Tag: Arts and Antiquities Looting

How a Terra-Cotta Warrior Lost Its Thumb to a Delaware Shoe Salesman

Chin@Strategy

If a 24-year-old shoe salesman slips away from a science museum’s ugly-sweater party and breaks into a closed exhibition of terra-cotta warriors, it is entirely possible that nothing bad will happen. Or he could steal a warrior’s thumb. After the salesman, Michael Rohana, confessed to doing that in Philadelphia six years ago, federal prosecutors sought a conviction on felony charges that could have put him in prison for decades. A jury was unable to reach a verdict in 2019, but his case is now heading for a resolution after a…

Your Tuesday Briefing: Political Turmoil in Pakistan

Chin@Strategy

Good morning. We’re covering political turmoil in Pakistan and schools reopening in the Philippines. Political tensions swell in Pakistan Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former prime minister, was charged under the country’s antiterrorism act on Sunday. He is trying to stage a political comeback after he was ousted from power in April following a no-confidence vote. The charges followed a rally in Islamabad, the capital, where Khan condemned the recent arrest of one of his top aides and vowed to file legal cases against police officers and a judge involved in the…

Gold Ingots From 18th-Century Shipwreck Returned to France

Chin@Strategy

The seas were high and the fog was thick in December 1746 when the Prince de Conty, a French frigate returning home from China with tea, ceramics and roughly 100 gold ingots, foundered in the Atlantic, just 10 miles from shore. Its bounty sank beneath the waves and laid untouched for 228 years until 1974, when treasure hunters located the wreck and illegally scavenged its remains. On Wednesday, five of the gold ingots, embossed with Chinese characters and valued at $231,000, were returned to the French Embassy in Washington, ending…