Afghanistan, the Next Syria?

 Professional numismatist Dave Welsh comments on current affairs:

The Afghan government is under increasing military pressure from the Taliban, and lacks public confidence or public respect due to its pervasive corruption and toleration of repellent moral turpitude.  I am concerned that this will be the next US supported regime to collapse due to its own internal flaws and US refusal to intervene with boots on the ground. Throughout history no outside power has ever succeeded in establishing an enduring government in this fractious nation. Its unique cultural treasures, including superb ancient coins, and other ancient artifacts are now in significant peril, since collapse of the present regime could be rapid and violent.

It is up to us collectors to save as many of these objects as we can before they are lost to raghead ignorance.
 

Civilization Under Attack, what can we do?

I found a link on the ADCAEA website to this very interesting text by Tom Swope on the raghead destruction of our common human heritage: Civilization Under Attack, what can we do? He takes the bull by the horns and makes a good case for the role of collectors and collections in preserving and displaying history:

We need to rethink our attitude towards the market, as what we have been doing hasn't been working, and isn't achieving the oft stated goal of furthering the preservation of our heritage. Vilifying the market for antiquities does little or nothing to prevent the destruction of the archaeological sites and objects they contain. This a favorite thing for academics to do, blame the market for the problem of illicit looting. However the situation is different now, we are dealing with a new force of evil beyond our comprehension. We need a different approach. I would suggest that in this situation where objects and sites are being actively destroyed that perhaps the moral and right position to take is to purchase everything we can. There is little doubt in my mind that what is left in the Middle East will not be preserved, rather it is all at risk of destruction. [...] The market has an important part to play in all of this. By giving value to antiquities, it helps to preserve them. Now more than ever, everyone needs to work together, dealers, collectors and academics to counter the active destruction now taking place on a scale never before observed.

Who can argue with the logic of that? 

Turkey major conduit for Syrian 'blood antiquities'

Arzan Karasu, "Turkish
dealers hoarding
antiquities"

Turkey is a major transit country used by Islamic State for trafficking looted antiquities, but authorities have not been forthcoming about their seizures (Pinar Tremblay "Turkey major conduit for Syrian 'blood antiquities'" Al-Monitor Sep 25, 2015).

Turkey, with its long and porous border and intense refugee traffic, is an ideal transit country for looted antiquities and other smuggled goods. Turkish authorities have reportedly confiscated hundreds of smuggled objects, particularly in cities close to the border. Hediye Levent has been reporting from Syria since 2008 and during that time interviewed Maamoun Abdulkarim of the Directorate General of Antiquities of Syria. Levent shared Abdulkarim’s burning question: “Why would the Turkish government not reveal the list of Syrian antiquities it has captured?”

Government corruption is of course an important element in countries like these:

Eyup Sabri Tinas, an attorney from the border city of Urfa, told Al-Monitor, “Smuggling cannot be completely prevented, but the reason it is so pervasive in Turkey is that those who carry out these activities have political connections as well as arrangements with the authorities in charge of monitoring them. Not everyone is corrupt of course, but there are hard-to-break, deep-rooted networks. For instance, the same drugs confiscated by one agency in Diyarbakir are seized again a couple of months later by the same agency’s Istanbul branch. They were supposed to have been destroyed, but they somehow made their way back onto the black market.

Turkey’s role as a transit country in the illicit antiquities trade is changing as buyers become diversified and transnational criminal networks expand their reach. The Turkish government’s lack of transparency makes the situation even worse. It seems though that the "evidence" against collectors is pretty thin:

Arzum Karasu, a journalist preparing a documentary on the issue, told Al-Monitor, “Although there are quite a few unverified reports that several pieces of Syrian antiquities have been sold on the black market, when experts investigated, they discovered that most of them were replicas.” Terrill and other scholars agree that the most precious pieces are kept off the market by [Turkish] dealers and are not expected to resurface for a decade. Most dealers see these purchases as long-term investments.

Erdogan's Turkey pursues an aggressive retentionist policy towards it's own antiquities, but apparently sees no problem in making money out of somebody else's.

