IRAQI ANTIQUITIES WATCH: I haven't been blogging on Iraq lately, not because the antiquities problems have been resolved, nor because I am particularly pleased with the current situation, but because I've been busy and it hasn�t seemed worthwhile to spend time collecting news on it when other people are devoting whole sites to the issue. But I've now added a link to several such sites in the new links section to the right. I subscribe to the IraqCrisis list and have found it very helpful. The most comprehensive website is that of Francis Deblauwe, which is worth frequent visits. At present it appears that somewhere between thousands and tens-of-thousands of Iraqi antiquities were destroyed, damaged, or stolen during the war, but this is still a very rough guess. Even more worrying, there are reports that archaeological sites are being systematically looted by armed diggers (NYT via IraqCrisis list). But from now on, unless something really strikes my eye, I will leave it to these other sites to keep you informed about Iraq's antiquities.