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Allegedly according to Interpol, “Islamic State pockets $100 million yearly...
I’m still working on long-form research, including research into matters relevant to this post, but I wanted to post this now. If Interpol said this, my first guess would be that they were given data...
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Interpol did not claim that Islamic State made $100m-a-year from conflict...
Last Tuesday, I doubted Interpol had said or could have known that ‘Islamic State pockets $100 million yearly from heritage booty [conflict antiquities]’. Unsurprisingly, Interpol did not say that (at...
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Antiquities collectors must be mindful of potential complicity in human...
The humanitarian and cultural crisis in the Middle East is so urgent that the editor of the International Journal of Cultural Property, Alexander Bauer, has broken his years-long silence and published...
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YPG confiscated a numismatic(?) book from Turkish Islamic State fighters in...
When Mehmet Nuri Ekinci reported that Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG) had conducted an operation against Turkish Islamic State fighters in Syria, he published photographs of confiscated equipment,...
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Well-read and well dead: the Islamic State archaeology book club – day one
Yesterday, after @hasavrat spotted it in Mehmet Nuri Ekinci’s report, I appealed for help in identifying an archaeology-related book, which Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) had confiscated from...
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Was the plaque in Finland sold on the French market with an accurate...
[Original title: Were the antiquities going to Russia from Syria or Iran or France?] On the 5th of June, it was reported that ‘Isis-looted treasures’ had been ‘seized en route to Russia’, then that an...
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Why would a lobbyist characterise cooperation between archaeologists and...
While antiquities trade lobbyist Peter Tompa believes that claims of significant connections between paramilitary violence and antiquities trafficking are ‘hyped‘, ‘dubious’, ‘wild’ ‘propoganda...
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According to antiquities trade lobbyist Peter Tompa, ‘you can’t find [coins]...
On the question of why a lobbyist would characterise cooperation between archaeologists and tradespeople as a frenzy among archaeologists, the lobbyist in question says that it was...
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desecration and demolition of tombs and temples in Syria under Islamic State
@oivej has sent me links to Islamic State propaganda that documents the demolition of a temple in Alalianih (in the province of Damascus), demolition of graves and tombs in a village (in the province...
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demolition of another mosque in Aleppo, Syria, 26th April 2015
A propaganda record of the destruction of a mosque in the Aleppo governorate of Syria was in another load of material that I was sent by @oivej at the end of April. Reinforcing the points of...
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Is it plausible that this is the Islamic State’s plan to blow up the Temple...
Assad regime air strikes on Tadmur have continued and intensified and caused many (more) civilian casualties. Meanwhile, a Facebook page for Palmyra News Updates has shared unverified evidence of the...
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Islamic State may be mining Palmyra to prevent Assad regime forces using it...
Further reports are corroborating the Islamic State’s preparations for blowing up – or to be able to blow up – the Temple of Bel, which were first reported in Palmyra News Updates. The head of the...
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Islamic State has destroyed Sheikh Mohammed Ali’s tomb, outside Palmyra, Syria
As a flood of fanboys’ tweets about “shirk” (polytheism) in Palmyra suggest, a structure built by monotheists for a monotheist has been destroyed outside Palmyra. Ceftali notified me that the Islamic...
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How does destroying buildings save children? (It doesn’t.)
When I reported the destruction of Sheikh Mohammed Ali’s tomb, I excluded photos of another site that I had not identified. The second “landmark of polytheism” was the tomb of Nizar Abu Bahaaeddine,...
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Hostage to misfortune: blackmail by the Islamic State and failure by the...
Following on from reports that the Islamic State had mined the Temple of Bel and the Roman theatre in Palmyra with TNT, which were first reported in Palmyra News Updates, a ‘former resident still in...
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Palmyra: looting under the rebels, the Assad regime and the Islamic State?
As I’ve worked and reworked this, I’ve found (and removed) half-finished sentences from previous edits, and I’m posting it now because of the latest developments, but if I rediscover forgotten...
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Soil, saw marks and undocumented antiquities on the open market
This is a slow way to make a quick point, so you really can skip over the sections on soil and saw marks, which are just a sample of sources that discuss the implications of soil or saw marks on...
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Financial investment in the antiquities market: a premium price for looted...
Just in case readers did not see last month’s updates to the story of the six-century-old “Syrian” tile trafficked from a shrine in Syria, which was in fact a twelve-decade-old Persian tile transported...
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the ‘first material proof’ that Islamic State is trafficking antiquities
As Iraqia TV correspondent Amir Musawy scooped and SWR reporter Esther Saoub @esaoub translated, the United States has given ‘#antiquities to #Iraq, that [were] seized with #ISIS commander Abu Sayyaf...
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Why don’t dealers in London keep records as detailed as traffickers in Deir...
Thanks to Esther Saoub and Paul Barford amongst others, there have been many updates to the ‘first material proof‘ that Islamic State is trafficking antiquities. In a further follow-up, I’ve reassessed...
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