German-Iraqi dispute mounts over 4,500-year-old gold vase

Jun 30, 2009, 13:02 GMT

Mainz, Germany - An Iraqi-German dispute heated up over an antique gold vase on Tuesday, as German customs officers said they would retrieve the object from a Mainz museum vault on Thursday, despite Iraqi opposition.

Both the Iraqi government and a Munich auction house have laid rival claims on the six-centimetre high vessel, safeguarded at the Roman-Germanic museum in Mainz since 2006.

The customs officials intend to hand the artefact to the Finance Court in Munich for valuation, while the Iraqi ambassador has asked the museum not to release it.

'I hope that, by Thursday, we will reach an amicable solution on this issue,' said archaeologist Michael Mueller-Karpe of the Mainz museum.

The customs officials, originally due to visit Tuesday, had threatened to cut open the vault with a welder if necessary, Mueller-Karpe added.

'I don't think this will happen though,' the archaeologist told German Press Agency dpa.

The Berlin branch of the International Council of Museums backed Mueller-Karpe, saying his resoluteness deserved 'every respect, it is in complete accord with the ethical guidelines for museums.'

Mueller-Karpe estimates the gold phial to be 4,500 years old. With all likelihood, the archaeologist believes the object to have been plundered from a royal grave in Iraq.

In 2005, investigators had seized the item from the Munich-based auction house, which had listed it as originating from the eastern Mediterranean area of the Roman Empire, Mueller-Karpe said.

The Iraqi ambassador asked the museum not to release the item until its provenance and ownership had been definitively settled by the court of highest instance - if necessary the European Court of Justice.

Mueller-Karpe said the handling of stolen goods was comparatively easy in Germany, where owners and traders of archaeological treasures did not need documentary proof of their provenance.

UNESCO and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimate the illegal trade in cultural treasures to be worth 6 to 8 billion dollars (4.3 to 5.7 billion euros) annually.

Investigations had shown that dealers often listed a false age and origin to circumvent a ban on trading objects from plundered graves, Mueller-Karpe said, adding that buyers and sellers knew full well what they were actually trading.

A 140-year-old export ban on artefacts from the Ancient Near East has drastically limited the 'legal' availability of objects from countries including Iraq, Syria or Turkey, Mueller-Karpe said.

A cylinder seal, authenticated with official documents, had recently sold for 145,000 dollars, the archaeologist said.

A comparable object, described by the trader as originating from 'old Swiss family property,' had sold for a few thousand dollars, Mueller-Karpe added.