Iraq - The cradle of civilization at risk (H-Museum's Current Focus)
H-Museum: http://www.h-museum.net presents its new current focus:Iraq - The cradle of civilization at risk.
Cultural heritage and historical monuments.
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~museum/iraq.html
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~museum/iraq_two.html
The current focus contains:
Introduction, Iraq News Digests, Selected Articles andDocuments, Journals and Magazines,
Museums/Collections/Institutions, Online-Resources
The current focus looks from a cultural and historical perspective at present developments concerning the military conflict in Iraq. Included are also special editions of the News Digest, which contains articles from the time of the first Gulf War to the present dealing with the historical monuments, archaeological sites, and museums in Iraq.
Iraq is a country with a rich history. A great number of monuments of the history of civilization, archaeological sites, and museums are situated on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and in other areas. Already in 1990/91, during the first Gulf War, these historical monuments and other places of historical importance were put at direct risk by military action as well as by the abuse as Iraqi military positions. The war in Iraq in 2003 again exposes these historical monuments and other places of historical interest to great danger. War always carries with it not only suffering and misery for the population but also always hurts the cultural and historical evidence.
Present-day Iraq occupies the greater part of the ancient land of Mesopotamia, the plain between Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Some of the world's greatest ancient civilizations were developed in this area. Therefore the region is often referred to as the cradle of mankind. Present-day Iraq possesses a huge amount of historical monuments and archaeological sites, e. g. Niniveh, the seat of government of the 7th century BC king Assurbarnipal; Ur, where the Sumerian civilization had its final flowering at the close of the third millennium BC and where according to the Bible Abraham was born; Uruk, the scene of the Gilgamesh Epic; the Parthian desert city of Hatra, which is on the UNESCO's list of cultural world heritage; Assur, the first capital of the Assyrian kingdom with the famous Ishtar temple; and Babylon, in the 18th century BC the seat of king Hammurabi, who is primarily remembered for his codification of the laws governing Babylonian life.
Experts guess that there are about 100,000 sites of cultural and historical importance in Iraq, most of them not yet excavated; about 10,000 are known. However, the cultural heritage of Iraq is primarily Arabic. One of these famous Islamic monuments is the 55 meters high spiraling minaret of the great mosque in Sumarra, built in 850 AD. In addition this land is the home of the three world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Ralf Blank M.A., Dr. Stephanie Marra
H-Net Network for Museum Professionals
U.S. Urged to Shield Iraqi Treasures from Bombs
Thu March 27, 2003 12:55 PM ETBy Mark John
PARIS (Reuters) - The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) urged the United States on Thursday to safeguard Iraq's unique cultural heritage, citing reports that historic sites had been damaged in eight days of war.
Civilization in present-day Iraq stretches back to around the fourth millennium before Christ and the founding of ancient Mesopotamia. It has seen a succession of cultures on its soil including Sumerian, Babylonian and Arab.
Experts say there could be up to 25,000 archaeological sites of major interest around the country. Some of its museums are perilously close to sites of strategic military importance.
"(Iraq), the cradle of civilizations that go back thousands of years, has many treasures and sites that are a valuable part of the heritage of all mankind," UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura said in a statement. He urged the United States to "take all possible steps to protect and preserve the outstandingly rich Iraqi heritage for the benefit of future generations."
Eight days into the U.S.-led war, UNESCO said it had converging reports from Iraqi and historian sources of damage to cultural buildings in Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and Saddam Hussein's power base of Tikrit.
UNESCO Deputy Culture Director Munir Bushenaki said he had been informed of damage to the museums of Tikrit and Mosul and watched live footage on television as a site which he identified as Baghdad's Al-Zohour ("Flowers") Palace was hit by bombs.
"The palace houses a museum containing a major collection of works," he told Reuters by telephone.
Bushenaki also raised concern that the national museum of Baghdad had been hit during an attack on a nearby government ministry, although had no proof of damage.
"It's just 500 meters away. It is one of the finest museums in the Middle East. We have just helped in a major renovation of it. It would be a great shame if it were damaged."
Bushenaki said UNESCO had provided Washington with a map of Iraqi archaeological sites and museums, and the Pentagon had received briefings from leading experts about vulnerable sites.
