Iraq: a Briton in court for having collected small archaeological remains

Excavations at the Tello site in Iraq.

© The Trustees of the British Museum

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2 mins

In Iraq, a British national must be tried, this Sunday, May 15, 2022, for having collected archaeological fragments on the territory.

Facts punishable by death.

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With our correspondent in Baghdad

,

He is a

66-year-old

He was on a tourist trip to Iraq and he went to Eridu, an ancient city in the south of the country.

This is where he would have picked up pieces of ancient pottery, which customs officers therefore spotted at Baghdad airport, when this Briton wanted to leave the country.

The charges against him are indeed punishable by death, but this sentence applies when it concerns traffickers.

What the team of lawyers for this Briton will try to support this Sunday is that it was not a question of a criminal act, but of a personal fault, which was neither prepared nor thoughtful.

Easy Looting

This kind of looting takes place very regularly in Iraq because the country is literally full of these very accessible archaeological objects.

In quasi-desert areas, especially in the south of the country, it suffices to move away from the sites a little to come across these small objects, these fragments, on the ground.

This makes looting extremely easy.

Some Iraqis engage in this activity for economic reasons: they will sell some of these coins to make some money.

Others, on the other hand, feed international networks, and are themselves looking for much rarer pieces.

Pieces which are then difficult to trace and rarely returned to the authorities.

Especially because these are clandestine excavations: pieces that have never been discovered, and which are therefore unknown.

Authorities, such as Interpol, can still investigate these objects when they deem the provenance doubtful.

Loss of part of its history

For this, these police officers determine the time of the object to find out where it could have been discovered, then they investigate how it ended up with a particular antique dealer or collector.

But these are difficult and long investigations to carry out, so it only concerns collector's items.

Another

, which were listed in Iraq, which we know about, but which disappeared during periods of war.

These objects are more easily traceable, since we know what we are looking for, and some are regularly returned, but thousands would still be outside the country.

And you have to understand that Iraq loses a whole part of its history through these thefts and looting, even when it comes to small pottery fragments.

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