June 1, 2002

- Greece: new Antiquities law
- Thwarting Art Thieves on a Budget
- Wrong monetary estimates of Breitwieser thefts
- A curator of lost art and recovered memories
- 'Looted pictures' claim against British Museum
- Created centuries ago by indigenous American peoples, these fine examples of rock art are today being lost to wanton vandalism
- Mural at Sakharov Museum Vandalized
- Storm over Ethiopian Obelisk Lightning Strike
- Illegal excavations continue as officials look other way

Greece: new Antiquities law

Parliament yesterday passed a new law on antiquities, according to which anyone illegally in possession of objects dating to before 1453 must declare them to the authorities within 12 months of the law’s publication in the government gazette and may be allowed to keep them. Restrictions also apply, in some cases, to artifacts up to 100 years old. http://www.ekathimerini.com/

Thwarting Art Thieves on a Budget

By ALAN RIDING
BLOIS, France, May 23 — The administrators of the Château de Blois are still shaken by what happened on July 19, 1996. At the height of the tourist season, with more than 2,000 daily visitors to the medieval château and its museum of fine arts, a small 16th-century portrait was removed from an ornate frame and disappeared. It was the museum's first such loss in memory and it exposed weaknesses in the château's security.
Within days, as other museums and châteaus in the region began reporting similar art thefts, a pattern seemed to emerge. The presumption was that they had been successively targeted by one of the gangs that feed an $8 billion annual traffic in stolen art, much of which passes through crooked dealers and ends up in private European and American collections. But a different kind of thief had hit the Château de Blois and scores of other museums, châteaus and galleries across Western Europe; one whom these institutions were less prepared to combat; a lone criminal, not a gang. Most of the buildings housing art had barred windows, reinforced doors and alarm systems to forestall a forced entry. This criminal understood that the art was most vulnerable during visiting hours. "In a way, small museums are better protected at night than in the day," said Ton Cremers, who manages the Museum Security Network, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "The buildings are usually well secured, but the objects themselves are often very poorly secured, or not at all." It was this, investigators say, that made things easy for Stéphane Breitwieser. After admitting to stealing 239 art works during 174 thefts in seven European countries since 1995, this 31-year-old Frenchman told the police that he did so "in broad daylight, without break-ins, during visiting hours." It is now also clear why none of the works appeared on the market: he stole to build up a private collection, which he kept in a bedroom at his mother's home near Mulhouse, in eastern France. Still more extraordinary, after Mr. Breitwieser was arrested in November for stealing a bugle from a Swiss museum, his mother, Mireille Breitwieser, cleared his room of incriminating evidence, throwing more than 100 objects into a canal and destroying some 60 paintings, investigators said. Many objects have been recovered from the canal, but the paintings are feared lost. Mrs. Breitwieser is under arrest in Strasbourg, France. French and Swiss investigators have not released a full list of the paintings believed destroyed, but the works are known to include Blois's portrait of Madeleine of France, Queen of Scotland, by Corneille de Lyon, as well as valuable works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The French police estimated the value of the art stolen by Mr. Breitwieser at more than $1.4 billion, but art experts now believe that figure to be lower. A more pertinent question, however, is how was it possible for Mr. Breitwieser, a waiter by profession, to wander Europe for six years helping himself to art? The answer, deeply embarrassing to cultural authorities in France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Denmark, is that security was totally inadequate. And the excuse is that Europe is full of small museums — some 1,200 in France alone — that cannot afford to protect their collections. Mr. Cremers, a security consultant to Dutch and Belgian museums who runs an information Web site — www.museum-security.org — said that many of Mr. Breitwieser's victims were caught off guard. "Because small museums without great treasures are generally free from disasters of this kind, they are less aware of the danger," he said. "And this guy understood this." The Thomas Henry Museum in Cherbourg, France, for instance, had never had an work stolen since it opened in 1835. But Mr. Breitwieser was able to leave with a 17th-century Flemish painting on copper worth about $150,000. "He made a good choice," said Jean-Luc Dufresnes, the museum's curator. "He must have studied how the painting was secured and he needed less than 30 seconds to detach it." With each theft, however, museums have tried to improve their security. "He took a small 17th-century painting that I bought for less than $10,000," said Alain Tapie, the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen, France. "He had good taste. I still miss the piece. Since then, we have reinforced the alarm