Archaeologists hope more accurate bombing technology can preserve as much as possible. For example, the 12th-century Abbasid Palace backs onto Iraq's Defense Ministry building and was damaged in the 1991 Gulf War.
There are also fears Iraqi troops may deliberately use such sites as military shields, although Bushenaki said he did not have any specific information of that at the moment
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2460773
Antiquities experts guarding treasures
By David Keys Archaeology Correspondent27 March 2003
Iraqi archaeologists are risking their lives to guard some of the world's most important ancient treasures.
Mankind's earliest written documents, world-famous ancient sculptures, some of the earliest portrayals of gods, and ancient mathematical texts are among more than 100,000 treasures being guarded by 30 senior archaeologists at the Iraq Museum in the central Baghdad district of Salihyia. The museum is at particular risk because it is adjacent to one of the city's main telephone exchanges, and just 700 metres from the foreign ministry which has been hit in air raids.
The treasures dating from 7000 BC to 1000 AD – chronicle the achievements of the Uruk, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian and early Islamic civilisations. The archaeologists are trying to protect many of the spectacular sculptures and bas-reliefs with sandbags, and they are now living in the museum to defend the collection from possible looting. They are led by the well known Iraqi prehistorian, Dr Donny George, director of research at the Iraq Antiquities Department.
Some of the ancient texts describe the adventures of Gilgamesh, the figure on which Noah is based. Other texts reveal Iraq's mathematical prowess by describing the Pythagoras theorem, 1500 years before the Greek mathematician.
There are also fears for the safety of internationally important archaeological and historic treasures in other parts of Iraq, especially at Ctesifon near Baghdad and in Mosul. Ctesifon has the largest unsupported brick arch in the world – dating from the 5th century AD – while Mosul is home to more than a dozen of the world's earliest churches.
http://news.independent.co.uk/
WAR & HERITAGE: IS ANCIENT IRAQ BEING PROTECTED?
At a U.S. Central Command briefing on March 26, 2003, it was stated that Iraqi forces have placed military and communications equipment near the 2,000-year-old Ctesiphon arch located on the banks of the Tigris. This situation, similar to Iraq's deliberate placement of fighter planes near the 4,000-year-old ziggurat at Ur during the 1991 Gulf War, illustrates the threat of destruction plaguing the cradle of civilization.Iraqi officials reported in 1992 that 4,000 artifacts went missing during the Gulf War. Only 20 had been returned by 1998. Post-war sanctions on Iraq limited the government's financial ability to preserve antiquities, protect sites, and enforce cultural property laws. Conflict in Afghanistan has had similar consequences. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the fall of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, attacks to control Kabul resulted in the looting of seventy percent of its coin collection. More recently, the Taliban destroyed un-Islamic artifacts at the Kabul Museum, and an impoverished population continues to plunder its culturally rich sites.
Incited by a pattern of post-war archaeological disruption, there is currently an international effort among archaeologists and art dealers alike to mitigate cultural damage in Iraq. Officials at the Baghdad Museum have placed their stone sculptures in sandbags to protect them from 'ground-shaking' bombs. They have also painted "UNESCO" on the roof of their museum to mark its cultural significance and to avoid its being a target of an air strike. The staff is now living in the museum to prevent potential plundering and has been trained to transport artifacts filling thirty-two exhibition rooms to secret locations in just one day.
In the United States, art collectors and dealers including Ashton Hawkins, former counsel to New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, have formed the American Council for Cultural Policy to help defend and preserve Iraq's cultural sites and artifacts. They met with U.S. Defense and State officials in early January to inform them of the thousands of archaeological sites dotting the Iraqi landscape to protect against their unnecessary destruction. However, many have not regarded their efforts as solely philanthropic. Art lawyer and AIA member Patty Gerstenblith remarks that "one has the strong sense that this group is using this discussion as a pretext for their ultimate goal: to change Iraq's treatment of archaeological objects." Indeed, the Council seeks to revamp the Cultural Property Implementation Act so that the U.S. cannot be as easily blocked from importing foreign antiquities. Additionally, Hawkins has recommended that the Cairo Museum increase its budget by providing incentive to its financial donors, such as rewarding each of its patrons with 50 Egyptian artifacts. These suggestions have led archaeologists to view the Council's actions as an attempt to shake foreign nations' stringent regulations on ownership and export of artifacts. AIA president Jane C. Waldbaum has declared the Institute's position on the matter and rallies for nations to support Iraq's current laws (see "From the President: Iraq Alert!").
