“The scale is unimaginable”
The extensive cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq is in danger. The Federal Foreign Office has committed itself to its protection. An interview with the archaeologist Michael Müller-Karpe.
Mr Müller-Karpe, what scale has the illegal excavations in Syria and Iraq now assumed?
War and chaos are the ideal breeding ground for looting. The scale is unimaginable. In Syria looters sometimes go through archaeological sites with bulldozers. The problem with illegal excavations isn’t so much the stolen objects. They can be recovered and returned to the owner. What is irrevocably destroyed is the non-excavated antiquities and their information about our ancestors. In Syria and Iraq, in Mesopotamia, we’re talking about the cradle of civilization. This is about the peoples to whom we owe the invention of writing, astronomy and mathematics. An essential part of what we can report about these peoples is contained in the find context in the soil. This loss is the real harm done
You’re committed to ensuring that the law on the protection of ancient art be renewed. What needs to change?
It’s very important that the principle that only those objects are protected which are included on a list be off the table. Finds from illegal excavations can’t be listed. All archaeological finds should be protected on principle, especially those from dubious sources: antiquities don’t originate from an attic or from “Swiss family property”. Archaeological finds from legitimate excavations are sent to museums. This means that what is offered on the market today can as a rule come only from illegal excavations. We urgently need a law that makes trading with objects from archaeological finds punishable on principle unless it can be shown that the objects don’t come from illegal excavations and weren’t illegally smuggled out of their country of origin.
Who carries on the illegal trade in antiquities?
The real perpetrators, especially here in the West, are the buyers who ask no questions about the origins of the objects. We now have EU regulations that make trading in Iraqi and Syrian cultural property punishable, but then the things are alleged to come from Turkey. A new law therefore must ensure that an export license from the country of the site of the find be submitted for the objects and not one from a third country. There is a long chain of profiteers, which includes ISIL terrorists.
Michael Müller-Karpe, 60, is an archaeologist at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz. He is committed to the fight against dealing in stolen antiquities and in favour of a ban on trade in archaeological artefacts of dubious origin.
