecturer in archaeology at Cambridge, and Alessio Palmisano, from University College London, wore hidden cameras as they browsed antiques shops.

During a visit to a shop owned by Elias Assad, a dealer in Middle Eastern and Islamic antiquities, they spotted an ornate 6ft piece of carved stone that they recognised as a lintel. The academics suspected that it originated from Syria.


Read more: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Arts/article1688008.ece

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I heard this on the Radio today. The Dispatches programme will be shown tonight. We're not going to beat IS if we keep buying knocked off antiques from them.

[EdwardBernays]

1. progress

usually it'd just be sitting in the British Museum

[Bad Dog]

2. I think you're still living in the 19th Century.

If we're talking misappropriation, what about Winnie the Pooh?

[EdwardBernays]

5. ahhh

it's still playing out in the 21st century... oddly...

2014 - http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/12/23/the-british-museum-should-return-the-parthenon-marbles-to-greece/#2c1543005c2f
2015 - http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/09/indigenous-australians-enduring-civilisation-british-museum-repatriation
2015 - http://www.ibtimes.com/british-museum-return-zimbabwean-war-skulls-mugabe-slams-uk-government-racism-sadism-2051896
2016 - http://www.thejournal.ie/banner-1916-war-museum-2549463-Jan2016/

The last one is from something looted from Ireland in 1936!

The Brits love nothing more than a good ol' looting.

[Bad Dog]

6. We stop short at stealing entire countries.

Unlike the Americans.

[EdwardBernays]

9. bwahahaha

lol that is true... or at least it has been for a while now!

I'm not sure EXACTLY what the Falklands would say... ahem... but yes, as a rule you only join "coalitions" of war criminals, led by the US these days

[melm00se]

11. "I'm not sure EXACTLY what the Falklands would say"

Actually they have spoken up on the matter

In 2013:

"Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?"

Yes: 1,513
No: 3

Registered voters/turnout: 1,650

So with a voter turnout of 91%+, all but 3 voters said "stay as part of the UK"

[EdwardBernays]

15. Well

That was after a certain military invasion you may have heard about... Which has is hardly ancient history.

[Bad Dog]

13. It amazes me that Yanks have the brass neck to moralise about anyone.

After slaughtering most of the indigenous population and stealing their land, committing genocide in Vietnam, giving the World Al Qaida IS and numerous illegal wars.

And you celebrate genocide every Thanksgiving.

[EdwardBernays]

14. To be clear

I'm just messing

I'm not really moralizing...

The US - especially it's foreign policy after WW2 - has been some of the worst and most disastrous policy in the history of the world.

One EX-CIA station chief in S. America reckons the CIA killed millions just in South America between the 40s and the 90s. And that's just South America.

So no.... Not moralizing... Not really... I live in Ireland, spent years in London and the UK and won't be moving back to the US any time soon.

[Bad Dog]

19. Fair enough.

I'll try not to be so touchy.

[EdwardBernays]

22. No worries mate

The Internet makes everyone frenemies.

[Bad Dog]

24. Some bloody idiot broke into my garage last night.

There's nothing worth nicking but they made a bloody mess of the door all the same. I'm probably a bit on edge.

[EdwardBernays]

27. Ugh!

Sorry to hear that!

When I was a kid my house was robbed 3 times in 4 months. It left me pretty angry to say the least. :/

[Bad Dog]

28. It's more of a pain than anything else.

Like I said there's nothing worth nicking.

[EdwardBernays]

29. Yeah

There was nothing worth nicking the second and third times they robbed us... But it's a huge intrusion.

[Bad Dog]

31. It's not too bad.

The garage is away from the house and I have to go down an alleyway to access it, but it still gets me mad. Like that bit in pulp fiction where Travolta is complaining about what someone did to his car.

[EdwardBernays]

33. hahahah

lol... yeah...

I really need to watch that again...

[Bad Dog]

34. The soundtrack is brilliant.

In the rape scene they play Commanche, now it's a depraved sound and sums up what they're doing. However, when Bruce Willis goes to get the Samurai sword the music suddenly becomes his. That's just my take.

If you're in Ireland you must be aware of Father Ted, the greatest sit com ever made. There's an episode where they play Commanche too.

