Kardashian’s coffin made global news. The beautiful object, further burnished by its fleeting contact with television royalty, was a wonderful story. But not all stolen antiquities are so instantly arresting, so immediately recognisable, or so obviously priceless. Their value is measured not in beauty, but in what they can tell us about the ancient world, and they are just as vulnerable to trafficking as a gold coffin. Such objects are explored in a fascinating new book by Roberta Mazza, Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts.A long and informative article. Regular PaleoJudaica readers will be familiar with much of its contents.
Roberta Mazza blogs at Faces & Voices. For the Museum of the Bible and the difficulties regarding some of its holdings, start from the links here. For posts on Dirk Obbink and the Oxford missing-papyri scandal, see there, plus follow-up posts here and links.
Cross-file under New Book.
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