In regard to the current situation in Iraq, government officials have mentioned their use of smart bombs and precision weapons to limit cultural damage. However, after only eight-days of fighting in Iraq, UNESCO commented today that historic sites have already been affected. A television broadcast showed live footage of Baghdad's Al-Zohour Palace--home to many works of art--being bombed. It has also been rumored that the National Museum of Baghdad was accidentally hit in an attack. UNESCO staunchly urges the U.S. to respect Iraq's heritage.
--MARISA MACARI
http://www.archaeology.org/
After four decades of struggle, heirs of Czech collector win back some art
By Pavla KozakovaPRAGUE, March 28 (JTA) — The Israeli heirs of a Czech-Jewish art-lover, whose works were looted by the Nazis in 1939, have won a 40-year battle to win back a large portion of his unique collection of drawings. Legal representatives for the descendants of Brno-based lawyer Arthur Feldmann last week signed a restitution agreement that will return 135 drawings by Dutch, Italian and German masters from the 16th to the 18th centuries, which currently are held in the Moravian Gallery.
“We are very moved that thanks to the Czech authorities the drawings have now been returned to our ownership after so many years,” the family said in a statement released by Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which has negotiated for the past two years for the return of the works on behalf of the family.
The heirs, who said they had pursued the return of the works in memory of their art-loving grandfather, have asked to remain anonymous.
“The Feldmann restitution is a measure of the commitment of the Czech government and the Moravian Gallery to right the wrongs of the Nazi era, which are still so vividly felt,” Webber said.
Feldmann was a passionate collector who started collecting drawings in the early 1900s, including works attributed to Titian, Rubens, and Rembrandt. In 1934 Feldmann sold a small number of drawings, one of which is now in the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York.
He began rebuilding his collection immediately after the sale. However, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and Feldmann’s collection, by now numbering some 750 drawings, was confiscated. In March 1941 Feldmann was arrested and sentenced to death. He later died as a result of torture, according to his family.
In January 1942 his wife was deported to Theresienstadt and later to Auschwitz. She never returned. Feldmann’s two sons survived the war, and their children now live in Israel.
After the war Feldmann’s descendants launched a search for the remnants of the collection, and in the 1960s discovered a number of his works in the Moravian Gallery in Brno. The family tried and failed to retrieve them during the Communist era. Their hopes of successfully claiming the works faded again in 1995, when the Czech courts rejected their restitution claim on the grounds that the works were seized before the legally set time limit of 1948. The family’s hopes revived in 2000 when a new law was passed allowing some pre-1948 claims. They asked the non-profit, London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe to take up their case, and the commission renewed negotiations with the state and the Moravian Gallery.
In late 2002 they were informed that their claim had been accepted.
Tomas Kraus, executive director of the Czech Federation of Jewish Communities, welcomed the successful outcome of the family’s long battle, calling it a case of “moral satisfaction.”
Pointing out that this was only the third successful restitution of art works in the Czech Republic since the law was changed in 2000, Kraus said he appreciated that the law clearly worked in practice.
The significance of Feldmann’s collection has been recognized by the Moravian Gallery, which has offered, with the consent of the Ministry of Culture, to purchase the five most important works for about $160,000. Webber said the family was considering the offer and would “respond in due course”.
The commission has a further five cases of art restitution pending in the Czech Republic, according to Webber, whose organization last year successfully submitted a claim to the British Museum in London relating to four Old Master drawings also once owned by Feldmann and looted in Brno in 1939.
Webber is currently negotiating with Czech officials to obtain an export license for the drawings.
“We very much hope that there will be no problems or delay getting the license,” she said, but Kraus warned that it might turn out to be a complicated bureaucratic process. “Now we must wait for an export permit, which we hope to receive very soon,” the family said. “Only then can the drawings be truly regarded as restituted, and our grandfather can rest in peace.”
http://www.jta.org/
Hunt on for Tsars' Amber Room
ALLAN HALL IN BERLINCRAFTED entirely out of amber, gold and precious stones, it was a masterpiece of baroque art and widely regarded as the world’s most important art treasure. When its 565 candles were lit, the famous Amber Room was said to glow a fiery gold.
