托福阅读满分素材：伊斯兰国的古董交易

　　Turkey was listed as the country of origin and documents declared the value of the Sargon II head as $6,500. Other smuggled items included an Egyptian funerary boat valued at $57,000. Some shipments were directly linked to major museums, galleries and art houses in New York. The investigation was unique in bringing money laundering charges which allowed agents to seize bank accounts containing the proceeds.

　　However, the items recovered by ICE date back to the Iraq war. Knowing that the war would inflict terrible damage, archaeologists, museum directors and other members of the art world met with Pentagon officials in 2003 to convince them to protect the archeological sites. The initiative failed. Instead, US forces notoriously turned Babylon into what was dubbed 'the Hanging Gardens of Halliburton', building a camp on the precious archaeological site.

　　This ancient Sumerian statue is among thousands of ancient looted treasures stolen from the National Museum in Baghdad in 2003 (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

　　The Pentagon meeting also failed to prevent the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad. On the contrary, looting was encouraged under the logic that the collections would be safer elsewhere. As Ashton Hawkings of the American Council for Cultural Property said: "the legitimate dispersal of cultural material through the market" was the best way to protect treasures.

　　It was effectively an invitation to loot. More than 15,000 objects, including jewellery, ceramics, and sculptures, were stolen from the museum. The most famous pieces stolen were the 5,000-year-old Warka vase (later recovered in 14 pieces) and the Lyre of Ur, the world's most ancient musical instrument, likewise found badly damaged.

　　Hundreds have never been found and five centuries of Ottoman records were lost, as well as works by Picasso and Miró, which were destroyed by fire. One estimate of the loss attributable to art theft in Iraq is $10bn.

　　The sliced head of a bull stolen from an archaeological site in Nineva, Iraq came the National Museum in Baghdad after it was confiscated from thieves (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

　　Looted artefacts pass through many hands before emerging in on the market and may not appear for decades. Lynda Albertson, president of the Association for Research of Crimes against Art, says it is impossible to quantify how much money IS makes on the black market because it may take years for a looted item to appear there. For example, Cambodian antiquities from Angkor Wat turned up at auction 40 years after the end of the civil war.

　　Collectors willing to buy art without a clear provenance bear a huge responsibility for the destruction of heritage sites across the world, but it has become a very dangerous game. The well-known Turkish and Beirut smugglers who probably moved the Sargon II head have gone further underground and are extremely suspicious of buyers. Not only could they face exposure and loss, if objects are known to have been obtained from IS, they could even be charged with aiding terrorism – arguably the most powerful deterrent yet.

　　参考译文

　　宗教历史学家 凯伦·阿姆斯特朗 这样描述伊斯兰国：一个靠商业成长起来的恐怖组织。这个激进的伊斯兰团队是全球最富有的恐怖组织，那些看过这个组织诡异的宣传视频的人可能会注意到它的成员们所驾驶的全新的4X4编队。

　　但是他们的钱从哪里来呢?有分析认为资金来源于捐赠，偷运石油(每天可收获164.5万)，绑架(去年至少收获2千万)，非法交易，敲诈，抢劫，最后还有一个很重要的经济来源——古董交易。这是非常丰厚的经济来源，比如，从大马士革西部al-Nabuk抢来的东西据称是卖到了三千六百万。

　　伊斯兰国活动在世界上考古资源最为丰富的地区，这些地区是文明的摇篮。当尼姆伍德，尼尼微和哈特拉的古代遗址都被毁坏的时候，黑市里随即出现了一批文物，人们怀疑这些物品就是来自上述遗址中。伊斯兰国要么使用所谓的“推土考古”(用有巨大破坏力的设备来发掘遗址)，要么雇用当地人来挖遗址或陵墓。然后这个组织开始了被伊斯兰教法所认同的征税，税收依宝物的价值来定。没有人知道从地里挖出来的是什么，这些赃物以后也不可能被鉴别出来。