Raising the red flag_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Raising the red flag

Now comes U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey, who on March 31 handed museum leaders a legal victory, and a moral challenge, when he dismissed the government's forfeiture claim, finding it “devoid of any facts showing that the Mask was ‘missing’ because it was stolen and then smuggled out of the country.”

Indeed, there are no official records showing that the mask was sold by – or stolen from – the Egyptian government. Rather, Egyptian records indicate that the mask, excavated during a state-sponsored dig in the early 1950s, was registered to the Egyptian Antiquities Service. The government kept it in storage until 1966, when officials shipped it to Cairo for restoration. From there, the paper trail goes cold. It was not until seven years later, during a routine inventory in 1973, that the mask came up missing.

Legally, at least, the Ka-Nefer-Nefer simply vanished....

The St. Louis museum purchased the Ka-Nefer-Nefer in 1998, when the Aboutaams’ father, the late Sleiman Aboutaam, still ran the company. In subsequent years, museum officials have maintained that their pre-purchase investigation of the mask was “exemplary” and included inquiries with the Art Loss Register, the International Foundation for Art Research and, as an INTERPOL member, the Missouri Highway Patrol. They also hand-delivered an inquiry to Mohammed Saleh, the then-director of the Cairo Museum. The mask came back clean.

“There was no red flag,” said David Linenbroker, an attorney for the museum. “Part of the issue here is that the Egyptians didn't keep track of what they had in their storerooms. The fact that there was no red flag raised – what are you supposed to do?” - For the St. Louis Art Museum, a Legal Victory Raises Ethical Questions, TheAtlantic.com, May 30 2017.