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Old 09-04-2018, 03:37 PM   #1130
GtrsRGr8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sufue View Post
Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum, by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, caught my eye because it's about allegedly looted antiquities at the Getty in Los Angeles, and we're planning on going to the Getty next weekend. It looks pretty interesting, and has dropped to $1.99 as part of today's US Kindle Daily Deal.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Aphro...dp/B004X7TLOC/
It looks like the Getty would have little problem with looting, what with a stable political situation outside, probably tight internal safeguards, and likely a bevy of alarms. Add, too, the problem that thieves would have getting someone to buy "hot" antiquities, which potential buyers would recognize as being stolen. However, there are some "private collectors" who don't really care--they are interested in the items simply for their own personal enjoyment, and they put them in places in, for example, their houses, where no one else would have access.

What little that I know about the subject comes almost entirely from reading that I do in _Biblical Archeology [sic] Review (BAR).

Speaking of BAR, the most recent issue tells about the new antiquities museum in Baghdad, Iraq. Well, it's sort of a museum. I was pretty much skimming over information in the magazine issue at this point, but, if I understood correctly, it mainly has only audio-visual displays, because the original museum was (just about?) picked clean during the fighting and other turmoil, outside of the building a decade or two ago. This I do remember: only 3% of the looted stuff has ever been recovered. What a tragic loss.

Thankfully, photos, reproductions, and such like, exist of the former holdings of "The Getty." I'm sure that that is true of the museum in Iraq, also. Almost certainly they would have less of that kind of thing, though, because, for one thing, as you mentioned, The Getty is "the world's richest museum." And as one who has visited museums in Turkey. Israel, Greece, and Egypt (I've not had the opportunity to visit great ones like the British Museum and the Louvre, yet, however. ), nothing is like seeing the real things.
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