Iraq's past in present danger - Front Page - archaeological sites

The prospect of another U.S. military intervention in Iraq has raised concerns by many that, besides loss of life and the annihilation of living cities, the war will deliver a calamitous blow to the country's ancient sites and thus to the world's cultural heritage. In the past several months, a number of archeologists, museum directors and curators from around the world have pleaded with U.S. military leaders to consider ways of preserving Iraq's cultural treasures if the war goes forward.

The extent of damage that the U.S. bombing raids inflicted on Iraqi archeological sites during the 1991 Gulf War is difficult to assess. Iraq's then general director of antiquities, Muayad Said, reported to the international press a great deal of destruction from bombs and an incalculable number of thefts by postwar looters. A formal and comprehensive tally of damages never appeared; however, the flood of Iraqi antiquities that hit the international market in the years after the war seemed to confirm Said's findings.

The Fertile Crescent, now largely occupied by Iraq, gave birth to writing, codes of law, poetry, epic literature and organized religion. Remnants of those early achievements are preserved at more than 10,000 significant archeological sites scattered throughout the region, many of which have never been excavated. Some works of art and architecture at those sites have survived for more than 7,000 years.

Last November, Ashton Hawkins, president of the American Council for Cultural Policy, and Maxwell Anderson, Whitney Museum director and president of the American Association of Art Museum Directors, made a plea to the U.S. military in a column in the Washington Post. "Our military leaders should be aware of the location of Iraq's most significant cultural and religious sites and monuments," they stated. "What they contain is not merely the patrimony of one small nation but that of much of the modern world, including the U.S."

Early this year, a group of archeologists appealed directly to defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to make an effort to preserve Iraq's ancient sites. Rumsfeld responded by inviting the archeologists to supply information about sensitive sites to military planners. Iraq has been accused by the U.S. of shielding its military forces by positioning them near historical sites.

Of particular concern are the areas in and around the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in south Iraq, near the port of Basra. According to French press reports, many of those sites were severely damaged and pillaged during the 1991 Gulf War. Said reported that U.S. bombing raids at that time left some 400 holes in Ur's famous ziggurat, which was completed in 2142 B.C. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, U.S. troops in the Gulf War may have dug trenches near Ur in what they thought were hills but were actually unexcavated mounds containing ancient ruins. In northern Iraq, Ninevah and its largely unexcavated surroundings are also of great concern to archeologists, as are the ruins of Ctesiphon, ancient Rome's formidable military rival, 18 miles south of Baghdad. According to Said, who now works at the Ministry of Culture, vibrations from nearby bombing raids in 1991 caused severe cracks in Ctesiphon's well-known arch, the largest single-span brick arch in the world.

Archeologists have also noted that the collections of Baghdad's museums would be imperiled in the event of war. The National Museum suffered considerable bomb damage in 1991, since a telecommunications facility adjacent to the museum was a major U.S. target. A great number of artifacts had been previously relocated to regional museums for safekeeping, but, according to Iraqi officials, more than 4,000 of these objects were looted and removed from the country in the postwar chaos; only a few of them have been returned. Closed for eight years after the war, the National Museum reopened in 2000; now, museum officials are once again removing the most important works from the collection and shuttering the museum building.

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