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.