After the Hobby Lobby scandal, a spotlight on antiquities sales in Israel

• Aug 17, 2017

In 2010, Hobby Lobby, which is headquartered in Oklahoma City, paid $1.6 million for 5,500 ancient artifacts from Iraq. Six years later, an investigation by U.S. and Israeli law enforcement and tax officials determined that dealers in the United Emirates and Israel had intentionally misidentified the items as Turkish ceramics. Many archaeologists in Israel and elsewhere are against the sale of antiquities because it leads to the destruction of cultural heritage.