Selling History

Dubai is known to be a centre of trade from time immemorial and as much as it
grows as a business hub, illegal cargo still uses the route to reach other destinations

The demand for antiquities is phenomenal. And whenever there is phenomenal demand for a product, it is usually matched by supply. This is where the supply chain of smuggling antiquities gets kicked off – in the want of the consumer.

Dubai Customs recently held a press conference announcing a major interception of antiquities which were being smuggled in a secret compartment of a wooden ship. The compartment in which the treasures were found on the ship was built to look like a part of the ship’s structure. When Dubai Customs’ officers asked the captain to open the hollow area, he said that if he did so his ship would sink.

“Our officers are trained in all aspects of judging people through their expressions, reactions and body language, and the crew’s body language gave them away,” says Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Director General, Dubai Customs.

Acting on their hunch, the officers found more than a 100 items dating back between 1,000 and 5,000 years hidden away in that secret compartment. Ahmed wouldn’t say where the ship’s port of origin was or where it was headed. He also wouldn’t give out the nationalities of the captain and crew and to which country the antiquities belonged.

Illegal supply chain

Although Ahmed did not acknowledge the origin of the antiquities, many invitees were sure the antiquities were from the ransacked Iraqi museum. Since the beginning of the 2003 American- led invasion, much of the Iraqi culture and history has been systematically looted.

Prior to the war, people who did not have anything to eat used to dig artifacts from the ground and sell whatever they found for food; but ever since the looting of the Iraqi museum, the illegal antiquities trade from the region has exploded, leading many countries to levy heavy restrictions on its activities, thus sending it underground.

Coming back to the supply chain of this business, many say its starts from the time something valuable is dug up or looted, after this the artifact is driven to Jordan or further north to Syria. After reaching either Jordan or Syria, it is sent to one of three cities – Beirut, Dubai or Geneva, in order to create ‘documents’ for the artifact and for it to surface in the market. From this point it is sold to private collectors or established auction houses until it gets a new home.

This illegal trade is even rumoured to have an underground tariff system, with the Hezbollah (from Lebanon) apparently taxing the artifact when it passes through the country.

Improving standards

This is not the first time such a large cache of antiquities have been intercepted in the country. Sharjah, too, has in the recent past captured many ships passing through its port carrying this illegal cultural cargo. Dr. Sabbah Jasem, Head of the Sharjah Directorate of Antiquities, says, “We need to have a federal antiquities law that prevents the buying and selling of historical artefacts all over the country, as Sharjah is currently the only emirate that has one.”