The archeological treasures of Serbia are being smuggled out of the country at an alarming rate, according to Goran Mitrovic, senior curator of the National Museum in the southern Serbian town of Vranje, reported the Serbian news agency Beta on Friday.

Mitrovic, who has been tasked to authenticate a cache of artifacts seized at the border with Macedonia days earlier, dated the smuggled jewelry and objects from somewhere between the 8th and 12th century B.C.. Most disturbing, he said, it was apparent that smugglers had uncovered a significant source which is unknown to archeological officials in Serbia.

“It is impossible to say how much of the cultural heritage of Serbia ends up in the hands of smugglers, and into private collections, but according to some estimates, archaeological objects leave Serbia daily,”said Mitrovic.

“Smugglers are most interested in antiquity, Greece and Rome from 4 to 6 A.D.,”he added,”this is the source of the most valuable artifacts.”

Mitrovic said that of the 200 archeological sites under the jurisdiction of his museum in southern Serbia, only one is guarded — it is the site of ‘Kale,’the excavation of the most northerly European town during the empire of Alexander the Great. As a consequence, most archeological sites are disturbed by looters before official digs can be conducted.

“We are currently working on archaeological excavations in the village Sebrat in the municipality of Bujanovac,” said Mitrovic.” A year ago when I was planning this project, the site was pristine, and now when we started work, we cannot get to an untouched location, everything has been dug up.”

The problem of the smuggling of artifacts out of Serbia is not new but the current Law on Cultural Property has not adequately deterred smugglers, said Mitrovic. In 2003, 75 valuable coins from 6 B.C. vanished after an excavation in the area. In 1995, of the 40,000 Roman silver coins unearthed at a dig, almost 30,000 ” disappeared across the border,” according to Mitrovic.

November 19, 2010
XINHUA

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