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Temple Looting in Cambodia: Anatomy of a Statue Trafficking Network

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Art Crime

Abstract

Compared to other types of commodity traffic, in drugs, wildlife or even human beings, relatively little reliable empirical data have previously been gathered and published about the process of “trafficking” in antiquities. Scholars of the international criminal market in cultural objects have access to a number of analyses of what we might characterize as the two ends of the global supply chain, in the form of studies of “source” and “market,” but comparatively little about how looted cultural objects actually move from the ground to the international market buyer.1 With limited exceptions, the available data have clustered around looters who take objects from important archaeological sites;2 and dealers, museums and collectors around the world who provide the destinations for these stolen artifacts as part of their general acquisitive practices.3

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Notes

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© 2016 Simon Mackenzie and Tess Davis

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Mackenzie, S., Davis, T. (2016). Temple Looting in Cambodia: Anatomy of a Statue Trafficking Network. In: Charney, N. (eds) Art Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40757-3_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40757-3_15

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-55370-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40757-3

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