mumbai its one of the most wrenching images of the looting of the national museum in baghdadmushin hasan the deputy director cowering amidst the rubble of ancient artefacts his head in his handshistorians and archaeologists around the world india included also held their heads in grief as images of the plunder of this great archive flickered endlessly on tv screens as one american archaeologist described it it was like the lobotomy of an entire culturethe stories of humankinds first great civilisationsthe sumerian babylonian and assyrianwere told through the 170000 artefacts held in the museum almost all of which are now stolen or smashedas shock gives way to conspiracy theory archaeologists speculate that the looting was not a spontaneous act but a planned pillageit could not have happened without the flourishing antiques industry and i am sure many archaeologists are involved says shereen ratnagar a former jnu professor who spent a year in iraq as a fellow of the british school of archaeologythese things dont just happen recent news reports point to outside experts or dealers in trafficking rings that ferry valuable antiques from west asia and asia to thriving markets in the us europe and japanwhile historical artefacts have always been a casualty of warfrom ghazni to the naziswhat makes this looting especially outrageous is that it happened under the collective nose of the us forces experts point out that the usmilitary which was quick to protect the oilfields had not only been warned by american academics but had also seen similar sackings after gulf war i at that time nine museums in iraq and the kuwait museum were ransacked and among the priceless thefts were the begram ivories of indian origin america is a firstworld country that prides itself on heritage preservation so what happened here asks art historian rashmi poddar just three tanks would have stopped the lootersindian art experts are also critical of big american and european museums most of which are brimming with plunder napoleon came back laden with egyptian treasures russian museums are full of the spoils of m world war ii the british museum which so grandly announced that it would not buy any of the looted iraq antiquities owes its reputation to the wealth of ancient greece india and mesopotamianoted museologist jyotindra jain emphasises that india can learn critical lessons from the baghdad tragedy foremost the need to maintain a rigorous inventory complete with colour photos in india even the national museum in delhi doesnt have full inventory says mr jain who found when he took over as director of the crafts museum in delhi that only 1500 of the 22000 artefacts were documented incidentally mumbais prince of wales museum has an inventory in duplicate one copy safely in the bankit was shattering to hear that not only had the museum been looted but the records destroyed for us records are everything agrees museologist sadashiv gorakshkar noting that a stolen piece has no market value if there are ownership documents indeed unesco experts