UK university reviews artefact loan
By Lawrence Smallman
Friday 20 May 2005, 13:06 Makka Time, 10:06 GMT
A leading international buyer of antiquities is at the heart of a British university inquiry that questions whether part of his multimillion-dollar collection was illegally exported from the Middle East.
University College London set up a committee of inquiry on Friday to question the provenance, or legal ownership, of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls dating from the 5th century CE.
Although Norwegian collector Martin Schoyen is not named in the inquiry, he is on record as having loaned the bowls to the university.
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If they were taken from Iraq illegally, they should certainly be returned. But I do hope that UCL has made a careful photographic record of them. I wonder if the repatriation legislation has any provision for making sure fragile artifacts like these are photographed before moving them again. Anyone know?
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