Germany Helps Smuggle Manuscripts to Save Them

Germany has helped smuggle historic manuscripts from Timbuktu to save them from the clutches of Islamic radicals bent on their destruction. Was removing them from their context to save them justified?  Was Germany helping or interfering by supporting the effort?   I'd say an unqualified "yes" to the first question, and "helping" as to the second.  But what of UNESCO and the archaeological fanatics?  Do they support this effort or not?  I wonder.

Timbuktu Library Update

It looks like early Islamic manuscripts thought to have been burned by fleeing Islamic fanatics associated with an al-Qaeda offshoot  may not have been destroyed after all.  If so, this is welcome news, though the situation still seems rather bleak.

This also once again raises the larger question of whether the assumptions behind the US MOU with Mali (a state capable of being a good steward for its cultural resources) are faulty.  Certainly, even when renewal of Mali's MOU was being considered, there was no reason to consider Mali anything but a failed state incapable of undertaking its own obligations under the UNESCO Convention to protect its cultural patrimony.

Roads of Arabia at the Sackler

Today, Saudi Arabia is known as the religious center for the world's Muslims and the World's major supplier of petroleum products.  In past times, however, the Arabian Peninsula was known for the trade in incense and copper.   The Sackler has organized  an excellent exhibit that focuses on Arabia's early cultures, but also touches on Saudi Arabia's more recent Islamic past.  Some of the more interesting objects include anthropomorphic steles and altars from the 4th C. B.C. as well as some classical Greek and Roman objects that were imported in trade.

Kudos to the Sackler, the Saudi Government, Exxon Mobile and Saudi Aramco for arranging this excellent exhibit of unusual artifacts from the Arabian Peninsula.  I'm only sorry that there were no early coins on display from the pre-Islamic period. 

Archaeologists Ignore Implications of Timbuku's Destruction at the Hands of Islamic Militants

Islamic Militants linked to Al Qaeda have destroyed culturally significant Islamic religious sites in Timbuktu.  Back in April, CPO reported that a proposed renewal of the current MOU with Mali had already been overtaken by events on the ground and then concluded,

A recent military coup and the takeover of important cultural sites like Timbuktu by well armed Islamic rebels again raises fundamental questions about whether the State Department and its allies in the archaeological community are really furthering the protection of cultural artifacts or whether their knee-jerk repatriationism does more harm than good.

Yet, it would seem that this latest sad but predicatable news has so far at least been largely ignored by the same archaeological community that was so quick to press for the unqualified renewal of he MOU.   
It also remains to be seen what, if any, impact this news will have on the State Department's own decisionmaking.