MOLA - The Museum of Looted Antiquities
In recent years, hundreds of thousands of looted antiquities have been returned to their countries of origin. When these artifacts go home, information about their ownership history is often lost or destroyed.
The Museum of Looted Antiquities is a collaborative effort to preserve, display and study that information in a virtual museum. MOLA is collecting unique data about the illicit antiquities trade that is essential to understanding a black market that the United Nations recently recognized as a global security issue.
Our goal is to collect data on all antiquities repatriated globally since 1950. To date, MOLA collected preliminary information on more than 860 cases involving nearly 1 million artifacts that were trafficked around the globe. At launch, MOLA is displaying 100 cases involving thousands of objects that were returned to nations around the world. More will be added soon.
Under the hood, MOLA is building a unique dataset on the global illicit antiquities trade using an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. We'll be sharing access to that broader dataset with visiting scholars and curators.