Inside The Islamic State's Apocalyptic Beliefs

Current Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Renowned for smashing beautiful things up, the bushy-bearded barbarian hooligan statue smashers of the so-called Islamic State may be driven by its vision of being the harbinger of the End Times:

The Islamic State has shifted in just a few short years from a militant group nominally under the control of al Qaeda and based solely in Iraq to an international insurgency. Now arguably the most powerful terror organization in the world, it brutally occupies major cities and is fighting to establish a caliphate in the Middle East.  Part of the Islamic State's precipitous rise is related to its belief that it is prophesied to bring about the end times. These are not just fringe beliefs held by some in the organization. Rather, as author Will McCants explains in his new book, The ISIS Apocalypse, they are views that directly affect the way that the group operates and appeals to its followers.
The WorldPost spoke with McCants, who is director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution think tank, on how these views have shaped the growth of the Islamic State.

Read More here: Nick Robins-Early, 'Inside The Islamic State's Apocalyptic BeliefsAn interview with expert Will McCants', The Huffington Post 09/26/2015.

ISIS Destroys Another Precious Historical Site, This One in Palmyra

Islamic State militants on Sunday blew up the ancient temple of Baal Shamin in the UNESCO-listed Syrian city of Palmyra, an official said, the latest in a series of cultural relics to be destroyed by the jihadist group. Famed for well-preserved Greco-Roman ruins, Palmyra was seized from government forces in May, fuelling fears the IS jihadists might destroy its priceless heritage as it had done in other parts of Syria and Iraq. ISIS' destruction of art in Iraq's Mosul Museum generated a lot of outrage. Was there an ideological reason for the raid or was it vandalism? Until Sunday, most of Palmyra’s most famous sites had been left intact, though there were reports IS had mined them and the group reportedly destroyed a famous statue of a lion outside the city’s museum.

More here.

See also: 'ISIS Beheads Elderly Ex-Antiquities Chief in Syria’s Palmyra'.

At Last, Decisive Action in Syria

According to professional numismatist and media pundit David Welsh, there are times when ideological and national differences surely must become insignificant compared to the difference between common sense and utter nonsense.Vladimir Putin understands and is acting upon that difference. Unlike our present yellowbelly 'leader', he is a competent and decisive leader who sees clearly and is not afraid to act. Russia is quietly asserting itself as the savior of western civilization in a post-Obama era of sensible, practical realism. I wonder what the point of having the worlds most powerful military is, if we cannot use it effectively in situations such as these.  There is a lack of will on our part to intervene.  And the world loses its common heritage to these barbarians. Hopefully some easing of the terror in Syria will result from this, and the anti-collector league will have the carpet snatched from out under their feet in attempts to blacken the image of antiquity collectors by association. 

Egypt Military Dictatorship Kills Tourists

Is this the face of a man fully in charge of his thugs?

Egypt Security Forces Accidentally Kill Mexican Tourists

Egyptian security forces opened fire on a caravan of tourist vehicles in the country’s Western Desert late Sunday night, killing at least 12 people visiting from Mexico and injuring 10 others, among them Mexican tourists and their Egyptian tour guides, officials said. The tourists were mistakenly killed by a “joint force from the police and armed forces” who were pursuing “terrorist elements” in an area of the desert, according to a brief statement posted to the official Facebook page of Egypt’s Ministry of Interior. The episode happened around midnight, security officials said. “The incident resulted in the deaths of 12 people and the injury of 10 people from among the Mexicans and the Egyptians,” the statement said. “They have been taken to hospitals for treatment.”

This incident reveals the brutal nature of Egypt's military dictatorship. Should we really be supporting such corrupt regimes?
 

What Some Moslems Teach their Chidren

Sheik Khaled Al-Maghrabi is seen preaching martyrdom to children on the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem. As a passerby scolds him, saying that he should not be teaching such notions to children, the children are then led in chants in praise of martyrdom.

.
https://youtu.be/jTk74Xfbai0

“These three privileges are granted to the martyr,” he taught them.” Let's repeat them: First of all, he is absolved with the first drop of his blood. Secondly, he is married off to two virgins of Paradise. Thirdly, he gets to vouch for seventy members of his family. In the same hadith, the Prophet mentions the murabit. Today we are all murabiteen at the gates of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, because they prevented us from going in. What does the Prophet say about the murabit? He will be married off to seventy virgins of Paradise. The martyr gets two virgins of Paradise, but the murabit gets seventy – 35 times more than the martyr. “

Apparently, the ribat are the borderlines of the Islamic area, at the places feared to be attacked by the enemies of Islam, and a Murabit is the person garrisoned there, who has dedicated himself to Jihad in the Cause of Allah and defending religion.