Looted by the Nazis , its whereabouts have been a mystery since the dying days of the Second World War. But now a new German investigation believes it has found where the treasure, worth £120 million today, lies - in abandoned mine workings in the former East Germany. One of the few facts all historians seem to agree on is that soon after it was seized, the Prussian count Sommes Laubach, the Germans’ "art protection officer" and holder of a degree in art history, supervised the room’s transport to Königsberg Castle. But in January 1945, after air raids and a savage ground assault on the city, the room was lost.
Through interviews and historical records, a German TV documentary team making a programme has concentrated on the actions of Albert Popp, a brigadier with the Nazi flying corps before the Second World War. He was the nephew of Martin Mutschmann, the Gauleiter of Saxony.
Based on archive material and interviews with bit players in the drama of the fall of Königsberg, the programme alleges the Amber Room was moved by Popp, on the orders of his uncle, to old mine workings near Elsterberg, not far from Chemnitz. The programme on ZDF TV said archive searches refer to an underground storage area called "Eagle 5". Given that the bulk of the booty looted for Adolf Hitler’s planned museum of world culture was found in salt mines in Austria, the Nazis could well have transported the Amber Room 500 miles from Königsberg to a locale deep inside the crumbling reich. Christoph Hoeffermann, a Berlin estate agent who is a keen enthusiast of the Amber Room hunt, believes this is the most likely explanation for its disappearance. Having spent some £30,000 looking for it, he said: "I am a believer in the Popp theory and I am glad it is getting an airing on TV. "Popp had the means, the connections and the wherewithal to get the Amber Room moved. Unfortunately he is dead and we can’t ask him. But we can have one last concerted effort at trying to find this most beguiling of artworks."
He and others have written to Elsterberg authorities, seeking assistance in locating old coal workings. The hills around Elsterberg and other towns in the region are speckled with abandoned workings: the question is where to start looking. The programme comes just two months before a German-financed copy of the room is to open in St Petersburg. Although missing since the war, the 11ft-square monument still holds a fascination. It was presented to Peter the Great in 1716 by the King of Prussia. Later, Catherine the Great commissioned a new generation of craftsmen to embellish the room and moved it from the Winter Palace in St Petersburg to her new summer abode in Tsarskoye Selo, outside the city. "When the work was finished, in 1770, the room was dazzling," wrote the art historians Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov. "It was illuminated by 565 candles whose light was reflected in the warm gold surface of the amber and sparkled in the mirrors, gilt, and mosaics." After the war, the Amber Room became central Europe's El Dorado, a quest that enthralled the wealthy and the poor alike. The Maigret author Georges Simenon founded the Amber Room Club to track it down once and for all. Everyone had a different theory of what might have befallen the work. The German official in charge of the amber shipment said the crates were in a castle that burned down in an air raid.
A Soviet investigator found a charred fragment from the room.
Others think the room sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea in a torpedoed steamer used by the Nazis, or that it was hacked up by Red Army troops and sent home like sticks of rock as souvenirs of their conquest. People such as Hoeffermann who believe the Amber Room still exists are determined to follow the new lead. They are heartened by the comments of Vera Bruyussova, the widow of a noted Soviet archaeologist charged to look for the treasure. She revealed that her husband, Alexander, wrote a memo to the Soviet leadership in 1955 stating: "I do not believe that the treasure is lost." Like all the others captivated by it, however, he could not say where it was.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/
Iraq: Groups Take Steps To Spare Cultural Heritage
By Vladimir Abarinov and Irina LaguninaIraq's historical and archeological treasures are under threat because of the war. A number of prominent institutions around the world have issued a joint declaration saying the significance of the monuments and treasures of Iraq -- the site of ancient Mesopotamia -- imposes an obligation on everyone to protect them. RFE/RL spoke to experts about how these sites can be saved.
Prague, 28 March 2008 (RFE/RL) -- Several leading archeological and historical institutions have issued a joint declaration to ensure the war in Iraq does not lead to the destruction of that country's monuments, museums, and archaeological sites.
