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THE looting spree that has devastated Iraq鈥檚 museums has reopened old wounds between archaeologists and antiquities dealers. Archaeologists want a total ban on all trade in antiquities from Iraq. They say it offers the only hope of retrieving the stolen treasures while the trail is still warm, and of preventing further looting. But the dealers, whose livelihood relies on the trade, say such a ban would violate their human rights.

Archaeologists are adamant. 鈥淚f the dealers weren鈥檛 buying this stuff, then it wouldn鈥檛 be looted,鈥� claims Colin Renfrew, director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. Like many of his colleagues, he favours a ban on all trade in antiquities from Iraq. The most famous stolen pieces will be impossible to sell openly anyway. And, he says, a ban would prevent less well-known artefacts from making it onto the market and deter further looting. McGuire Gibson, an expert in Iraqi antiquities from the University of Chicago, also wants the trade shut down. Traders 鈥渉ave been dealing in stolen goods for years, and they know it鈥�, he says.

But dealers insist that the scientists have no right to try to shut down their trade, even temporarily. Reputable dealers won鈥檛 touch anything they know is stolen, says London-based antiquities dealer Rupert Wace. 鈥淭here is a lot legally on the market,鈥� he adds. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just declare [it all] illegal.鈥� And James Ede of the Antiquities Dealers Association in London says a ban would be counterproductive. 鈥淭here has to be a market. That鈥檚 where items will turn up,鈥� he says.

Some compromise between the two sides will have to be found. UNESCO, the UN鈥檚 cultural organisation, is putting a motion before the UN Security Council that will place a temporary ban on all trade in Iraqi antiquities that do not have a cast-iron history of ownership. And the British government is putting its weight behind a similar bill that would require anyone in Britain selling antiquities to prove that a piece is not stolen.

Another possibility would be to offer an amnesty to encourage people to return stolen items that they might have acquired in good faith without fear of prosecution. But no one has come up with an official proposal for this, and an amnesty would have to be in place for years, or more likely decades.

The idea of offering rewards for the return of stolen pieces is widely opposed though. Paying the market rate for many of the items would be too costly, and might encourage further looting. 鈥淧eople shouldn鈥檛 be paid,鈥� says Laurent Levi-Strauss at UNESCO鈥檚 cultural heritage division. 鈥淥therwise there will be a temptation to steal objects in order to get the reward.鈥�

What is agreed is that a searchable database of looted items should be established quickly so reputable dealers can check if they are being offered stolen goods. The University of Chicago鈥檚 Oriental Institute has already set up a website showing pictures of some of the treasures known to be missing. But officials from Iraq鈥檚 State Board of Antiquities say it will take four to six months to put together a complete list of looted items.

The depressing lesson from recent history is that archaeologists will have to wait a lot longer than that to see the treasures again. Thousands of items have gone missing since the 1991 Gulf war, and only a handful of them have resurfaced. 鈥淚n terms of the antiquities market, 12 years is nothing,鈥� says Ellen Herscher of the Archaeological Institute of America in Boston. Dealers or middlemen may hold onto stolen items for decades, she says. Many art works looted during the Second World War are only now beginning to turn up, as the people who originally acquired them die.

The outlook for retrieving items that have not yet left Iraq is less gloomy. The museums are now secure, and daily radio broadcasts and appeals by Iraqi clerics have persuaded many people to return souvenirs from the museums. On one day, 50 items were returned.

But this doesn鈥檛 mean looting has stopped. Iraq鈥檚 archaeological sites are still unguarded, and action to protect them is urgently needed. Until the 1991 war, the Iraqi antiquities board did this extremely effectively, but 12 years of UN sanctions have starved the board of resources and manpower. Organised gangs of looters have now established shipment routes through Iran and Israel to buyers in Europe, the US and Japan.

The looting is most obvious at major sites such as Umma and Umm-al-aqarb in southern Iraq. 鈥淚f you go there today, you find huge holes where people have used heavy equipment to dig the sites,鈥� says Iraqi archaeologist Mark Altaweel, who is now at the University of Chicago鈥檚 Oriental Institute. The fall of Baghdad presented the gangs with the opportunity of a lifetime, he says. Now the museums are secure, he fears the looters will shift their attention back to the sites. 鈥淭he museum was a one-time heist,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he sites were their bread and butter. That鈥檚 probably what they鈥檙e going back to.鈥�

It is also clear that coalition forces are doing little to stem the continuing flow of pieces out of the country. 鈥淐ontrol of the borders is almost zero,鈥� says Donny George of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. 鈥淎nyone can take anything and go out.鈥� A team of archaeologists from the British Museum in London confirmed that picture when they returned from Baghdad last week.

Archaeologists hold the US and its allies to blame for failing to preventing the pillage. The least the coalition can do now, they say, is act decisively to prevent further looting and to retrieve the stolen treasures. Rebuilding the museums鈥� collections would provide a focal point for Iraq鈥檚 recovery, argues Paul Zimansky of Boston University. 鈥淭his is something besides oil that makes Iraq a very special place,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something you can rebuild the country around.鈥