The Bad Place and their looted ceramics

 

    Hobby Lobby is one of the biggest art and craft supply stores in the country. It was started in Oklahoma in 1972 and is still a family owned business that is now worth billions of dollars. With so much buying power they have significant ability to pretty much do whatever they want including but not limited to pressing their religious views on employees, influencing political outcomes, and amassing a collection of questionably obtained artifacts in order to open a museum centered around their religion because everyone should enjoy it; except the people of who’s country the artifacts came from. However, I am happy to say the company did get caught for this bit of nefarious behavior and actually had to return some of the ill gotten artifacts. Although, nothing more than a minor slap on the wrist for a company as big as Hobby Lobby, it did make a good point.

    The creates in question came under scrutiny for several factors including questionable shipping labels with misleading countries of origin on them. Some labels were written in a very vague manner displaying descriptions like “ceramic tiles” or “clay tiles” to look as unsuspecting as possible as it went through US Customs. The shipments destined for the up and coming museum Hobby Lobby has been constructing and collecting rare artifacts to showcase the holy relics of the Christian religion in Washington. The whole deal cost Hobby Lobby 1.6 million dollars for around 5,500 pieces that had been looted from Iraq to add to the $201 million dollars worth of artifacts they had already collected. [1]

    When facing questioning about the artifacts, Hobby Lobby claimed ignorance in how the international trade markets worked saying they didn’t know any better; although records prove Hobby Lobby hired an attorney that specialized in the laws of obtaining antiquities and issued a warning to Hobby Lobby decision makers that the items they were looking at obtaining have very suspicious happenings.

    For a business that is based almost entirely off of imports; I find it hard to believe Hobby Lobby’s claims that they didn’t know what they were doing. They have made billions of dollars on importing goods to be sold in their stores and amassed so much wealth and power that the $3 million dollar fine they had to pay was nothing of major consequence in their world. However, the government stepping in and making sure that Hobby Lobby had to return them to their country of origin is a very publicly visible step in the right direction. [2]

    With companies having so much power only because they have so much money that they feel like they can buy their way through anything it is good to see some members of the government make them stand accountable for their ethical choices (as ironic as that may sound) in dealing at least with antiquities. It is good that they are being made to return the items they acquired and one could hope that museums would take the same steps in order to present a more transparent and ethical way of handling business ventures in the future.

Bibliography

Appelbaum, Binyamin. “What the Hobby Lobby Ruling Means for America.” The New York Times, July 22, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/what-the-hobby-lobby-ruling-means-for-america.html.

“Hobby Lobby Stores | Company Overview & News.” Forbes. Accessed March 16, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/companies/hobby-lobby-stores/?sh=23721aac6cee.

Long, Colleen. “Stolen Mesopotamian Tablet Acquired by Hobby Lobby Finally Going Back to Iraq.” PBS, September 23, 2021. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/stolen-mesopotamian-tablet-acquired-by-hobby-lobby-finally-going-back-to-iraq.


 

 

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