Science Discusses Looting in Iraq & Media Coverage of Looting
Today’s journal Science has an article about the status of looting in Iraq, the return of items, and how the media incorrectly reported the number of items taken from the Iraq Musem. The article also gives good background about the role of US troops in protecting antiquities from raiders. It reveals that on July 6, several museum employees told investigators that they removed over 8000 items to a safer location before the war–a revelation not well-covered by the US media. Many other “missing” objects had been moved in preparation for the war and were neither lost or stolen, as once thought. Although the US media reported the looting back in April, not many outlets are continuing to follow the recovery of missing objects. A chart accompanying this article compares the numbers of thefts with the numbers of recovered objects. That chart indicates that there were about 13,500 thefts–a number far less than the 170,000 stolen objects first reported in error by the media–and over 3,000 objects have been returned.
The issue also has a few other articles about the looted museum.
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