Hope this helps you on your search for truth.
nytimes.com
"Iraq Museum Reopens With Assyrian Treasures
By SHAILA K. DEWAN
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 3 — Invited guests flocked to the Iraq Museum today to see the treasures of Nimrud, a collection of vessels, gold jewelry and a gold crown from the Assyrian Empire.
This was the first time the museum has been open since its galleries were looted after the fall of Baghdad and the first time the Nimrud collection has been on exhibit since the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The three-hour event was meant to offer reassurance that the Nimrud treasures were safe, according to a statement by the culture ministry of the Coalition Public Authority.
The Nimrud treasures were not among those stolen after the war. They were found last month in a submerged bank vault.
The looting that did occur led to an international outcry, particularly from groups that had warned of the need to guard the artifacts, some of which date to 3000 B.C.
The initial reports of the looting proved to be greatly exaggerated. Col. Matthew Bogdanos, a Marine reservist investigating the thefts, said today that only about 12,000 items had been stolen, mostly objects primarily of archaeological significance like shards of pottery and individual beads of lapis lazuli.
He said that 42 display-quality objects had disappeared and 10 of those had been recovered. About 3,000 other items had been recovered, he said, but not the approximately 9,000 that had been stolen from a locked basement storeroom in what was apparently an inside job.
He said that in the storeroom beneath the wreckage of several tackle boxes containing precious objects, investigators had found the keys to locked cabinets containing one of the museum's most precious collections.
"The most precious collection of coins and cylinder seals was untouched because they dropped the keys in the dark," the colonel said of the thieves." |
