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The Security At An Airport

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In 2008, security at an airport in Cairo captures a man attempting to smuggle priceless Egyptian artifacts, including two mummies of a cat and an ibis. (BBC News 2008) In 1999, authorities in Thailand found over 700 artifacts, many of them almost a thousand years old, hidden in a sculptor’s house in a town called Ayutthaya. Many of them are related to Buddhist practices and structures, and are thought to have been stolen from important sites. (Akanond 1999) Even more recently in 2015, due to the instability of countries in the Middle East, the smuggling of antiques from sites under control of ISIS, and their illegal trade and selling in London is common up until this day, and most likely will continue to be as long as the instability continues. (Shabi 2015)

These are just a few cases of illegal smuggling of antiques, but even in this small sampling we can see their impact on people and their cultural heritage. The stealing of culturally important icons and the desecration of religious sites, such as the case with the smuggling of mummies in Cairo (BBC News 2008) and the looting of Buddhist sites in Ayutthaya (Akanond 1999), tell us of the little respect these people hold for the items, people, and countries they are stealing from. In the case of ISIS, this looting of historical sites even plays into their terrorism, by violently stripping the people of their heritage in order to both fund and achieve their political goals. As stated in the article, the illegal selling of

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