The great Plains show has now opened at the Metropolitan Museum. We have covered it again in this issue and we hope you have an opportunity to see it. It is truly spectacular, containing objects that you undoubtedly will never see again in person.
Our lead story is the crisis in the Middle East, with ISIS destroying archaeological sites and the many treasures in the Mosul museum. Unfortunately, this will not change with negotiation or education or country building. I do not see anyone who can change this course stepping up in time to protect the heritage in this region. This really should be an issue that the right and the left could come together on in Washington D.C. But if beheading Christians won't do it, I guess a smashed antiquity won't either. The world should all be lobbying their politicians to isolate politically and economically anyone who does this or anyone who supports anyone that does it. How at any level you can negotiate with someone that supports this sort of brutality is apparently a question that for some is not relevant.
The renovations of the Indiana University Art Museum and reinstallation of the Raymond Wielgus collection was scheduled to be well underway by 2015. We haven't received any updates from the director; however, we shall continue to follow this story. As the appraiser on this collection I wonder in light of the success of the Myron Kunin sale at Sothebys in New York, what the Wielgus collection would be worth now.
Finally the efforts by the current administration to ban the sale of all ivory has been delayed by the Republican successes in the mid term elections. As a consequence, the environmentalists pursuing this ban have shifted their focus to a state by state ban. In this issue we have summarized what has happened to date. We shall be following this closely in the coming months. JB
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