Sigh. We tried to warn you, and no one listened. How many vases can there be? Well, Don, at least enough to buy a few bombs to kill American soldiers, it seems:

(Reuters) - Criminal gangs in Iraq and the Middle East are selling forged art works on auction Web site eBay and in antique markets in Britain to help fund terrorism, British police said on Wednesday.

The extent of the scam was not clear but the items, purportedly Iraqi or heirlooms from the region, could each sell for up to a couple of thousand pounds (dollars), according to London police's Arts and Antiques Unit.

"Archaeological stuff is being exported by the ton-load from Middle Eastern countries and (the money) is going back into the Middle East area and some will inevitably end up in the hands of terrorists," Detective Constable Ian Lawson told reporters.

"We know for a fact there is a terrorism link."

Just got in from the Mesopotamian Archaeology section of this year's American Schools for Oriental Research (ASOR) conference. All the news isn't bad, I'm happy to report, when it comes to the area of study that has the most political significance: Iraqi archeology. I also got some notes on a panel discussing the state of Palestinian archaeology, which is actually more interesting than it may sound.

You remember that scene in Godfather III, where Pacino complains that "every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in!" Well, the love of the ancient world is in my blood, for all I have forsaken the field, and I'll be poaching some of the panels at this meeting next week. Here is the schedule. Go on, try to tell me that you're not utterly absorbed by the idea of hearing about the latest discoveries in Cypriot rural sanctuaries and Canaanite/Minoan interaction in Middle Bronze Age Palace culture.

But perhaps more relevant to what we normally talk about here: a couple of sessions on the state of archaeology in the age of Bush's wars of choice. Here's a short list of what I expect to be very interesting speakers on a forbidden subject: the archaeology of Palestine:

Because I knew this would happen. In 2003. Think of your own work, and how you would feel if everything that gave it meaning and import were destroyed, all to help a sociopath gain domestic political points. It's not dramatic to say that my generation of scholars are the last of our kind...

Iraq's most prominent archaeologist has resigned and fled the country, saying the dire security situation, an acute shortage of funds, and the interference of supporters of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had made his position intolerable.

But the Taliban was wrong to blow up those nonbeliever statues:

n April expedition by the Chicago-based Assyrian Academic Society, reported last week on an archaeological e-mail list run by the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, reports the site "is in serious jeopardy of being destroyed." A local mayor has hired a construction firm to dynamite caves out of the rock hillside holding the fragile relief, the society reports, so that visitors to the park there can enjoy some shade.

"Dynamiting anywhere near the reliefs could do damage to them," says University of Chicago Assyriologist McGuire Gibson, by email. He calls the Sennacherib carving one of the most significant standing monuments of ancient Assyria. "These reliefs are almost 2700 years old, and natural processes and some old human actions have damaged them. But they are still in remarkable condition. The threat of damage to create a place where people can picnic out of the sun, without the consent or oversight of the State Board of Antiquities, would be a very bad idea."

In addition, the society reports that visitors are crawling over the relief and chipping away pieces as souvenirs.