They noted thieves had keys to vaults inside the Iraqi National Museum.

CNN: Antiquities experts: Some looting was 'commissioned'

It's the Iraqi National Museum -- 500, 000 years of history, the most complete timeline of civilization that existed in any museum in the world.

CNN: Jim Clancy: Museum 'shattered' by looters

Turned out it had been looted from the Iraqi National Museum during the first Gulf war and was consigned to an undisclosed auction house in 2001.

FORBES: Collectors Guide

Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in Paris, France, recommended a fact-finding mission should be dispatched to Baghdad immediately to determine the extent of the recent looting and pillaging of Iraqi cultural institutions, including the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad.

CNN: Antiquities experts: Some looting was 'commissioned'

With this in mind Iraqi-born British-based architect Zaha Hadid is building Italy's first national museum of contemporary art -- due to be completed at the end of 2008, Rome has never seen anything like it, either in scale or design.

CNN: A Quest to build