What’s lost when antiquities are stolen

Axios Re:Cap

Axios

Daily News, News

4.5 • 705 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2021

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hedge fund billionaire and antiquities collector Michael Steinhardt will have to repatriate 80 objects in his collection, all collected illegally. This case shines a spotlight on the problem of looters who steal antiquities, the dealers who trade in them, and the collectors who hoard them. Host Felix Salmon is joined by antiquities researcher Christos Tsirogiannis of Aarhus University in Denmark, who worked with law enforcement on the Michael Steinhardt case. Editor's note: The original audio and web copy for this episode stated that Michael Steinhardt had to repatriate 80 stolen objects. The total is 180, not 80.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Felix Salmon and welcome to Axios Leacat, where we dig into one big story.
0:08.5	Today is Thursday, December 9, and we are focused on antiquities.
0:17.3	History is part of our shared humanity.
0:25.5	Archaeologists spend years uncovering sites, painstakingly finding objects in some of the most inhospitable parts of the planet to learn about our shared
0:32.0	past. Their work gets ruined on a heartbreakingly regular basis by looters who come in, who steal the antiquities and who take them to London or Paris or New York to these dealers who in turn cultivate a small network of men who pay top dollar.
0:48.9	Hedge fund billionaire Michael Steinhart was one of those men until this this week, he was forced to stop collecting,
0:55.8	and he was forced to repatriate 180 different pieces he had illegally collected from 11
1:03.6	different countries. After the break, I'm going to speak to Christos Sirianus of Ahis University in Denmark.
1:10.7	He helped law enforcement in the Steinhardt case, and he's going to talk to me about just how damaging it is when antiquities are looted and traded.
1:21.8	I'm joined now by Christos Sirianis of Ahruz University in Denmark.
1:26.3	Christos, welcome to Axios recap.
1:28.9	I wanted to talk to you about trade in antiquities.
1:34.5	This is something you are an expert in.
1:37.4	And I think a lot of people don't understand.
1:40.5	When they think about rich people buying art,
1:42.7	everyone's like, that's great.
1:44.0	Rich people can buy paintings.
1:45.3	They put them on the wall.
1:46.2	They show them off.
1:47.2	The money goes to the artists.
1:48.7	Everyone's happy.
1:50.2	With antiquities, it's different, right?
	...

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