The declaration states the significance of Iraq's cultural heritage as the site of ancient Mesopotamia and says all peoples and governments have an obligation to protect it. It goes on to say that heritage is now in grave danger. McGuire Gibson is a professor at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad. He explained the significance of ancient Mesopotamia to modern man. "It's the beginning even of our own traditions. Civilization begins there and many of the things that were put in place -- ideas about what a king does, ideas of what are the relations of the governor to the governed, ideas of what constitutes literature, the relationship of people to God, many, many basic ideas on ethics -- these things started in Mesopotamia and then spread from there. And they go in both directions. They go both west and east. So, they form the core of our own Western tradition, they also form the core of Eastern tradition," Gibson told RFE/RL. The history of Mesopotamia -- the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers -- goes back some 5,500 years. Mesopotamian society brought to life the notion of cities, public structures, law, and culture. Nearly 4,000 years ago, the Sumerian King Hammurabi created a code for the old Babylonian empire. The code included modern legal notions such as economic and family law, as well as prohibitions against assault and theft. It was in Iraq, in the city of Nineveh, that scientists found the text of the first known piece of literature. It is the Gilgamesh epic written around 4,000 years ago. The epic tells the story of the days before a great flood. Does anyone know how many historical sites may be in Iraq?
"There are hundreds of thousands of sites in Iraq," Gibson said. "I mean there is no way that we could ever discover them all. There are sites everywhere you look. Ninety-nine percent of all the hills that you see in southern Iraq are ancient sites. There are no natural hills in southern Iraq between the two rivers. So, any hill that you see is a site. And there are many, many sites that are very tiny or that are not hills at all, they are just flat." Zainab Bahrani is an associate professor of art history and archaeology at New York's Columbia University. He told RFE/RL: "There are about 10,000 archaeological sites in Iraq. But there has not been enough time to excavate all of them. And so there is a real wealth of information that we can still get from doing research in this area. In the museums there are thousands of texts that have not been read yet. Texts in the ancient cuneiform scripts that the Babylonians and the Assyrians used. And work needs to be done on those. There are also all these standing monuments that are important, the Medieval monuments in Baghdad and Mosul. We have some of the earliest Christian churches in the world in the north of Iraq, for example."
In January this year, scientists provided the Pentagon with a list of more than 4,000 sites that should be avoided in the event of war. Professor Gibson participated in the meeting. He said the Pentagon is committed to sparing Iraq's cultural heritage.
"We delivered a list of over 4,000 sites to the Pentagon so that they can avoid them if possible in the war. And they have in fact taken all this. I know that they have fed that into their databases and they've made a commitment to try to avoid as many archaeological sites as possible. And they know that there are many, many more of those sites. They have also given a general order that soldiers are not to take off any of those sites or to be digging into sites and digging things off them," Gibson said.
But that doesn't necessarily mean the sites are safe.
In the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon was also provided with a map of objects of historic importance. The U.S. military knew it should not bomb the National Museum in Baghdad, for example. And, in fact, the military did not bomb the museum in spite of the fact the Iraqi regime had parked military aircraft around the building.
What U.S. forces did not know was that the Iraqi government earlier ordered that the museum's collection be moved to the Central Bank. Unfortunately, the Central Bank did come under fire and some treasures were lost. Cultural objects are protected under international law by the 1954 Hague convention on cultural property. It calls on all parties to a conflict not to harm and or use weapons against objects of great historical value. Three Serbian commanders are now indicted in The Hague war crimes tribunal for breaking these rules in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. This now constitutes a precedent in the law. If the Iraqi regime chooses to use the sites as a safe haven for military equipment, it loses its rights under the Hague convention. Professor Bahrani said the Iraqi regime's attitude toward protecting historical sites has been "quite good."
"They've done a good job in protecting sites up until now, especially [during] the 1991 Gulf war. After instating the [UN economic] embargo, it became more difficult for them to protect the sites. So, some damages occurred and places were looted. There were robbers coming in and practicing illicit excavations and that kind of thing. But in general the policy of the current Iraqi regime with regard to antiquities has been quite good," Bahrani said.