system. If a painting is taken off the wall, an alarm bell rings. It's the only painting we have had stolen." At Blois, Thierry Crépin-Leblond, the director, said that during visiting hours there is no substitute for human surveillance. Even then, he added, guards need special training. "In this case, Breitwieser may have had an accomplice who distracted the guards," he speculated. "Now, if someone faints, we teach the guards to be wary of a distraction. They should report the incident by radio, but not move from their position." Mr. Crépin-Leblond, like other museum directors, was reluctant to describe in detail his museum's security system, although each of its rooms now has closed-circuit television cameras as well as guards. "With the Corneille de Lyon," he said, referring to the work stolen in 1996, "it was painted on a wooden panel. The frame was attached to the wall, but not the painting. Breitwieser was able to open a gap between the frame and the wall and slip out the panel." He said that frames were now more firmly attached, and in some cases glass covers the paintings to prevent the canvas from being removed with a cutter. "This one has glass," he explained, showing a visitor around galleries filled with the kind of 17th- and 18th-century paintings admired by Mr. Breitwieser, "because it hangs in a blind spot, out of the normal sight line of the guards." Mr. Crépin-Leblond also shared Mr. Cremers's view that infrared sensors and alarms served little purpose if staff members were not trained to react quickly. "One museum I know had an invisible electronic eye covering its paintings," Mr. Crépin-Leblond recounted. "A man entered the sensitive area, the alarm went off, the man walked through all the area, and no one came in response." One problem is that paying guards costs more than installing and maintaining electronic or mechanical security. Thus, even in the Louvre, a fifth of the galleries are closed on any given day for lack of security guards, while tight budgets have led many smaller museums to rely on hardware. In France, where Mr. Breitwieser is said to have carried out more than half his thefts, museums and châteaus displaying government-owned art benefit from security advice from police experts attached to government departments. Until now, though, these experts have focused their attention on organized crime, which still poses the greatest threat. "'Now we have to allow for the `enlightened thief' who goes about discreetly collecting small works," said Louis- Philippe Cadias, a police investigator at the French department of architecture and patrimony. "They are the most difficult to catch because they are experts and prepare well." He said it was important to identify weak spots in the layout of a collection. "Each painting and art object may be attached, but nothing can resist more than 30 minutes of effort to remove it unless it has military armor," he said. "That's why you need good human backup." Yves Lacroix, a police officer who advises the department of French museums, said that there were 24 thefts from French museums in 2001, about half as many as in "bad years." But he acknowledged that the demand for stolen art continued to grow across Europe. Much of this, however, is satisfied by thefts from private châteaus and mansions. The London-based Art Loss Register, which records and traces stolen art, estimates that 61 percent of art thefts occur in domestic dwellings, with another 12 percent in galleries, 10 percent in churches and 9 percent in museums. Paintings account for half the looted art recovered because collectors often photograph paintings; if the paintings are stolen, the photographs can be displayed on Web sites like www.artloss.com, which is run by the Art Loss Register. Because paintings, particularly important works, are increasingly difficult to sell, even through underground channels, many gangs focus on antique clocks, musical instruments, tapestries, ceramics, glassware, silverware and furniture. Mr. Cadias, for instance, said that he even believed that some unscrupulous dealers tell gangs what kinds of art objects are in demand, although other experts question whether art is stolen to order. "People make the mistake of thinking that art crime is a gentleman's crime," Mr. Cremers said. "The same crooks who break into homes break into museums. They know nothing about art. They're ordinary criminals. There's no proof that rich people order art to be stolen. Most thefts take place in private homes because they are poorly protected." Still, while experts may dismiss the idea of an evil mogul ordering the theft of the "Mona Lisa," they also never anticipated that a young art lover turned compulsive thief could build himself a collection comparable to that of many small museums. How all the objects and paintings fitted into Mr. Breitwieser's bedroom remains a mystery, but everything suggests that they were there for his private viewing pleasure. "He told me, `I enjoy art, I love such works of art, I collected them and kept them at home,' " said Emil Birchler, the Swiss prosecutor who interrogated Mr. Breitwieser in Lucerne. The police said that when Mr. Breitwieser was at his mother's home, the last thing he saw at night was Boucher's bucolic "Sleeping Shepherd." It hung on the wall next to his pillow.
http://www.nytimes.com/

