Policy on unprovenanced texts
Because of powerfully-held but diametrically opposed opinions on issues related to the status of unprovenanced documents and artifacts, the IAA did not succeed in forming a committee of Assyriologists and archeologists that could formulate a position paper for presentation to the membership. Since no committee was formed the matter was tabled for the time being.
M. Müller-Karpe read a statement concerning the restriction of banned material in Germany. In his statement he urged the German government to lift the restriction. [sic; I think this is the opposite of what M.-K. meant!] D. George pointed out that the publication of looted tablets will lead to more looting. To make this stop the looted material should be handed back to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad.There is a suggestion from the audience to prepare a data-base of looted material. However, most looted objects come from sites and are not previously known.
I looked through the online preliminary program for the same RAI too and noticed the following IW&A-related paper: Giovanni Pettinato, Italienische archäologische Tätigkeit im Iraq [sic] 2004-2006: his activities in Iraq have been quite controversial so it would be interesting to hear more...
