I think Ms. Uhrhane is absolutely correct in her objection,

and Ms. Fuller is way off base.

The 'locals' - no doubt a term of endearment for those subject to
occupation and trigger-happy soldiers - by all current accounts, are
none to happy with their occupiers, so I doubt there's a lot of
'going-away presents' being offered.

However this sentence is especially offensive:

>> The Middle East is full of
>> ancient artifacts like the Western US is littered with Native American
>> artifacts. People have been selling ancient trinkets for eons

As a matter of fact, international law (remember that?) prohibits the
removal, much less trade, of 'ancient artifacts' as well as 'ancient
trinkets' including from Native American lands in the US. It does not
matter one whit whether the artifact has been accessioned by a cultural
organization.

"Loot: is an appropriate term for objects of theft - especially since
the looters have guns and (some at least) seem quite wiling to shot
anything that moves or does not hold his/her hands overhead.

Perhaps the best display use would be as part of a 'colonial
devastation of the middle east' exhibition.

-LD


On Saturday, April 3, 2004, at 12:02 AM, Automatic digest processor
wrote:

> Date:    Fri, 2 Apr 2004 09:57:24 -0800
> From:    Deb Fuller <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Iraq donations
>
> --- Jennifer Uhrhane <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> how can you even consider accepting works of art stolen from another
>> country!? i don't see that there is any "fine line" on this
>> issue...you
>> will cross "the line" if you accept those works. better to figure out
>> how to return items (if presented to you) to the museums from which
>> they were looted!
>
> Hold on a minute tex, you don't know if the "war booty" that the
> soldiers are
> bringing back was even looted in the first place. The Middle East is
> full of
> ancient artifacts like the Western US is littered with Native American
> artifacts. People have been selling ancient trinkets for eons long
> before the
> Iraqi museum was looted.
>
> The military is really strict on what people can and cannot take as
> loot. Given
> the situation with the Iraqi museum, they probably can't take anything
> out of
> Iraq to begin with and if they did, they sure wouldn't be donating it
> to a
> museum where they could be turned in.
>
> Unless every pot sherd and clay tablet fragment was labled and
> numbered, it
> would be practically impossible to know where it came from. And like I
> said
> before, there are millions of clay tablet fragments and broken bits of
> pottery
> out there that never made it into the museum collections. So if a
> soldier was
> walking down the street and said, "Oh look, a piece of pottery," and
> put it in
> his pocket, chances are it probably didn't come from the museum
> collections.
> Given the situation with the looting, they probably have to turn in any
> artifacts they find in the first place, historical looking or not.
>
> So please, don't jump to conclusions and demonize US soldiers as
> treasure
> hunting opportunists. Most will probably come back home with
> modern-made
> trinkets bought off the locals that have nothing to do with the Iraqi
> museum
> collections.
>
> Deb

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).