Wrong monetary estimates of Breitwieser thefts

Dear Jonathan Sazonoff
It is refreshing to hear an authority like You finally not believing the nonsense even some of the most reputated Newspapers - in Switzerland the "Neue Zuercher Zeitung", in the USA the "New York Times" and so on... - printed without any critical reading or plausibility testing! Beeing myself a art market Journalist since 27 Years in Switzerland (View eventually my Homepage: www.chvfabercastell.com ), i was as well angered, amused and shocked about this unresponsabel way do deal with figures as soon as it gets to the art market. Naturally one has in this light to question many given figures about art theft in generals, antiquity-looting in Italy and so on - which would naturally not legitimate any wrong doing, but establish a little bit more credibility.
Well, as I mentioned, the sum of 1.4 Billion (1400 Million) Euro - in the meantime it was also given as $ - was also for me absolutely unrealistic, long before the detailed list was out. Although the proposed alternative estimates You give in Your posting are now much more founded and educated guesses, I give you one alternative more, taking in account the notoriously naive way - to stay polite - authorities like the police and attornies deal with such details like art prices and values not only in France, but especially there: Given the only first quantitative figure about the damage, namely that there were about 170 Art Objects involved, i could image very well, that there lies a simple mix-up of currencies behind that obviously wrong figure of 1.4 Billion Euro: Assuming that the French instruction judge or who ever gave out as first estimate to journalists and others a rough sume of 1.4 Billion French Francs - the currency still in value up to 31. December 2001 and still widely used in conservative France - then the figure transforms itself to about one sixth of the 1.4 Billion Euro, namely about 350 Million Euro or about 330 Million $, which is still a very high figure, but lying somewhere in between the two figures You proposed..... well, as You mentioned: "Nobody asked my, but...."
With cordial greetings
Christian von Faber-Castell
SENDER: Christian von Faber-Castell
ADRESS: Seestrasse 104
CH-8700 KUESNACHT
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HOMEPAGE: www.chvfabercastell.com
E-MAIL: email@chvfabercastell.com

