National Museum of Iraq

Following the norm whenever a country goes through turmoil, Iraq's art community has suffered greatly these past few years. When Baghdad fell looters stole around 15,000 Mesopotamian artifacts from the National Museum of Iraq. This is a huge loss to society as Iraq was in the center of various great early civilizations, including the Persian Empire. (From whom those of the Middle East claim descendants, and are ironically, if not significantly the ancient rivals of the Greeks, whom the West claim descendants.)

Since the looting of the museum the museum directors have managed to recover 4,000 of the missing pieces. 400 of which were returned by Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician who is trying to get international support in locating and recovering the artifacts that remain lost.

The museum's tragedy has also brought a spotlight on the vast amount of illegal digging that occurs at 12,000 of Baghdad's archaeological sites. In a country of turmoil, black market antiquities can bring in enough money to support a whole family for a long time.