Category: Syria

This Week’s Featured Object: Echoes of a Very Different Middle East – Clothing from Iraqi Kurdistan

Our featured object this week hearkens back to a time when the Middle East was quite different demographically than it is today. For more than 400 years, large parts of the Near and Middle East were governed by the expansionist Ottoman Empire. Under the Empire’s authoritarian rule, the many ethnic and religious minorities of the… Read More This Week’s Featured Object: Echoes of a Very Different Middle East – Clothing from Iraqi Kurdistan

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Object of the Week: A Superb Byzantine Pottery Oil Lamp

Many of the ancient oil lamps we offer at Clio Ancient Art are Byzantine, mainly from the Levant (what is now southern Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel / Palestine). Unlike Roman hard fired ceramic red slip lamps of earlier centuries, Byzantine lamps tend to be made from low fired pottery and their designs often reflect early… Read More Object of the Week: A Superb Byzantine Pottery Oil Lamp

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Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece on Saving Syrian Antiquities

In light of the horrendous events of the last week or so — the senseless execution of Dr Khaled Asaad by IS at Palmyra and now the demolition of Palmyra’s Baalshamin Temple, also by IS, described by UNESCO as a war crime — a Wall Street Journal guest opinion piece by former Walters Art Museum… Read More Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece on Saving Syrian Antiquities

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ISIL Destroys Palmyrene Statues, Raises Questions About Alleged Antiquities Smuggling

Clio Ancient Art, Palmyra, Palmyrene Sculpture, antiquities, British Museum

This link to the story on the BBC opens in a new tab or window – http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33369701 The destruction of these relatively small but quite valuable and easily smuggled Palmyrene sculptures would seem to contradict (unsubstantiated) claims that ISIL is smuggling artifacts. In any event, their destruction is a terrible loss.

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Making Matters Worse? The Debate Over “Repatriating” Antiquities to Failed States in the Middle East

With Islamic State on the rampage, and other groups swearing allegiance to them in Libya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Yemen and Afghanistan, the threat to ancient heritage is greater than ever, and the debate over whether or not to return antiquities, looted or legally exported, to the modern nation states where they were discovered is fiercer than ever.… Read More Making Matters Worse? The Debate Over “Repatriating” Antiquities to Failed States in the Middle East

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Critics Missing the Point: Responses to Clio’s February 22 Article on Looting in Syria.

Clio Ancient Art Antiquities

A February 16 BBC documentary on looting in Syria made the astonishing claim that the smuggling of looted antiquities was “one of Islamic State’s main sources of funding.” On February 22 I responded to this faulty investigation with this blog entry: https://clioantiquities.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/sensationalist-reporting-and-the-antiquities-trade-if-its-in-print-it-must-be-true/ My article raised three key points: First, that despite evidence of looting, which… Read More Critics Missing the Point: Responses to Clio’s February 22 Article on Looting in Syria.

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Sensationalist Reporting and the Antiquities Trade: If it’s in Print it Must be True!

antiquities, ancient art, Clio, heritage, culture, artifacts

A BBC online feature entitled “The men who smuggle the loot that funds IS”, 16 February, 2015, opens with the following remarkable claim: “The trade in antiquities is one of Islamic State’s main sources of funding, along with oil and kidnapping.” At no point in the dozen or so paragraphs that follow does author Simon… Read More Sensationalist Reporting and the Antiquities Trade: If it’s in Print it Must be True!

Christof Maupin / Past Present Arts1 Comment

Assyrian Art and the “Repatriation” of Antiquities

Assyrian art, Assyrian antiquities, Clio Ancient Art

In April of 2013 I published on this blog a photo essay highlighting some of the many Assyrian antiquities in The British Museum (here is the link: https://clioantiquities.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/a-sampler-of-ancient-assyrian-art-at-the-british-museum/ ). Little could anyone have known at the time that a gang of fanatics and thugs, referred to now under the English language acronyms ISIS or ISIL,… Read More Assyrian Art and the “Repatriation” of Antiquities

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