UNESCO and the Iraqi cultural bureaucracy are up in arms because some valuable Islamic manuscripts were removed from ISIS controlled Mosul and taken to Turkey. One wonders if UNESCO and the Iraqi cultural bureaucracy would rather have seen them burned by Islamic fanatics instead.
If anything, the rise of ISIS and the the devolution of the rest of Iraq into a Shia-dominated sectarian rump state also confirms the wisdom of keeping the Iraqi Jewish archive in the United States.
CPO was dubious about the archive's repatriation even before the wheels came off in Iraq. Yet, CPO suspects there are still some in the archaeological lobby still pressing for the return of the archive to an uncertain fate.
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"US Collectors and their empty-headed, black-hearted, money-grabbing lobbyists, missing the point as usual, say "nothing, better smuggled than lost". Writes Paul Barford.
With people being slaughtered on an industrial scale in Syria thousands made homeless refugees, and with increasingly savage and vile atrocities reported on every news bulletin, what does Barford see as the pressing issue to complain about in Syria? Antiquities.
In another example of his warped logic, he accuses collectors -without evidence - of buying coins and relics from ISIS thus funding their brand of terrorism, but makes no condemnation of ISIS for looting them in the first place.
What a vaudeville act this UNESCO pit-prop is becoming.
Best wishes
John Howland
England
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