The massacre of Mesopotamian archaeology

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The massacre of Mesopotamian archaeology

Looting in Iraq is out of control

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp

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By Joanne Farchakh

 

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

 

 

 

Archaeology

 

 

NASIRIYA, Iraq: In the southern Iraq desert, the standing structures

of ancient archaeological cities dot the horizon - majestic

monuments to times long gone. Untouched for thousands of years,

historic temples, palaces, tombs and entire dead cities are the sole

witness of the passing of time.

 

Properly excavated, these cities could reveal valuable knowledge on

the development of the human race and resolve the big mysteries of

history. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. The Sumerian

cities have been destroyed, ravaged by the incessant looting that

started with the American invasion of Iraq. Once considered

historical treasures, today crater-filled landscapes compete for

space with hills of shredded pottery and broken bricks.

 

Looters - mainly farmers or jobless Iraqis of all ages - have

destroyed the monuments of their own ancestors, erasing their own

history in their tireless search for artifacts.

 

They leave their homes and villages seeking financial rewards.

Poverty, ignorance and greed force them to change their lives and

become tomb raiders - and they actually live on the sites they are

robbing for months at a time. A cylinder seal, a sculpture or a

cuneiform tablet can bring in desperately sought hard cash. They

work all day long hoping to find an artifact that they can sell to

the dealer for a mere few dollars. It is tough, dangerous work for

bad pay.

 

"A cylinder seal or a cuneiform tablet brings in under $50 on the

site for the looter from the dealer. The dealer then sells it at ten

times the price," explains the archaeologist responsible for the

district of Nasiriya, Abdul Amir Hamadani.

 

"More than 100 Sumerian cities have been destroyed by the looters

since the beginning of the war," says Hamadani, who was appointed at

the war's end by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in

Iraq. "It's a disaster that all we are keeping watch on but about

which we can do little. We are incapable of stopping the looting. We

are five archaeologists, some hundred guards and, occasionally, a

couple of policemen - and they are a million armed looters, backed

by their tribes and the dealers.

 

"We are in danger every time we go on a tour to an archaeological

site. A couple of weeks ago, while on site, six vehicles surrounded

our cars and we were shot at. After that, we were assured that the

next time, we would be killed."

 

If the looters are just simple peasants, the dealers in stolen

antiquities are far more sophisticated. Professional smugglers, they

are connected to the shadowy ring that is the international

antiquities mafia and black market collectors. There's never a

shortage of funds since demand for Mesopotamian artifacts is

constantly high - private collectors all around the world adore

Sumerian artifacts because they go back to the beginning of

civilization and in order to possess such items they are ready to

pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, all of which intensifies the

looting. To cover their backs, local dealers buy the protection of

the big clans in the nearby city of Al-Fajr who send their own

people to plunder the sites.

 

"The tribes are powerful, they are well armed and above all, they

abide by their own laws," explains Donny Georges, the Director of

the Iraq's museums and an Iraqi archaeologist of Assyrian origin

appointed by the Americans a few months after the looting of the

museum.

 

"No one can stop them. Although the Coalition forces are well aware

of what is going on, no real effort is being made to stop the

looting. The Italian Carabinieri (soldiers) are the only force that

worked on this issue for a few months. Their efforts were fruitful

in some parts of the Nasiriya district because the tribe leaders

there are never interested in confronting the military."

 

Every military force in Iraq has it's own program of working in the

city that they are controlling. Depending on their internal

organization some of them work on humanitarian levels, others on

protection and others - like the Carabinieri - on archaeology.

 

The Carabinieri unit in charge of heritage protection, known as

Viper 5, used military backup on the sites to stop the looting at

the beginning of this year. With the help of helicopter flyovers and

foot patrol raids on the archaeological sites once or twice a week

they were able to capture and imprison many looters, but in doing so

also terrorized the local population. The illegal digging stopped as

a result - but only for a few months.

 

 

The recent military conflict between the Al-Mahdi army, the local

Shiite militia loyal to firebrand cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, and the

Coalition Forces hit this protection scheme hard.

 

"On one hand, it forced the Viper 5 team to reduce their excursions

to the archaeological sites to occasional trips, and on the other it

pushed the looters to join the Al-Mahdi army," assures Hamadani.

 

It's no longer a question of looters versus protectors; this is a

war with heavy political dimensions. The turn of events caused the

Carabinieri to withdraw from a protection assignment.

 

"At the time it was like a pleasant dream sequence in a long

nightmare," says Hamadani, "The looters did not join the Al-Mahdi

army because they believe in fighting the Occupation, it's more

about personal vendetta. Now they were able to intensify their

activities. There were no Italian forces at the Nasiriya Museum when

the library was set ablaze. The smugglers are now controlling life

in this district and nothing is stopping them from looting."

 

"These people have no respect for anything, not even their own

religion," claims Georges. "Last May, they stole the treasures of

the Imam Ali in Najaf. No one really knows what was there but it is

widely believed that those were the treasures of the Islamic

Sultans. People have been donating their most precious objects to

the Mausoleum since the birth of Islam. All that is vanished today."

 

According to sources inside and outside Iraq close to the smugglers,

the local ringleaders are members of the old regime and are known to

archaeologists, police, Interpol, private collectors and antiquities

dealers. They work out of Baghdad and other big cities in Iraq; they

secure the cash flow to the looters, and are capable of smuggling

anything outside the country.

 

There seems to be no end in sight to this horrific scenario. The

coalition military forces are now causing irreparable damage

themselves: they have transformed the historical city of Babylon in

southern Iraq into a military base, despite promises from former

U.S. overseer of Iraq Paul Bremer in late June to dismantle the

base.

 

"They have leveled archaeological grounds in parts of the site to

build a landing zone for helicopters," says Zainab Bahrani,

professor of Ancient Near Eastern art history and archaeology at

Columbia University, who recently returned to New York City from a

six-month observer mission in Iraq having been appointed by the

Coalition Forces Senior Advisor for Culture.

 

"The continuous movements of helicopters have caused the destruction

of a wall at the temple of Nabu, and the roof of the Temple of

Ninmah. Both date back to the sixth century B.C." Bahrani says.

 

The military base at Babylon has still not been removed.

 

According to an archaeologist working with the Americans at the

World Heritage site of Hatra, Northern Iraq, who did not want to be

named, the danger is no less there than in Babylon.

 

The U.S. Army program to destroy military left overs from the old

regime and the war is harming the ancient site - a Parthian city

with a blend of Hellenistic, Roman and Arab styles. Twice a day the

army conducts controlled explosions of recovered munitions and mines

at the nearby military base. The constant seismic activity is

damaging the stone arches in the main temple and the outer wall of

the city and this may cause the collapse of parts of this site,

listed as a World Heritage monument.

 

The anarchy that is everywhere in post-Saddam Iraq is destroying the

country described in schoolbooks worldwide as the "cradle of

civilization."

 

With over 10,000 archaeological sites still buried, humanity may

just be witnessing the destruction of the cradle - the massacre of

Mesopotamia.

 

 

Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly is an archaeologist and the Middle East

correspondent for the French magazine Archaeologia. She has been

covering the situation in Iraq for five years and wrote this article

exclusively for The Daily Star.