I can only hope we're this fortunate with the looted Iraqi antiquities
Quote of note:
In them they found more than 2,500 more objects, including 2,000 gold and silver coins depicting Afghan royalty back to 500 B.C., a collection long regarded as looted and missing. Next came plaster medallions, ivory water goddesses and intricately carved ivory plaques from the 2,000-year-old Kushan culture.
In all, the boxes contained 5,000 years of Afghanistan's history as a pivotal way station on the "Silk Road" between Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The recovered pieces also included cast bronze busts in the classical Roman style; Chinese lacquer bowls; and a glass bottle bearing the image of the Alexandria lighthouse. Hiebert said fewer than 100 objects from the museum's display collection remain unaccounted for.
Treasure Trove of Culture Recovered
Artifacts Are Found in Afghanistan 25 Years After Being Secreted Away
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 18, 2004; Page A25
They were priceless artifacts, and the Kabul Museum curators wrapped them carefully, some of them in pink toilet paper, others in newspaper, and put them in metal boxes. Then government people, eight to 10 of them, signed pieces of paper that were glued to the locks. No box would be opened unless all the signers were there.
That was a quarter-century ago, during the Soviet occupation. But the pact held through the warlordism of the late 1980s and 1990s, through the xenophobic rule of the Taliban and the American invasion.
Many feared the treasures were lost forever, but yesterday archaeologist Fredrik T. Hiebert announced that a just-completed inventory showed that all but a handful had been recovered from hidden caches in Kabul's presidential palace complex and other "safe places."
