National Museum Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi Artifacts

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Barry Ritholtz <britholtz () maximgrp com>
Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 07:23:06 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: National Museum Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi Artifacts

Dave,

For IP, if appropriate.

A few weeks ago, I had written <
http://www.geocities.com/ritholtz/april03.html#looting> that the official
story regarding the Baghdad museum looting didn't ring true. I noted that
many of the pieces weighed tons, and were not "Snatch & Grab" material.
Indeed, the sheer number of artifacts claimed missing -- 170,000 items in
the collection -- broke down to ~one item leaving the museum EVERY SECOND
during the 48 hour looting period.

Yesterday, the NYTimes reported that the initial reports were greatly
exaggerated:


Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi Artifacts, but Questions Remain
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/international/worldspecial/01MUSE.html
By ALAN RIDING 

EXCERPT:   BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 30 ‹ Even though many irreplaceable
antiquities were looted from the National Museum of Iraq during the chaotic
fall of Baghdad last month, museum officials and American investigators now
say the losses seem to be less severe than originally thought.

Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the
looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him
a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items
‹ ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. ‹ had been traced.

"Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000," said Colonel Bogdanos, who
in civilian life is an assistant Manhattan district attorney.

There is no doubt that major treasures have been stolen. These include a
lyre from the Sumerian city of Ur, bearing the gold-encased head of a bull,
dated 2400 B.C.; a Sumerian marble head of a woman from Warka dated 3000
B.C.; a white limestone votive bowl with detailed engravings, also from
Warka and dated 3000 B.C.; a life-size statue representing King Entemena
from Ur, dated 2430 B.C.; a large ivory relief representing the Assyrian god
Ashur; and the head of a marble statue of Apollo, a Roman copy of a fourth
century B.C. Greek original.

Even if the damage may not be as widespread as originally reported, there is
still no clear answer to the most important question: just how much has been
taken? 

"I don't know exactly," said Jabbir Khalil, chairman of the State Board of
Antiquities. 

John Limbert, an American diplomat who is a senior adviser in the new Office
of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, concurred. "How bad
was it?" he asked. "We just don't know yet."

While many museum officials watched in horror as mobs and perhaps organized
gangs rampaged through the museum's 18 galleries, seized objects on display,
tore open steel cases, smashed statues and broke into storage vaults,
officials now discount the first reports that the museum's entire collection
of 170,000 objects had been lost.

Some valuable objects were placed for safekeeping in the vaults of the
Central Bank before the war; the bank was bombed and is in ruins, but
officials say its vaults may have survived.

Other objects were placed in the museum's own underground vaults; only when
power was restored this week could curators begin assessing what was lost.
Even in some of the looted galleries, a few stone statues are intact.

Still more encouragingly, several hundred small objects ‹ including a
priceless statue of an Assyrian king from the ninth century B.C. ‹ have been
returned to the museum, in some cases by people who said they had taken the
treasures to keep them out of the wrong hands. In addition, a steel case
containing 465 small objects was confiscated by soldiers of the Iraqi
National Congress and returned to the museum.

> -snip- <

Barry L. Ritholtz 
Chief Market Strategist
Maxim Group 
(212) 895-3614 
(800) 724-0761 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Volatility and Risk Management during Wartime:
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B51CB3218%2D1F2C%2D4157%2D9
5A9%2D93A0C81CD5FB%7D&




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