Due to current events: Report of the conference "Cultural property in danger - looted excavations and illegal trade" is online
Press release from 05/26/2015
The war waged by the Islamic State terrorist militia against globally significant cultural sites in Iraq and Syria has brought the global problem of looted artefacts and illegal trafficking to a sadly topical level. When the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, together with the German Archaeological Institute and with the support of the Federal Foreign Office and the Minister of State for Culture, organised an international conference on this topic for the first time at the end of last year, nobody could have imagined the scale of the threat to cultural assets.
Due to current events, but also because the conference provided a good overview of international developments, the conference report can now be read in the media centre.
In the meantime, the destructive activities of IS have brought numerous international players onto the scene. UNESCO, for example, has launched the online campaign #UNITE4HERITAGE, with which it is campaigning for the protection of cultural assets threatened by extremists. The SPK supports the campaign and is taking a number of measures of its own to support the countries affected. Among other things, it is involved in the fight against the illegal trade in antiquities as part of the ILLICID research project. In addition, its Museum of the Ancient Near East has initiated a bilateral expert panel together with the representative of Iraq at UNESCO to plan and coordinate a cooperation programme for capacity building.
Further links
- Conference report International conference. Cultural property in danger: looted excavations and illegal trade (as of 19 May 2015, published 21 May 2015) (PDF, 278 KB)
- Picture gallery "International Conference on the Protection of Cultural Property" (26.05.2015)
- UNESCO campaign #Unite4Heritage for the protection of cultural property threatened by extremists
- Press release "ILLICID project investigates illegal trade in cultural property in Germany" (10/04/2015)
- Press release "Alarming reports of looted excavations around the world: conference in Berlin seeks ways to curb the illegal trade in antiquities" (12 December 2014)
- Event notice "Cultural property in danger: looted excavations and illegal trade" (11.12.2014-12.12.2014)
- Protection of cultural artefacts