The primary threat to sites is probably development. Looting is a big problem, but it's one thing if a site's looted , and there are a couple hundred looting pits.That's bad. Versus a hotel coming in and bulldozing an entire site, then it's gone forever.
Right. And so the difference this time for us was we discovered that ISIS's second best form of revenue was looting antiquities and selling them on the black market. Wow. And so that gave us a really good modern way in to giving stakes to treasure.
it's bits of sand in her eyes. So using all the looting information that I had-- 300 sites, there were 20 that had Ptolemaic period looting . There were five that were from the desert, and sort of a narrowing down process, we were able to figure out with a pretty high degree
And thank you all for coming on this very hot Monday afternoon. The subject of Nazi looting has been in the news a lot lately. It seems as if every week there's some sort of new Nazi-looted object that has resurfaced.
But what makes this different is that it was highly systematic. The Nazis actually had looting organizations. These organizations employed hundreds of people.
It was a really strange phenomenon that I hadn't expected, that everyone just suddenly went to live in the parks and was calm about it. There was no looting . There was no violence that I saw.
Things actually get worse. dissolve into chaos and looting ?
Therefore, that would have led to the number of poor people being around 95%, and probably, and by December, the Peronist party would have organized supermarkets lootings and would have done all sorts of things and would have probably been ousted. And by the first part of the year, the Peronists would have gone back to office.
But it's definitely helping to fuel their efforts. So the idea that we can track looting and identify where it's going on and then share that information with organizations like Homeland Security, I should say this is the one good thing I think they do without being overtly political at present.
And so protecting sites is of the utmost concern to them. And if you get caught looting in Egypt, the penalties are pretty stiff. You'll go to jail for years and years.
I mean, this is science. or regions where there could be a looting pit or a potential archaeological feature.
There were several high-ranking Nazi officials that considered themselves not just great art collectors but art connoisseurs as well. So if you were in a looting organization and you could create a pipeline of art to the likes of Goering or Goebbels, you would be in good stead with Nazi elite.
And for many people, this was an easy decision to make, because the freeways that are now brand-new allow easy access to and from the suburbs. Arrestees were picked up for not only looting and arson and stuff like that, but the majority of them
told them that this person had died in combat in another story we told them that the person had been a looter who had been shot that had been looting uh important archaeological um uh treasures and you can see that between liberals and conservatives it doesn't really affect how much time they spend looking at this
Well, the archaeologists in the field saw the results of this pillage not just in the classical world but also all across Latin America, across Asia, across the Middle East; archaeological sites were being devastated by the looting . There was a huge demand for these objects and it had created a huge problem with plunder.
So if they see a container that's full of antiquities, and they go, wait a minute. OK, there's looting in Egypt. This looks really sketchy.
The remit of the Monuments Men was extended when the war became a ground war. And it became obvious just how massive the scale of Nazi looting was. So the remit that was changed to find and recover a looted art.
Then what happens? If it's from a dealer or an auction house and they're reputable, then they won't sell it. This was one of the first major cases to put Nazi looting in the headlines.
The rescuers, they come, and they help with dogs, and stuff like that. But 95% of all that work is not about looting , is not about doing terrible things. This is always, again and again, the same pattern that occurs.
Well, all of these things were a clear indication that this statute had been recently found and judging by the fact that it was an acrolith, it must have been found in southern Italy or Sicily and so this bore all the clear signs of looting . Closer inspection showed that it actually still had dirt in the folds of the gown.
of that paint has survived antiquity. of archaeological sites could be harnessed to track looting and kind of monitor archaeological sites at risk, but they can't quite get a handle on how to get the most recent updates.
In case all of a sudden you wont' be able to connect on the internet or something happens and you can't get it. Because I was taking pictures of looters that were looting out in the Oakland riots.
And in fact, there are many really heartwarming stories of that point. And there was very little in terms of violence or looting or anything of that kind. In Houston, I saw both kinds. You know, I saw people who were very kind to each other.
had many privileges, who sort of hasn't learned the same life lessons, but who also just has a very different way of seeing the world. I mean, there could have been rioting and looting .
That's pretty easy. And then in a natural disaster, you have to deal with the hostility of the people. Are they angry? Are they going to be looting ? Is there going to be theft?
demons and other figures in them. Because the issues of smuggling, and looting , and stealing from countries in Asia is too great.
financial history. Now what does Bernard Madoff have to do with the myth of intuition? Well, one thing that's not realized often about Madoff is the real story of why he was not caught before he wound up engaging in 50 billion dollars worth of fraud and looting lots of institutions and individuals out of all of their funds? The whistle, the Inspector General of the Securities and Exchange Commission did an exhaustive report on this and documented the fact that the SEC investigated Madoff many times over the years because they had
This is an excavation, an illegal excavation-- we call it looting -- of this building that was left open.
So during the Rodney King riots, Koreatown was very near all the rioting and the looting and violence.
So the first part will be the theft part. We'll look at how the Nazis looted art and the vast machinations that they used to carry out the looting . In the second part of the lecture, we'll look at recovery.
As a result, the Nazis looted art from every territory that they occupied. Now, this isn't anything new, looting of art. Through wars throughout history, it's always been, to the victor, the spoils.
Then what happens? If it's from a dealer or an auction house and they're reputable, then they won't sell it. Are the differences between art that was looted by individuals and there was in the more sort of state-sponsored looting , in terms of recovery, are there big differences
And for many people, this was an easy decision to make, because the freeways that are now brand-new allow easy access to and from the suburbs. They don't see fires, they don't see looting .
You know, Elizabeth Warren has proposed Every year since 2018, what she calls the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, that would functionally
They need to hear from you. And Indianapolis was one of the Onley major cities that did not have rioting and looting . It also was the first time that Bobby Kennedy
See, there's some of the paintings you can see that Rosenberg was involved with stealing and looting .
And that that has been incredibly useful for solidifying long term partnerships. In the book, you talked a lot about protecting sites, particularly from looting . Can you tell us more about where does that fit on government priorities versus research priorities?
How is that informing what you decide to focus on? So post 2011, so with the Arab Spring, we saw a huge spike in looting in Egypt and across the Middle East. And what my colleagues and I have come to realize is that organizations like ISIL are using the proceeds from the sale of archaeological antiquities
Can you prove that this material is likely looted ? And that's where someone like me would come in and say, actually, yes, in Egypt, I can show looting at almost 300 archaeological sites. They claim it's Middle Kingdom.
It is two days of violence and hand-to-hand combat. The violence tended to break down with the black community targeting property, either through fire, just damage, or looting , while the white community targeted the black community itself.
And if you weren't here or you don't remember, there were sort of several days of looting and setting fire to things and clashing with the police that
But moving on now to ISIS again, one of the things that's been happening all over Syria is looting of the cultural heritage.
And the reason I say that is because I know this works, in terms of teaching nonviolence, because of all the rioting and the looting ,
It has a very long name which I have given you here. In essence what it said is, "We, the world's nations, are going to try to respect each other's patrimony laws and to discourage looting to kind of curb this terrible destruction that's going on. We're going to agree to respect each other's laws.
of that paint has survived antiquity. And the public essentially is not, doesn't completely understand the scope of the problem and, I think, particularly in the United States there's a sense that looting is victim-less
of that paint has survived antiquity. been done before. I've been trying to review some of the academic work on the issue of looting and it's pretty sparse 'cause there's just not a good dataset; there's imperfect ways of analyzing this.