A few years ago, African art was A the rage, and some nations were virtually stripped as a result. Kwasi Myles, in Cambodia recently to represent the Organization of Museums, Monuments and Sites in Africa at the Unesco meeting on stolen art said the looting began during the colonial era and grew worse during periods of card strife. The finely carved piece was one of 117 artifacts recovered when Thai authorities stopped a driven by thieves heading for Bangkok. Ghana's solution has been to teach school children the value of their heritage, and to take artworks to isolated villages, explaining their cultural significance to farmers. Lavishing attention and money on the new museum showed the population how important antiquities were to the government, she says, and the new museum is a hit.
People now are really proud of it.
More direct action included passing stringent laws barring the export of any antiquities, and refusing to renew dealers' licenses when they expired. I don't know why, but the dealers didn't object. Of course, maybe I am being naive, and they just kept dealing, clandestinely. Unlike Cambodia's documented monuments, most of the art stolen from Lebanon disappears from archeological digs, Since legitimate digs are guarded, thieves have taken to digging on their own, Hakimian says. The problem with that is, once a piece is gone, it is probably gone forever.