ISIS Destroys Palmyra's Biggest Temple

After reports of an explosion at the 2,000-year-old city of Palmyra, Syria, the U.N. confirmed that the Temple of Bel had been destroyed. Satellite images show the famous temple a few days before the explosion (below), and a day after (above). UNITAR-UNOSAT/AP

Could More Have Been Saved?

As ISIS Destroys Artifacts, Could Some Antiquities Have Been Saved? You bet, listen to James Cuno here (transcript):

The so-called Islamic State continues to wreak a human toll in the Middle East. And in addition to that suffering, the militant organization continues its assault on Syria's cultural heritage. This week, militants blew up three tombs in the ancient city of Palmyra, and reduced the Greco-Roman Temple of Bel to rubble. [...] At the same time [it is suggested in the media that] ISIS also profits by selling small antiquities on the black market. [...]  should museums in one country be safeguarding artifacts extracted from another? Or is it more important that those objects stay where they came from? James Cuno, the president of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, has been thinking about those issues. In a letter to the New York Times earlier this year, he wrote: "This unconscionable destruction is an argument for why portable works of art should be distributed throughout the world and not concentrated in one place. ISIS will destroy everything in its path."

It is difficult to argue with the logic of that.

Pearlstein on the Wisdom of Repatriation to Failed States and War Zones

Art lawyer William Pearlstein speaks common sense that is all too often lacking from most media discussions about the subject of how best to address the looting problem in the Middle East ('Pearlstein on Due Dilligence and the Wisdom of Repatriation to Failed States and War Zones'). Asked to speak on due diligence he stresses the larger policy question - if cultural heritage preservation truly is the goal - whether repatriation to failed states in war zones is really the right thing to do.

New Evidence: Koran May Not Have Been Written by the Moslems' "Prophet"!

Fragments of an ancient Koran, which scholars say may predate the accepted founding date of Islam by the Prophet Muhammad, are sparking intense debate [...] The parchment leaves, which are held by the University of Birmingham in the U.K., underwent radiocarbon dating in a University of Oxford lab in late 2014. The research delivered a startling result when the leaves were dated to a period between 568 A.D. and 645 A.D. Muhammad is generally believed to have lived between 570 A.D. and 632 A.D. The man known to Muslims as The Prophet is thought to have founded Islam sometime after 610 A.D., with the first Muslim community established at Medina, in present-day Saudi Arabia, in 622

A.D.James Rogers, 'Questions swirl around ancient Koran, which may predate Muhammad' Fox News September 03, 2015

Rare 1,800-Year-Old Sarcophagus Recovered in Israel

 

This is what happens when states have aggressively confiscatory laws:

Israeli authorities have recovered an impressive Roman-era sarcophagus that construction workers tried to conceal after stumbling upon it at a building site, Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Thursday. The 1,800-year-old stone coffin, which the IAA describes as one of the most important and beautiful ever discovered in the country, is sculpted on all sides, weighs two tons and is 2.5 meters (8 feet) long. A life-sized figure of a person is carved on the lid. The sarcophagus was [...]  severely damaged when building contractors improperly removed it from the ground. “They decided to hide it, pulled it out of the ground with a tractor while aggressively damaging it,” the IAA wrote in a statement. The sarcophagus was then hidden beneath a stack of sheet metal and boards. “The contractors poured a concrete floor in the lot so as to conceal any evidence of the existence of the antiquities site,” the IAA said.

More here.

Germany to fund restoration of Tutankhamun's mask

The German government has offered Egypt a grant of €50,000 towards the restoration of Tutankhamun's golden mask, antiquities minister Mamdouh Edamaty said on Tuesday. Germany to fund restoration of Tutankhamun's mask [...] In January, the Egyptian Museum acknowledged that in August 2014 its staff accidentally detached the mask's blue and gold beard while changing the display's light bulbs and hurriedly glued it back on with epoxy resin, damaging the artifact.

 Read more here.