More than 70% of the National Museum of Afghanistan’s collection was taken by looters during the civil war in the country during the 1990s, but less than 1% of the looted items have been recovered so far. The return of the 600 items recovered by UK customs will go some way to helping them rebuild their collection however.

One has to consider though – that many of the artefacts that sit in our national museums were acquired as the results of similar situations in the past – yet no effort is being made to return them & little consideration is even being given to clearly indicating their provenance to museum visitors.

From:
Museums Association Journal

Stolen artefacts return to Afghanistan
Simon Stephens
06.07.12

About 600 artefacts stolen from Afghanistan that have been seized in Britain are to be returned to Kabul next week.

The transfer has been overseen by the British Museum, London, which has cared for the objects after UK customs officials and police confiscated them.
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Looting of historic artefacts is just as much of a problem in the present day as it was in the past. Many of the people / organisations along the supply chain are unwilling to perhaps apply the controls & regulation that are required.

From:
Dawn.com

Cultural plunder
21 Feb 2011
By Peter Thonemann

ARE you keen to help finance the activities of warlords and insurgents across Afghanistan?

As I write, eBay is inviting bids on no fewer than 128 ancient Bactrian and Indo-Greek silver and bronze coins, from sellers in Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.
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