I’ve read that they only photographed the pieces on display, not those in the basement, so that even if the latter turn up there’s no clear way to prove they were stolen.
But shouldn’t anthing old be photographed just so people studying it don’t always have to bring it out and risk breaking bits off of it?
For the most important items, there are certainly photos of them everywhere. Apart from that, I assume not all items in a major museum are photographied. However, they certainly were listed with some description in the museum’s catalogs.
And AFAIK (from what I gathered from the radio/papers) a (large?) part of the catalogs have been destroyed by the burglars, probably to make sure that the museum will be unable to list all the stolen items, hence that the minor ones will be easier to sell.
In the museum in which I work, very few of the artifacts are photographed. Hell, half of them aren’t even cateloged yet.
I’ve heard our tale of woe is common: in the past, our museum was run by volunteers who, while having good intentions, had no clue what they were doing. Records were spotty and poor at best. For example, the record may read, “Donated by Mrs. Smith. One hat and one sword. Placed in box in attic.” Today, if things are done professionally, the item would be minutely described, dated, and an indelible number placed on it, and then would be stored according to what it’s made of, and placed with objects dating about the same time.
Now, going back through all of our artifacts and trying to identify them is extremely difficult. What kind of hat did Mrs. Smith give us? What kind of sword? Which of the million boxes in the attic holds her items? (Our museum has only been professionally run for about ten years, but has been accepting donations for over 100, so you can imagine the job facing us.)
In the past, photo records would have been bulky and hard to store. Even with digital means today, we don’t photograph everything because going back and doing so would probably take years, and a giant library of disks.
Given the fact that they probably have tough budget constraints, I’d guess that the Iraqi museums have similar problems when it comes to maintaining professional records.