A curator of lost art and recovered memories

Warren Hoge The New York Times
LONDON The paintings welcomed friends and relatives to front hall parlors, they brought luminous outdoor scenes into breakfast pantries on gray Middle European mornings, they occupied favored spaces in living rooms once full of bountiful living. With the coming of the Nazis, they disappeared, carrying with them the histories of homes and communities and the recollections of parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters wiped out in the Holocaust. Anne Webber is a British filmmaker who heads the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, and she works to reanimate these memories of lives the Nazis hoped to expunge. She does it by reuniting people with enduring reminders of lost loved ones - family art works. "I think the important thing about art which can get ignored when people talk about it is its huge emotional and symbolic value for the families from which it was taken," she said. "Sometimes when I say we have recovered a picture, I get asked, 'What's it worth? What's it worth?, meaning what would it sell for. 'Well, you'll have to talk to the family,' I say. 'They'll tell you what it means to them.'"
Webber hears the stirring and poignant evidence of that many times a day in the central London town house piled high with files where she and a team of art historians, investigators and translators have taken on the task of matching looted paintings, books, manuscripts, sculptures and Judaica with original owners. The search field is vast, the clues scant. Many provenances were deliberately changed to disguise the whereabouts of paintings during the critical 1933-to- 1945 period, when the Nazis ruled first Germany, and then much of Europe. Others became muddled more out of carelessness than guile as possessions passed into new hands through innocent transactions. The queries come from as far away as Australia and as close as around the corner. One caller sent a sepia photograph of his family seated in front of a long-sought canvas. Another recalled one word of a book title from a looted rabbinical library. A third remembered a picture of a field full of poppies that he as a child of 13 had seen his father buy from a local artist in Germany. He said he had lost every member of his family in the camps and that viewing that picture again could help bring them back to him. Fear can get mixed in with the joy when Webber reports news of a find. "It is not like losing something in a burglary," she said. "The circumstances in which these things were lost were the most terrible imaginable. So you never know what terrors or feelings are going to be aroused when you contact a family that has survived the Holocaust."
There was a man in his seventies, one of only two survivors from an Austrian family of 11, who described a picture of a woman in a blue dress that he longed to locate. "It turned out that it was a painting of his murdered mother so you can imagine what the meaning of that picture was for him," she said. "Then he got in touch with us a couple of weeks later and said, 'Actually I have been having sleepless nights since I came to see you. I don't think I can deal with all the pain of this, and I don't want you to look for the picture anymore.'" Though searches went on, largely fruitlessly, for decades, it was in the 1990s that the frequent institutional explanation that a missing work "must be behind the Iron Curtain" no longer obtained. It suddenly became clear that the objects of families' quests had entered the international art market and could probably be found in museums, galleries, private collections or auction houses. The scale of the wartime plundering was huge. "I spoke not long ago to one of the Americans who had been part of the team that went around at the end of the war collecting looted works of art," Webber said. "He said it really came home to him when they arrived at this castle and there were towels with the family's initials on them. They had even taken the household linen." The Allies delivered the art back to their countries of origin, but much of it never got to its rightful owners. Attempts to seek restitution ran into problems in countries like Germany where a statute of limitations was deemed to have run out in 1948 or in Britain where six years of ownership was enough to constitute "good title."
The commission was created in 1999, representing the European Council of Jewish Communities and the Conference of European Rabbis, and is funded entirely by donations. It is in the final stages of setting up a central registry of in formation on a Web site, lootedart.com, that should speed future recoveries. Webber has a deep aversion to talking about herself, her life and even how old she is. "Just say that I've been a Londoner all my adult life," she said. A documentary maker for the music and arts department of the BBC for 10 years, she became involved in her current work after making a film for Britain's Channel 4 in 1998 called "Making a Killing." It was about a Dutch family named Gutmann - the name was changed to Goodman in Britain - and their hunt for their looted collection, including a Degas landscape that was traced to a collector in Chicago. When the owner saw the amount of evidence that Webber had uncovered to back the family's claim, he appreciated the strength of a potential legal case and agreed to settle.
Months later, Webber became a co-director of the commission, and last month the Goodman family received 233 of its looted art works from the Netherlands under an agreement the commission negotiated. Like the Dutch, other European governments are becoming sensitized to the issue and dropping past objections. In 2000, Britain established a panel of its own to help resolve claims from the Nazi era.
http://www.iht.com/

'Looted pictures' claim against British Museum

Maev Kennedy, Arts and heritage correspondent
The Guardian
A claim has been lodged against the British Museum for the return of four beautiful old master drawings which are claimed to have been stolen from a Jewish collector who died in prison after Nazi torture. The claim is the first against a British collection demanding the return of works of art. The only other claim so far was against the Tate, for a Thames landscape, but in that case the owner's descendants sought compensation, not the return of the picture. Anne Webber, co-chairwoman of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which has lodged the claim on behalf of the family, said: "Often in these case the works of art are particularly precious when they are all that remains of a family that has been destroyed. In this case collecting the drawings was very much an act of love, by a man described as "a passionate collector" - it was very personal, and very much part of the family's treasured memories of that man." The four drawings are claimed to have belonged to a pre-war collection belonging to Arthur Feldmann a Czech lawyer. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was jailed and tor tured, and his wife died in a concentration camp, while some of his children and relatives fled the country. Since the war, members of his family have been searching for his collection of over 750 drawings. Three of the disputed drawings were bought on behalf of the British Museum at Sotheby's in 1946. The fourth was part of a bequest from Campbell Dodgson, a former BM curator. The claim will ring alarm bells among directors of British collections because the drawings were not identified as having a suspect provenance in the museum's audit of its holdings. BM director Robert Anderson said yesterday: "We have every sympathy for the family and we will be giving this matter our urgent attention." The disputed works are: The Holy Family, by Niccolò dell Abbate, Italian 16th century; St Dorothy with the Christ Child, by a follower of Martin Schongauer, German 1508; Virgin and Child adored by St Elizabeth and the infant St John, by Martin Johann Schmidt, German 18th century; An Allegory on Poetic Inspiration with Mercury and Apollo by Nicholas Blakey, English 18th century.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/

BLM, private group, hope to protect ancient rock art

Created centuries ago by indigenous American peoples, fine examples of rock art are today being lost to wanton vandalism.

