Antiquities Under Siege, Again

In the wake of the 2003 looting of the Iraq Museum and the consequent pillaging of thousands of archaeological sites, UChicago’s Cultural Policy Center convened an array of experts (legal, military, archaeological, economic) to better understand what went wrong and to develop recommendations on steps to be taken to prevent or mitigate future threats posed to cultural heritage in times of armed conflict. Recent events in the Middle East have raised new alarms about the future of the past. In this presentation, we review the events of 2003 and assess both the progress made in disaster preparedness and response and the more difficult challenges posed by the new environment. We’ll end by pulling back to ask what more might be done to address the root cause of antiquities looting: the untrammeled international demand by collectors for artifacts.