BBC: The criminal trade in ancient objects

What is the oldest thing you have at home?

Ooh...well, I do have some books from when I was a child. 

I have a rocking horse that was my dad's, so that is quite old. But neither of these are anywhere near as old as the 1,800-year-old Roman coin which BBC reporter Ryan Keane recently bought in London. But soon afterwards, Ryan discovered there was more to the story, as he explains here on BBC World Service programme Business Daily:

But as I researched into other kinds of ancient artefacts I could aquire, I came across reports of expansive criminal networks related to antiquities. Some ancient artefacts being sold online and in stores have been looted and trafficked. 

Ryan got interested in artefacts from Egypt, Greee and Rome. An artefact is any object made by humans, usually very old, which is historically interesting- for example, a coin or statue. 

In the past, many artefacts have been looted- or stolen by force. Movis like Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider have made the a subject popular, but the theft of ancient objects is a serious problem in some parts of the world. So, what can be done about it? That's a what we'll be discussing in this episode, using some useful new words and phrases. 

And remember- you'll find all the vocabulary from the episode on our webside, bbclearningenglish.com. Now, I have a question for you, Beth. One of the most famous ancient artefacts was discovered by Egyptologist Howard Carer in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, but what was it? Was it:

a) the Rosetta Stone   b) the Mask of Tutankhamun   or   c) the Ark of the Covenant?

Oh, I think it's b) the Mask of Tutankhamun.

OK, let's find out later in the programme. Stealing ancient objects is nothing new. During colonial times, it was common for artefacts to be taken from their original home and moved to museums and private collections abroad. In the modrn ear, technology, especially social media, has increased the problem. Here's Amr Al-Azm, a researcher from Shawnee State University in the US, explaining more to BBC's Business Daily:

Social media is the game changer here. The bottleneck, if you will, was how does someone who has an item then communicate with someone on the demand side? It used to slow the process- you had to go through intermediaries. Social media changes all that because it just opens it up.

Amr calls social media a game changer- something new that is introduced into a situation and completely changes how it works. For example, the internet has been a game changer in how we communicate. 

The reason is simple. For someone with illegally stolen argefacts to sell, finding a buyer used to be difficult. Amr thinks that now, because of social media, this problem, or bottleneck, is gone. A bottleneck is a problem that delays a process or stops it from progressing. 

So, what can be done to stop the illegal buying and selling of ancient artefacts? Well, as the final destination for much looted tresure, museums have an important role to play. Accusations of knowingly or unknowingly buying stolen ojects have been made against several museums, including the Louvre in Paris. 

Victoria Reed is senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 2024, she helped her museum return an ancient necklace which had been taken illegally from Turkey in the 1970s. But the idea of returning artefacts to their country of origin, something known as repatriation, is controversial, as Victoria told BBC programmeBusiness Daily:

Outside of the museum world, of course, there are many opinions, and I personally try to maintain a relatively middle-of-the-road approach. I believe in museum, I believe in responsible collecting and I believe in judicious repatriation decisions.