Sanity in battle over looted art

Journalist Sharon Waxman's "Loot," a cogent survey of the conflict over classical antiquities, is notable for its common sense, a rare quality in a debate generally characterized by high-pitched rhetoric. As Italy, Greece, Egypt and Turkey attempt to reclaim ancient artworks, their government officials depict Western museums as predatory institutions working hand-in-glove with tomb robbers, crooked dealers and shady collectors to strip vulnerable nations of their patrimony. In response, the beleaguered directors and curators of the Louvre, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum proclaim that they are repositories of universal culture, the places best qualified to conserve masterpieces that, if returned to their countries of origin, would languish in institutions that no one visits.

There's truth in each position, but each is, in Waxman's assessment, self-serving. She's well qualified to make such judgments. A Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times and the author of "Rebels on the Backlot," Waxman formerly covered Middle Eastern and European politics and culture and holds a master's degree in Middle East studies. This varied background serves her well as she skillfully interweaves lucid historical accounts with savvy contemporary interviews in four sections tracing the odysseys of paradigmatic ancient treasures.

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Pillaging colonies

Some, like the Elgin Marbles and the zodiac ceiling of the Temple of Denderah, were openly pillaged by freebooting archaeologists and diplomats in the 18th and 19th centuries, when weak regulations rarely prevented imperial powers from doing as they liked in colonized territories. The British Museum and the Louvre, where these works have been exhibited for about 200 years, are under pressure to repatriate them to Greece and Egypt. Others, like the Lydian Hoard at the Met and a spectacular Macedonian gold wreath in the Getty collection, were clearly illegal acquisitions, purchased after the UNESCO convention of 1970 banned the transfer of looted cultural property. They were returned to Turkey and Greece after considerable foot-dragging by the American museums.