Museum inquiry into 'smuggling' of ancient bowls
By Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent (London Times)
ONE of the world�s leading buyers of antiquities is at the heart of an inquiry to establish whether part of his multimillion-pound collection was illegally exported from the Middle East.
University College London has set up a committee of inquiry into the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls inscribed with magical texts, The Times has learnt.
The bowls were loaned to the university museum � the Petrie � by Martin Schoyen, a Norwegian tycoon who has built up one of the world�s finest collections of antiquities in private hands.
[...]
I was aware that these were in London but I didn't know they were part of the Sch�yen collection. Almost certainly these are unprovenanced Iraqi antiquities. I first heard of hundreds of incantation bowls in London in around 2000. I assume these are the same, in which case they must have been exported before the Iraq war.
UPDATE: Ed Cook comments over at Ralph.
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