WASHINGTON — The closest comparison is Swiss cheese: holes in vast swaths of land where looters, armed with machine guns and bulldozers, take to ancient archaeological sites in search of international paydays.
To the untrained eye, these holes, visible in satellite images, seem haphazard. But to experts, these deep pits, spanning acres of land, are the work of sophisticated traffickers.
It’s the kind of looting that worries Mohamed Ibrahim Ali, Egypt’s minister of state for antiquities.
“The objects that are stolen from museums are easier to track because they are registered,” Ibrahim said, referring to the archaeological artifacts taken from Egypt’s Malawi National Museum and Egyptian Museum in Cairo, many of which have been identified and returned.
“The problem is the illicit digging everywhere,” he said. “In Egypt, when you dig, you find something. So some gangs have started to become active very quickly because of the breakdown of the police force.”
Looting isn’t a new phenomenon. Ibrahim calls it a “centuries-old business” since objects were stolen from King Tut’s tomb.
But today, more than three years since the Egyptian revolution, looted antiquities have become a grave concern for a country dependent on historical tourism.
The confluence of economic, political and technological factors have made looting of ancient artifacts more problematic than ever: The ease of transport abroad, along with sky-high antiquities prices, is making antiquities a sweet and easy target for organized groups of thieves.
It’s an urgent issue for Ibrahim, who visited Washington in March to meet with Obama administration officials to ask for emergency restrictions on the importation of antiquities.
But stopping stolen objects from crossing U.S. borders isn’t the only option, experts say. Some worry that strong restrictions on antiquities will stop legal sales to museums. Others want to target looted objects at the source, and new technologies are putting the spotlight on illicit trading of antiquities long before they reach border control.