[GummyBearz]

17. No modern person celebrates genocide on Thanksgiving

What a stupid thing to say. People celebrate and give thanks for their good fortunes, or for at least having a day off work and being able to spend that time with family. I can make a much longer list of the countries Britain took over militarily, after all the sun never (used to) set on that empire.

[Bad Dog]

18. You're not fooling anyone.

Except perhaps yourself. I started a thread about Is getting money from antiquities and instead of discussing that your collective Anglophobia came bursting out.

We didn't do anything like this.

Hong Hanh is falling to pieces. She has been poisoned by the most toxic molecule known to science; it was sprayed during a prolonged military campaign. The contamination persists. No redress has been offered, no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin has done nothing to combat the medical and environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming her country. This is not northern Iraq, where Saddam Hussein gassed 5,000 Kurds in 1988. Nor the trenches of first world war France. Hong Hanh's story, and that of many more like her, is quietly unfolding in Vietnam today. Her declining half-life is spent unseen, in her home, an unremarkable concrete box in Ho Chi Minh City, filled with photographs, family plaques and yellow enamel stars, a place where the best is made of the worst.
Hong Hanh is both surprising and terrifying. Here is a 19-year-old who lives in a 10-year-old's body. She clatters around with disjointed spidery strides which leave her soaked in sweat. When she cannot stop crying, soothing creams and iodine are rubbed into her back, which is a lunar collage of septic blisters and scabs. "My daughter is dying," her mother says. "My youngest daughter is 11 and she has the same symptoms. What should we do? Their fingers and toes stick together before they drop off. Their hands wear down to stumps. Every day they lose a little more skin. And this is not leprosy. The doctors say it is connected to American chemical weapons we were exposed to during the Vietnam war."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/29/usa.adrianlevy

[GummyBearz]

20. Was that reply meant for me?

[Bad Dog]

23. Yeah it was.

Sorry I got a bit pissed off.

[GummyBearz]

25. I don't get it

I still don't get the response. Calling out America for the war in Vietnam, as if nothing bad happened in India, Ireland, Africa, etc at the hands of the Brits? Well, at least it is better to be pissed off than pissed on

[Bad Dog]

26. If you don't get it you don't get it.

[S_B_Jackson]

10. Not really...

the only difference is that the UK was no longer capable of keeping that which it took - most of Ireland, South Africa, the Palestinian Mandate, India, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, etc.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

30. Misappropriation vs deterioration, an interesting puzzle.

Parthenon, Athens:



British Museum:


Mixed feelings on this issue.

[Bad Dog]

32. I have too.

They were "rescued" from the elements at the time. And I appreciate seeing them for free at the British Museum, (all London museums are free btw.) But I appreciate Athens' claim, especially as they now have a state of the art museum.

[MowCowWhoHow III]

3. Personally I don't really care if ISIS smash up the physical antiquities

I assume virtually all of them have been photographed/recorded/studied.

So the haptophiles have to weigh up whether it's worth saving the stone vs ISIS getting some kit.

[Bad Dog]

4. I do.

It's not just the Syrian's it's mankind's heritage. Something needs to draw the tourists in when this is all over.

[MowCowWhoHow III]

7. Well then prepare for extended bloodshed courtesy of knocked off carvings

[Bad Dog]

8. There's extended bloodshed already.

I don't think the dealers should be allowed to profit from this they need to be locked up. The radio interview said that this is not being taken seriously enough, the police should be treating it as supporting terrorism, not dealing in knocked off goods.

[malthaussen]

12. Yeah, they were sitting next to the Elgin Marbles. n/t

[jwirr]

16. This is no surprise - not since W left the museums etc.

unguarded the day he and his army took over Iraq. I expect to see more of this. However I would guess that a lot of it is hidden in some billionaires collection.

[polly7]

21. This has been going on for months and months.

These antiquities first started showing up on Facebook, they've made their way to the U.S. as well, probably many other countries. IS has raised millions with these sales.

[Turborama]

35. The shop owner's name must surely be just a coincidence?

/

[Bad Dog]

36. I think it's a fairly common name in Syria.

[Turborama]

37. Not really. Apparently, as a family name it's only existed since the 1920s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Assad_family