TAXILA, Dec 7: The Federal Archaeology Department (FAD) on Tuesday claimed that customs staff had recently foiled an attempt to smuggle 272 pottery and other artifacts.

Talking to Dawn, an official of FAD said that the Customs department officials seized bowls and vases of pottery being smuggled from Pakistan at Lahore airport.

He said that these centuries-old artifacts, valuing millions of rupees, belonged to Gandhara, which occupied a prominent place in the museums of England, France, Germany, US, Japan, Korea, China, India and Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan.

He said that some antiquities were from Balochistan as well. Moreover, the official said that some of the objects belonged to the Kuli site, a rich cultural heritage.

The smuggling bid is a sheer vandalism, the FAD official said adding “People, who steal valuable objects from developing countries, sell them in international markets at a very cheap price.”

He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was a rich place from where people excavated these objects, sometimes even from their personal property. Responding to a question, he said that smuggled antiques and historic relics often ended up in the hands of private collectors willing to pay handsome amount for them.

“Ancient sites are plundered for short-term gains, this result both in the loss of heritage items to indigenous people and irreparable damage to archaeological sites,” he said. He said that when the department took a look at the objects after opening the boxes, it was clear that the pots and vases were artifacts.

Talking about FAD code of conduct, the official said that if the objects are not antiquity (means they are less than 75 years old) the department returns them to the person to whom it belongs.