Gibson said one explanation may be that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein sees himself as part of a long line of great men descended from ancient Mesopotamia and takes pride in preserving this legacy. "A lot of the presentation of the regime has used antiquity to legitimize itself. And it is showing Saddam in relation to the great leaders of the past. And so a lot of money has been expended in archaeology. And they also know that when the oil stops, tourism is still going to be a very big source of funding for that country. And if you let these sites be destroyed, you actually, you are destroying your future," he said. Despite the relatively good protection, valuable sites in Babylon, Nimrud, and Nineveh have suffered from plunder by various organized criminal groups in the past 10 years. Those networks involved some 200 to 300 looters who delivered Sumerian objects to antiquity shops in the West.
Experts say halting the destruction of war is only part of battle to preserve the country's heritage, and that long after the bombs stop, that fight will continue.
http://www.rferl.org/
Ring facing May trial for theft
By Lara Brickerlbricker@seacoastonline.com
NEWFIELDS - The former principal of the Newfields Elementary School will go to trial in May for allegedly stealing a painting from his veterinarian’s office.
Barry Ring, 61, of Main Street, Newmarket, is scheduled for a May 5 trial in Exeter District Court on one count of theft brought by Newfields police. Newfields police allege that Ring took a picture - of a cat drinking from a toilet - from the bathroom of the Stratham-Newfields Veterinary Practice.
The Newfields case is the least serious case currently pending against Ring, who resigned from his position as principal of the Newfields Elementary School last month. On March 6, the day after Ring resigned, he was arrested at his Newmarket condominium and charged with six counts of child pornography.
The child pornography charges were brought by Newmarket police after officers found 84 images of naked children on Ring’s school-owned laptop. The former educator was supposed to be in court the week of March 25 for a probable cause hearing in the pornography case. That hearing was continued this week, but a new date has not been set, according to the Exeter District Court.
The Newfields theft case marks the second art-related theft case involving Ring in recent months. In December 2002, Ring was arrested by Exeter police for shoplifting four prints from the downtown Exeter shop A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words.
Ring pleaded guilty to stealing the paintings on Feb. 28 as part of a negotiated plea deal with prosecutors. He was originally charged with four counts of shoplifting, but those charges were dropped and he was charged instead with one count of receiving stolen property. He pleaded no contest to the new charge and was found guilty by Judge Laurence Cullen. Ring is free from police custody on the pornography charges on $20,000 personal recognizance bail. The bail included conditions that Ring not have any unsupervised contact with anyone under 16 years of age, not leave the state of New Hampshire without notifying police, and surrender his passport.
The child pornography was found on the laptop Ring had been issued by the school district in his job as principal, according to court documents. The images were found when Ring turned the laptop in to the School Administrative Unit after he was placed on administrative leave following his December arrest in Exeter.
Police and school officials have said no children from Newfields or the area appear to be in the photos on the computer. They believe the photos were downloaded from the Internet.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/
Thief goes hungry for art's sake
By Globe Staff, 3/28/2003The man who broke into the Norman Crump Studio Gallery in South Boston early yesterday morning faced a tough decision: run off with the paintings, or finish his food. As art heists go, this was as far from the infamous 1990 theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as one can get. The culprit, described by witnesses as an intoxicated male in dark clothes and a beige cap and carrying a container of Chinese takeout, hurled a rock through the window at 3:20 a.m. and plucked two paintings from the display: a watercolor of Clydesdales in the neighborhood's St. Patrick's Day parade, and Crump's own oil rendering of a few boats.
The suspect then picked up his food and tried to flee. But juggling the sizable artworks with the food container proved too difficult, and he was forced to abandon his meal, two NStar workers who saw the break-in told police. Crump, 52, said the paintings were worth about $9,000. He said it's the first time someone has broken into his gallery since it opened in 1997.
Crump and local artist Dan McCole, 73, who said his ''Clydesdales on Broadway'' was his best work, found some humor in the heist amid their dismay.
McCole took small comfort in knowing the robber chose his masterpiece over the No. 5 Special, despite the seemingly amateurish manner in which the heist went down.
''I imagine if someone planned it, he would have pulled his car up to get away,'' he said. ''Unless he was afraid of double-parking. They're ticketing everybody in South Boston nowadays.''
