The Archaeologist Heritage and Archaeology News Network
After a stone statue representing the head of the young King Tutankhamun was sold in the famous auction house in London “christie’s” for more than six million dollars, the debate escalated again about the trade of legal or illegal artifacts in the world
Although most theaters and auctions recognize the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property from the 1970’s, many of them bypassed these covenants and sold some of the antiquities that were illegally smuggled
In detail, the famous journalist Lames Al-Hadidi published a special episode from inside the Great British Museum, which contains more than eight million artifacts from around the world, talking about the reason for the spread of Egypt’s antiquities with different covenants around the world.
Although most theaters and auctions recognize the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property from the 1970’s, many of them bypassed these covenants and sold some of the antiquities that were illegally smuggled from their countries of origin after the 1970’s, the biggest dispute or major dilemma is proving ownership of these heritage pieces and title deeds That the auction houses show to prove that they obtained them before the agreement to protect cultural property, and thus consider themselves to be the legitimate owners of these artifacts
Most museums around the world refuse to buy these smuggled pieces, but
Many cases of smuggling were previously seized either within the countries of origin or at the borders proving the extent of this illegal trade, especially in civilized centers such as Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, certainly lack of political stability in those countries helps in the spread of this trade
Most museums around the world refuse to buy these smuggled pieces, but sometimes some of them appear within the museums’ collections or cultural institutions, let alone the private collections that some wealthy people seek to obtain and display within their luxury palaces.
Here comes the role of researchers and academics to stop these illegal operations and expose them to people, the media and governments to continue to recover these pieces and prove the illegality of their acquisition
The Archaeologist 1
خالد حياتله، عالم آثار فلسطيني - سوري، كان قبل النزاع في سوريا مرتبطاً بالمديرية العامة للآثار والمتاحف في دمشق. الان مع معهد الآثار الرقمية في أكسفورد، يستكشف ويقود إمكانات التقنيات الجديدة لإصلاح وإعادة بناء المعالم والمواقع الأثرية المدمرة في سورية. حصل على شهادته في علم الآثار من جامعة BYU في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية ومن جامعة دمشق.