By CHRIS HANEFELD -- Ely District BLM
Three Las Vegas residents could prove key to helping the Bureau of Land Management prevent further vandalism of protected rock art sites in Lincoln County.
Retired reinsurance broker Anne Carter, former Peace Corps volunteer Susan Sechrest and Dr. Barbara Stocking met Saturday in Alamo with BLM Ely Field Office Archeologist Mark Henderson for a one-day tour of a protected rock art site west of town. All three are members of the Southern Nevada Rock Art Association, or SNRAA, as well as the recently formed Nevada Rock Art Foundation. Stocking is also a member of Archeo-Nevada. "Vandalism of protected rock art sites has not reached epidemic proportions yet, but it is increasing as more and more people utilize our public lands," explained Henderson, prior to departing for the popular archeological site west of town. Rock art, Henderson said, is defined as any design that has been painted, scratched or tapped into or onto a natural rock surface. Virtually everyone, from teenagers to travelers, has at one time or another created a form of rock art, said Henderson. Protected rock art, however, is a different issue, he said. "These are inscriptions located on public lands that are a minimum of 100 years old," Henderson said. "As such, they're protected under the Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979." Henderson said there are two types of vandalism--unintentional and intentional. He said an example of unintentional vandalism is the person who inadvertently damages rock art by making rubbings and such. Henderson said he or she is unaware of damage done by touching this invaluable resource. Intentional vandalism is a different issue, said Henderson, while pointing to evidence of recent acts of wanton destruction on-site. "In this particular case, we've had people use rock at for target practice, while others chipped it away to take it home for personal use or to sell it," said Henderson, noting a need for onsite monitoring. "We want to start the first-ever BLM Ely District site stewardship program," Henderson said. Henderson hopes Carter, Sechrest and Stocking will be the budding program's initial volunteers. All three have agreed to consider the possibility. "This is authentic indigenous American art," said Sechrest, taking photographs. "That it's still here after all this time--it has to be protected," said Carter, pointing to a vandalized section of the rock face. "Absolutely," agreed Stocking, camera in hand. "We're looking today at an important piece of a people's history--our history." Once it's gone, it's gone forever. It can't be replaced." To learn more about protected rock art sites in Lincoln County, or to volunteer as a site steward, contact Archeologist Mark Henderson, BLM Ely Field Office, at (775) 289-1800.
http://www.elynews.com/

Mural at Sakharov Museum Vandalized

Fri May 31, 3:21 PM ET
MOSCOW (AP) - Anti-Semitic and obscene slogans were spray-painted over a mural of Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov at a Moscow human rights museum, its director said Friday. Sakharov, a physicist and one of the developers of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, later became an eloquent critic of the Communist regime and a leader of the democratic movement before he died in 1989. The 10-foot high mural, in a square outside the Sakharov Museum, was vandalized overnight, director Yuri Samodurov said. He speculated that it could have been damaged by teen-agers or by "an order" from the authorities because of the museum's outspoken political views. The museum was draped with a large banner demanding an end to the war in Chechnya that prompted criticism from city officials. "It is a position that irritates the authorities," he said. The artist who pained the mural will study the damage Saturday to determine if it can be restored. "If not, we will be forced to take it down," Samodurov said. Sakharov was banished to the city of Nizhny Novgorod, then Gorky, in 1979 because of his criticism of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Released by reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, Sakharov helped spearhead the democracy movement in the waning days of the Communist regime. Sakharov's widow, former dissident Yelena Bonner, condemned the vandalism. "It is very dangerous that many such things can come back in Russia," she told Echo of Moscow radio. Moscow has seen two anti- Semitic attacks this week. On Monday, a woman was severely injured in an explosion when she attempted to knock down a booby-trapped anti- Semitic sign. On Tuesday, two men with shaved heads attacked a 16- year-old Jewish boy, the son of a rabbi, breaking his nose.

Storm over Ethiopian Obelisk Lightning Strike

By Nita Bhalla
BBC Ethiopia Correspondent
Ethiopia's Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture said Rome "should be held responsible for the damage to the Axum Obelisk" during a thunderstorm in Rome on Monday night. The 24-metre (80-foot) granite monument was looted from the holy city of Axum in northern Ethiopia, when the fascist regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini invaded the East African country in 1937, and taken to Italy. Although Addis Ababa has repeatedly asked for the return of the monument and agreements have been signed between Ethiopia and Italy, the Italians have so far failed to fulfill their obligations.

