So I was really interested in the article about the stolen art from Iraq. It makes me quite mad actually. I think its such a shame and total embarrassement. Its crazy what people will do for money these days! Well anyways, I decided to do some more research and I found a really interesting article ("Looted Iraqi Art Displayed Online") on Wired.com by Ryan Singel:
"A group of archaeologists and art historians are angry at the looting of Iraq's cultural heritage -- and at the U.S. government for allowing it. They're using technology to retrieve what they can find.
U.S. forces in Iraq promised to guard museums and archaeological sites and then, after the rampage, dismissed the seriousness of the crimes. At least, that's what the group that is trying to document what's missing claims.
Working to locate those treasures -- which reach back 7,000 years to the advent of civilization -- archaeologists are building a comprehensive, searchable image database of the tens of thousands of objects that are missing and presumed to be in the hands of professional art thieves.
The Lost Iraqi Heritage project is a joint effort of over 80 universities, museums and individuals working to create a tool that law enforcement, customs officials and art dealers can use to prevent the sale and export of stolen objects. The group, which is coordinated by professors at the University of Chicago, includes the Archaeological Institute of America, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
Archaeologists say they are motivated by what they see as an unprecedented, incalculable loss.
"Imagine if Michelangelo's statue of David and the Mona Lisa and the Magna Carta and Botticelli's paintings and all the major Impressionist painters' works were in one museum that got looted," said Dr. Clemens Reichel, a research associate at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.
Nicholas Kouchoukos, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago who heads up the technical effort, says the project will be built in phases. The first online effort is to display images of some of the most famous pieces from the museum in order to show the extent of the losses.
Iraq's Lost Heritage will be the backbone of an extensive effort to catalog the losses, as well as to facilitate the objects' return and the rebuilding of the Iraq Museum. The first version will show only images of the museum's known masterpieces, but the organizers plan to turn it into a searchable database as soon as possible.
The effort faces severe challenges. Little is known outside Iraq about the extent of the holdings, which makes the process of learning what has been looted almost impossible.
The museum's own records were apparently destroyed in the two days of looting. Some say that was an attempt on the part of professional art thieves to cover their trail. The hope is that smashed computer hard drives can be salvaged.
But even if the information can be retrieved, Kouchoukos says the computerized records included only a small fraction of the collection -- the museum's access to software and hardware was extremely limited during the 12-year embargo against Iraq.
The database is being populated with images from published books and museum exhibition catalogs, as well as unpublished images from scholar's notes and from institutions that excavated artifacts in Iraq and documented them before turning them over to the museum.
Copyright laws also complicate the task, requiring the permission of those who have photographed these items.
Reichel, the project's coordinator, said publishing houses have granted permission to publish their copyrighted images, and museums and researchers will permit the display of previously unpublished images.
Kouchoukos says the group will watermark each image, both visibly and digitally, to make sure that copyright holders don't lose control of their images.
"We will never be able to fully recreate what was in the museum," said Reichel."
I hope you all found this article interesting too. Now I would like to change the topic to Lion Gate! I was really suprised at how much I like these lions carved from building stones so that is why I had to mention them in this blog! This actually reminds me of the gates that big mansions have. You know, the ones with the big stone lions in the front! Maybe Lion Gate was an inspiration to some architects. Just an interesting thought :)
