More coverage of the looted Afghan artefacts, which were returned by the UK earlier this year.

From:
Museums Association Journal

Hundreds of stolen items returned to Kabul | Museums Association
Patrick Steele
01 September 2012

Some of the 825 stolen objects returned to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul in July, with the assistance of the British Museum and Ministry of Defence, were saved by a London-based philanthropist.

The British Museum’s Middle East curator, John Simpson, said the philanthropist offered to acquire the objects for the Afghan museum if the British Museum could “advise on legality and process” and act as an intermediary.
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The recent return of artefacts to Afghanistan that were recovered within the UK highlights the fact that over 9,000 looted items have been returned to the country in the last ten years. These returned items have been carefully packaged & put in storage until a new museum is built that can properly display them in a secure environment – a fact that makes nonsense of the issue raised in the past (before the opening of the New Acropolis Museum) that the Parthenon Marbles could not be returned because Greece had nowhere to put them.

From:
Guardian

Treasures returned to Afghan museum
Around 9,000 stolen artefacts returned since 2001, says minister Sayed Masaddeq Khalili

Hundreds of looted treasures have been returned to Afghanistan with the help of the British Museum and UK police and border forces.

The haul is just a fraction of what has been stolen from Afghanistan’s national museum and rich archeological sites in recent decades. Once a wealthy part of the ancient silk road, it was criss-crossed for centuries by traders and conquering armies who left buried traces of their presence.
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More coverage of the artefacts returned to Afghanistan, after being seized in the UK.

From:
The Hindu

U.K. returns artefacts to Afghanistan
LONDON, July 20, 2012
Hasan Suroor

More than 800 historic artefacts — stolen from museums in Afghanistan some 20 years ago and smuggled abroad — have been returned to Kabul with help from the British Museum.

They include: a rare sculpture of Buddha, pieces of the Begram Ivories dating back to the 1st century B.C., Bronze Age carvings and medieval Islamic coins.
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More coverage of the ongoing attempts by the UK to return various Afghan artefacts, that have been seized by UK border officials. I’m unclear why the number of artefacts has altered significantly since the previous article I posted about it a few days ago.

From:
Independent

Looted treasures returned to Afghanistan by British Museum
Dalya Alberge
Thursday 19 July 2012

The British Museum, aided by British police and the UK Border Force, has helped return to Afghanistan hundreds of looted antiquities seized from smugglers, The Independent can reveal.

David Cameron will announce in Afghanistan today that 850 treasures have been repatriated, having been passed to the British Museum for safeguarding following their confiscation in Britain over the last two years.
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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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Cultural property, often forma an important part of a country’s cultural identity. In some cases, although it might refer to a physical item, it does not necessarily become directly visible to people in either its original location or its new location – as in this case of the body of Afghan poet Ustad Khalilullah Khalili which is going to be re-interred in Afghanistan.

From:
Oman Tribune

Afghanistan fights to reclaim cultural heroes, restore heritage

KABUL Interred a quarter century ago in Pakistan, the remains of Afghan poet Ustad Khalilullah Khalili now lie in a forlorn corner of Kabul University, brought here to be reburied so that no one else can lay claim to the revered poet-philosopher.

He has no epitaph; only a few wilted bouquets lie at the grave of Afghanistan’s most prominent 20th century poet. Three policemen guard the site.
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Germany has returned a looted statue to Afghanistan, after suspicions were raised about the provenance of the piece when it appeared in Munich last year.

From:
Reuters

Germany returns two millennia old Afghan sculpture
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
KABUL | Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:59am GMT

(Reuters) – Germany this week returned an ancient pre-Islamic sculpture looted during Afghanistan’s civil war, giving hope to Kabul’s cultural mavens that the rest of its stolen treasures will also make their way home.

Eight figures, one missing a torso and others without noses, make up the 30-cm high (12 inches) limestone antiquity from the second century AD, a reminder of Afghanistan’s rich classical past as a confluence of cultures on the crossroads of Asia.
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An anonymous art dealer, is trying to purchase an artefact, believed to have been looted from Afghanistan, with the sole aim of returning it. Interestingly, the British Museum is getting involved – clearly repatriation is much more important for recently taken artefacts than it is for older ones (that are already in their collection).

From:
Guardian

Prized Afghan antiquity is rescued by British art dealer
Gandharan Buddha will be on show at the British Museum until mid-July
Dalya Alberge
Sunday 29 May 2011 00.04 BST

An anonymous art dealer passionate about Afghan heritage has teamed up with the British Museum in an effort to buy and repatriate a spectacular antiquity believed to have been looted from the Afghan national museum in Kabul during the 1990s.

The British dealer, who said he had a “very strong emotional attachment” to Afghanistan, resolved to buy the 2nd-century Gandharan Buddha after he recognised it in a photograph sent by a colleague in Japan. The sculpture, which had disappeared in the bloody civil war, had been bought by a Japanese collector.
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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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