Risk of destruction

On Monday night, several pieces from the top of the Axum Obelisk crashed to the ground during a heavy storm. Archaeology experts are assessing the damage but Rome Prefect Emilio del Mese, the government's representative in the capital, has described it as "considerable". In January, Italy's Deputy Minister for Cultural Heritage, Vittorio Sgarbi, said that Italy could not give its consent for a monument which is well-kept and has been restored to be taken to what he called "a war zone" and left there with the risk of being destroyed. The Ethiopian ministry statement said that "if the Italian Government heeded to the persistent plea since 1947 by the people and government of Ethiopia and again over the last 10 years, for the return of the obelisk, the relic would have been home by now".

Agreement U-turn

Rome initially pledged to return the obelisk in 1948, and made another promise in 1997 after signing a bilateral agreement specifying its return the same year. In 2000 and 2001, Italy's former deputy foreign minister, Senator Rino Serri, and Foreign Ministry Under-Secretary Alfredo Mantica renewed the commitment to return the monument. But almost 66 years after it was looted, the obelisk still stands in Rome's Piazza di Porta Capena, near the Coliseum, fronting the office of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

National identity symbol

The Ethiopian Government said that Italy's excuse for its delay due to technical problems was "unacceptable" and reiterated the demand for "the immediate return of the obelisk to its rightful owner - Ethiopia". It called on groups and friends of Ethiopia who are lobbying for the return of all Ethiopian historical and cultural monuments found in Europe and other countries, to exert pressure on the Italian Government to return the Axum Obelisk without further delay. Ordinary Ethiopians see the obelisk as a symbol of their identity and their ancient civilisation and are angered by what one Axumite resident described as a "shameless attempt by Italy to steal, and illegally retain, a symbol of another country's identity, history and culture". The Axum obelisk has been listed by Unesco as a world heritage site and earlier this year Addis Ababa asked the UN to intervene to ensure Italy returned the obelisk.
http://www.addistribune.com/

Illegal excavations continue as officials look other way

By Mohammad Iqbal
MARDAN, May 28: Mardan division, which has more than 700 archaeological sites of various periods, is facing a number of problems of illegal excavation, ruthless use of coin detectors and climatic threat , while the department concerned has taken an indifferent attitude for protecting them. Illegal excavation at Kashmir Smast (cave) continues for the last one year where plunderers have recovered a bronze Budhi Satwa statue and White Huns coins. These objects are considered as rare antiquities of Gandhara culture. Kashmir Smast is situated at Babozai mountains, some 3,000 feet above sea level in Mardan district. A source told Dawn that the statue was sold over Rs 2.8 million to a foreign dealer.
It is said that some officials of the archaeological department visited the site but the plunderers carried out excavation in the presence of these officials. Legal excavation at Chargul site was started by the directorate of archaeology some four months back but now the work has been stopped due to the non-availability of funds. Chargul is situated at Rustam Moza at the foot of Doda mountain, some 17km away from Mardan, where an ancient monastery was discovered which includes a hall, meditation cells and worship places. Some unknown persons tore up the archaeological map, which prepared in 1991. The map was erected near Rashakai on the border of Mardan and Nowshera districts. The map was made of bronze at a cost of Rs 125,000, which showed the monastery of Takhtbai. This map now stands torn up. For establishing Mardan Museum, the then provincial chief minister of NWFP, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, had purchased 12 kanals land near Sheikh Maltoon Town in 1995 and allocated fund for its construction, but the project was abandoned for some unknown reasons. This has been resented by the people and those interested in the cultural history of the region.
The extremely rare piece of two Ashoka inscription rocks at Shahbaz Gari are vulnerable to the severity of the weather and needs proper attention by the archaeological department. Experts have expressed their apprehension that in the absence of proper maintenance the pillars may vanish for ever. Ruthless use of coin detectors by plunderers has brought devastation to the sites as they recover coins through these detectors. An expert said that this process is very damaging to the sites, as the plunderers use machines which distorts other historical and archaeological substances. He said at present a large number of coins are available in the market where local and foreign dealers make a business it.
He deplored that usually rare coins were found in these sites which reach the foreign dealers on nominal prices. He suggested that the only possible way to protect these sites was to ban these coin detectors and introduce severe punishments for plunderers.
http://www.dawn.com/