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Looting continues at archaeological sites around Iraq
By: Micah Garen
Published date: 24/6/2003
According to the historian Samuel Noah Kramer, history begins at Sumer. Kramer didn't surmise it may well end there - more than two months after the fall of Baghdad, the remnants of recorded history that have survived more than 5000 years continue to be destroyed at an alarming rate.
The well-documented looting of the Iraqi National Museum has received considerable press attention. Yet the continued looting at archaeological sites, particularly the important Sumerian and Old Babylonian sites south of Diwaniya, seems to have drawn only moderate attention and even less concern from coalition forces.
These sites are the birthplace of the written word, etched out in clay bullae and on cuneiform tablets more than 5000 years ago. The invention of writing led to a flourish of literary activity in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, and great poetic works including the Gilgamesh epic and the Descent of Ishtar.
The history of the Middle East is replete with examples of looting. At Babylon, the Turks took bricks to build the dam at Al-Hindia and the Germans made off with the Ishtar gate. After the first Second Gulf War, many important sites around Iraq were looted. More recently it has been reported that Arshad Yasim, the brother-in-law of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, had been looting archaeological sites and museums and selling the artifacts on the black market.
After the recent war, the looting reached a fevered pitch. Important sites such as Isin, Umma, Umma Akrab and Larsa were turned into swiss cheese by teams of looters, reportedly up to 200 to 300 strong at times. Returning from a recent patrol to the site of Isin where a number of looters were actively digging what was left of the decimated site, one Marine described it as looking like a rape scene.
Archaeology is a forensic science, and context means everything. The strata at which an object is found can reveal countless details about its history. The looters are destroying layers and layers of history to get to artifacts at the bottom and removing information preserved for millennia.
It is impossible to know what history is being destroyed. Just 40 years ago, Italian archaeologists discovered more than 15,000 cuneiform tablets at the Tell Mardikh site in Syria. The subsequent discovery of the civilization of Ebla and the Eblaite language provided great details about third millennium history that had not been known.
US Army Col. John Malay, who commands the Marine forces in Diwaniya, recognizes the problem but admits frankly that it is not a priority.
"People being killed is the number one priority, not guarding archaeological sites," he said.
He made his point by citing a recent hand grenade attack at local movie theater that killed a young woman. Keeping the peace, rebuilding schools and protecting archaeological sites is not what the Marines were meant to do, but they have been adjusting to the new requirements.
"We are not trained for this," said one Marine on a patrol to Isin. "Marines are good for kicking in doors and killing people."
Malay even suggested the looting might have some unintended advantages. If the looters were not looting, he said, they might be killing instead.
Not all Marines agree with this view. More than 6400 US servicemen visited the site of Bablyon in the three week after tours for the US forces were started.
"Amazing," one soldier commented on a recent tour, "it shocks me how much deeper the history is."
Babylon and Ur received no significant damage because the, Marines stationed troops at these sites. Whether positioning troops at Babylon and Ur was intentional or just a convenient location on the road to Baghdad is not clear.
Chris Herndon, a political advisor to Office of Coalition Provisional Authority, organized a team of volunteers from the Navy Construction Battalion Unit to help rebuild the looted museums of Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi at Babylon. Using $50,000 of discretionary funding, he has already begun bidding out the majority of the work to local contractors. Nothing damaged by the looters at Babylon, however, was irreplaceable.
Not everyone is happy with the way things are at Bablyon. Austrian archaeologist Helga Trankwalder lamented that for first time in thirty years she was prevented from going into Babylon by Marines stationed at the gate. Her views, shared by many archaeologists in private, are sharply critical of the coalition forces for their lack for foresight and planning.
"The question of responsibility of all this will be raised in Europe. We will not stop," she said.
From all indications, the Pentagon was provided the necessary information to protect the archaeological sites around Iraq. McGuire Gibson from the Oriental Institute in Chicago met with Pentagon planners prior to the war, providing them with a detailed CD that listed all of Iraq's archaeological sites with grid coordinates. He also explained the importance of protecting these sites from looting both before and after the war, and his concerns were published in National Geographic magazine in March of 2003. Yet this information does not seem to have made it into the field, and was never made a priority by the coalition.
It is clear the coalition forces would like to see this issue disappear. Italian Ambassador Pietro Cordone, the newly appointed Iraqi Cultural Minister, has been avoiding a press eager for answers. In response to a request for an interview, the Ambassador's office said that Ambassador Cordone did not wish to speak about the looting, but would be happy to talk about the future. In the US, two Congressman have introduced a bi-partisan bill called the Iraqi Cultural Heritage Act. This bill would allow the president to act to save the cultural heritage of a country not party to the 1970 UNESCO convention on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property. The sanctions that were imposed against Iraq after the Second Gulf War made it impossible for Iraq to apply for protection under the UNESCO convention.
A UNESCO mission comprised of an international team of archaeologists is scheduled to visit Iraq this week. This is the second UNESCO mission to visit Iraq in the past two months. It is not clear yet if the mission will be able survey the heavily looted sites in the south due to security concerns. But as the political wheels turn, the looting continues.
If, as Katherine Graham has said, journalism is the first draft of history, then for many of these important sites, that's all we will have.
by Micah Garen
Click here for another article by Micah Garen
Published date: 24/6/2003
Author: Micah Garen
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