PETER DeMARCO
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 3/28/2003.
Moscow urges UNESCO to set up body to protect historical monuments during conflicts
MOSCOW. March 28 (Interfax) - The Russian Culture Ministry has called on UNESCO to set up a supervisory board under its auspices that would be responsible for protecting historical and cultural monuments from destruction during armed conflicts."The Russian Culture Ministry, as a government institution designed to care about the preservation of historical and cultural heritage both inside Russia and outside it, is suggesting the establishment of a supervisory board in which prominent international experts could take part under UNESCO auspices," reads a letter forwarded by Russian Culture Minister Mikhail Shydkoi to UNESCO Director General Koitiiro Matsuura.
The letter, which was posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website on Friday, notes that such a supervisory board "could watch the condition of historical and cultural monument to prevent their destruction during armed conflicts and wars."
Shvydkoi expressed concern over the hostilities in Iraq, particularly the threat of destruction of numerous archaeological monuments in that country.
"Iraq is a country of great history and culture, which houses numerous archaeological monuments of ancient Assyria and Babylon. All those monuments, which present a unique value and which are an inseparable part of the world cultural heritage, are currently under threat of elimination," reads the letter.
"We hope that UNESCO with its universal mandate can and will help humankind respond to challenges of the 21st century and facilitate the preservation of world culture, of which Iraq is undoubtedly a part," Shvydkoi's letter said.
http://www.interfax.ru/
Shvydkoi Could Face Charges Over German Art Exchange
By Andrei Zolotov Jr.STAFF WRITER
MOSCOW - The Prosecutor General's Office summoned Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi on Tuesday to hand him an official warning that he faces criminal charges if he goes ahead with a plan to return an art collection to Germany.
The prosecutor's office, which has been investigating the matter over the past few weeks, said the Culture Ministry does not have the authority to decide to hand over the 362 drawings and two paintings that once belonged to the Bremen Kunsthalle.
First Deputy Prosecutor General Yury Biryukov delivered the warning to Shvydkoi.
Another deputy prosecutor, Vladimir Kolsenikov, said Tuesday that Shvydkoi has not signed any orders to return the collection to Germany but if he does he will be charged. It was not immediately clear which charges would be brought.
Culture Ministry officials said Shvydkoi was unavailable for comment and said only he could speak about the issue.
The ministry said last week that the art transfer was on hold after getting a first warning from prosecutors. But Shvydkoi at the time described his contacts with prosecutors as "positive" and said there was a common understanding that the art collection is different from other trophy art seized by Soviet troops in Germany at the end of World War II.
Shvydkoi said the Bremen Kunsthalle artwork was brought to Russia by an individual, Captain Viktor Baldin, and thus subject to the law on import and export of art rather than the law on the restitution of trophy art, which declares all such art Russian property.
Shvydkoi told Ekho Mosvky radio last week that the plan had been to return the collection to Germany as a goodwill gesture, and Germany would have handed over 20 pieces of art selected by State Hermitage Museum director Mikhail Piotrovsky.
The Baldin collection was scheduled to go on exhibit in Bremen in late March, Izvestia reported.
The plan, which was announced by Shvydkoi during a visit to Germany in early March, sparked an uproar in the State Duma. Deputies last Tuesday unanimously passed an appeal to President Vladimir Putin urging him to stop the handover. The head of the Duma's culture and tourism committee, Nikolai Gubenko, said the Baldin collection would be just the beginning.
Baldin, an art restorer by profession, gave his collection to the Architecture Museum in 1948. He pioneered the trophy art debate in the early 1990s when he told of how he took part of the collection from the basement of an aristocratic hunting lodge and bought the rest from other soldiers. The collection includes pieces by Titian, Duerer, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Rodin and Van Gogh.
Baldin repeatedly said that he wanted the collection to be restored to its original owners in Bremen. He has since died. Shvydkoi said the collection is worth $30 million to $35 million. Gubenko put the value at $1.5 billion.
The issue of trophy art is highly sensitive for many Russians, who consider the art looted from Germany as compensation for Soviet losses in World War II. There also is concern that Germany will not return any art its soldiers took from Russia, because most of it is held in private collections.
http://www.sptimes.ru/