Five years ago, the world stood by while the Iraq Museum in Baghdad was sacked
and looted. And it still beggars belief. It was abundantly clear before the
invasion that the cost of removing Saddam was going to be very high, but few
people could have predicted how high the price would be in terms of deaths
and the country’s cultural heritage.
I certainly wasn’t prepared for the newspaper headlines that screamed “Iraq
Museum Looted” when Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, and
I arrived back at Heathrow from a trip to Tehran on April 13, 2003. I had
been a regular visitor to Iraq since 1970, and during the 1980s had directed
archeological excavations at eight different sites in the north of the
country. During this time, I had formed many close friendships and come to
have a deep love for this fascinating, welcoming but troubled country. Like
many people, I was bitterly opposed to the war, but this was chiefly on
humanitarian grounds. It had not occurred to me that the coalition forces
would be so careless with cultural heritage that they would not even bother
to post a guard at the museum after their tanks had penetrated the heart of
Baghdad. To hear that the museum had been looted, therefore, was deeply
shocking.
The source of my dismay is evident: as an archeologist and historian, I’m
aware of what is at stake. But why should anyone else care? Iraq is rightly
referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It is where writing was invented,
the first cities appeared, and Mesopotamia – the land between the rivers
Tigris and Euphrates – was home to Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The
Iraq Museum was one of the richest museums in the Middle East, if not the
world, and housed a magnificent collection of treasures from ancient
Mesopotamia. Others around the world shared my sense of outrage, so it was
only natural that a press conference at the British Museum that had been
arranged long before, to mark the museum’s 250th birthday on April 15,
should be completely taken over by the Iraq Museum crisis. Tessa Jowell,
then secretary of state for culture, struggled to answer the probing
questions about why such a disaster could have been allowed to happen. But
neither she nor anybody else had any answers. More significantly, as the
conference was breaking up, Channel 4 News managed to set up a satellite
phone link in Baghdad to my old friend Donny George, the director of
research at the Iraq Department of Antiquities, and I was able to speak with
him directly. I was the first person outside Iraq he had been able to speak
to.
Donny was distraught. Looters and vandals had been rampaging unchecked through
the museum for two days. Although there was nobody in the building at that
time, it was still unguarded and therefore vulnerable. He asked me to pass
this information on, and he urged me to come to Baghdad as soon as possible
to see what could be done to help.
As soon as it was known that Donny wanted me to go to Baghdad, a number of
journalists offered to facilitate my trip. I joined forces with the BBC team
and on April 22 flew out to Amman, where we picked up our “protection
officers” (a euphemism for hired guns) and drove in a convoy along the
desert road to Baghdad.
Once across the Iraqi border we were confronted by stark reminders of the
recent war: military convoys, burnt-out vehicles and bombed bridges.
Nothing, however, prepared me for the changed appearance of Baghdad. On the
outskirts of the city we could see blackened buildings, some with smoke
still rising from them. The streets were more or less deserted, and there
was an unreal calm and quiet, punctuated by the periodic sound of gunfire,
showing that there was still some resistance to the coalition occupation. We
made straight for the museum, and our vehicles were allowed through the
locked gates.
Donny, Dr Jabr Ismail, the director of the Department of Antiquities, and Dr
Nawalla al-Mutawalli, the director of the Iraq Museum, all came out to greet
me. It was agreed that we should sleep on the ground on the colonnade. In
the morning we were able to start our inspection of the museum. It was a
heartbreaking sight. I already knew that, in the build-up to the war, the
curators had moved most of the objects from the galleries to a “secret
store” in the bowels of the Earth beneath the museum. However, they had left
behind all those objects that, for one reason or another, were difficult to
move or were simply overlooked, and it was these objects that had been
stolen or vandalised. Many of the glass showcases were also smashed, so in
some places there was a thick carpet of broken glass on the floor. In
addition, every one of the 120 offices in the building had been broken into,
usually by smashing a hole in the door.
Files, papers, index cards, photographs, films and computer software had all
been swept off the shelves and onto the floor. It seemed that the intention
had been to start bonfires, but fortunately this did not happen. All the
safes in the building had been broken open. It was also clear that the
intruders had broken into the storerooms, but at this stage nobody had been
inside to assess the extent of the losses. There has been much speculation
as to whether the looting that took place was spontaneous or organised – and
who, precisely, was behind it. Theories have ranged from the involvement of
Ba’athist loyalists, determined to cause maximum civilian unrest, to the
connivance of international antique-dealers, requesting items to be stolen
to order. Five years on, these questions remain unanswered. The whereabouts
of looted material is also hotly disputed. There is clearly a black market
in Iraqi antiquities, but where the pieces have ended up is not yet known.
The next day was full of uncertainty. The most important task was to prepare a
list of missing items, and I helped Donny to do this. Among the 40 or so
things missing from the galleries were some of the greatest treasures of the
Iraq Museum, including the Warka Vase and the Warka Head, both dating from
c3100BC; a stone statue of King Entemena of Lagash, c2400BC; a colossal
copper statue base with an inscription of King Naram-Sin of Akkad, c2250BC;
and an ivory plaque from Nimrud, c800BC, showing a lioness mauling an
African against a backdrop of lotus flowers.
The Americans were keen to know exactly how many objects had been stolen. I
tried hard to explain the difficulties of doing an audit and pointed out
that, faced with a disaster on this scale, any leading museum in the world
(including the British Museum) would have difficulty in giving an immediate
answer, but to no avail. I had similar difficulties with the BBC team. They
were convinced that the curators were in some way complicit in what had
happened, and regrettably this view was expressed in the subsequent
documentary. I was – and still am – certain that, although there might have
been some negligence, there is no evidence of any dishonesty on the part of
the three senior officials present at the time. It was clear that, at this
stage, the most useful thing would be to bring to the attention of the world
the full scale of what had happened. Evidently, the best way for this to
happen was for Donny George to accompany me back to London and appear at the
press conference that had been hastily arranged for April 29.
As speed was of the essence, we hired a GMC four-wheel-drive vehicle and
driver and set by the periodic sound of gunfire, showing that there was
still some resistance to the coalition occupation. We made straight for the
museum, and our vehicles were allowed through the locked gates. Donny, Dr
Jabr Ismail, the director of the Department of Antiquities, and Dr Nawalla
al-Mutawalli, the director of the Iraq Museum, all came out to greet me. It
was agreed that we should sleep on the ground on the colonnade. In the
morning we were able to start our inspection of the museum. It was a
heartbreaking sight. I already knew that, in the build-up to the war, the
curators had moved most of the objects from the galleries to a “secret
store” in the bowels of the Earth beneath the museum.
However, they had left behind all those objects that, for one reason or
another, were difficult to move or were simply overlooked, and it was these
objects that had been stolen or vandalised. Many of the glass showcases were
also smashed, so in some places there was a thick carpet of broken glass on
the floor. In addition, every one of the 120 offices in the building had
been broken into, usually by smashing a hole in the door. Files, papers,
index cards, photographs, films and computer software had all been swept off
the shelves and onto the floor.
There are many here in the US that are heart broken at this news and i am one of them.It is unfortunate that many of our scholars refuse to be a part of our military as tragedies like this could be avoided. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief in other countries most Americans no longer have a say in what our government does. Safe in our mighty nation, pop culture has taken over and History is being forgotten. It is being replaced by what Brittany Spears is doing today. It makes me sick to admit it but it is true. It has been controlled by the wealthy for many years now and many only care about getting richer. A saying has emerged in my country... "Whoever dies with the most toys ... Wins!" It beginning to look like a bloated version of the Monarchies that we worked so hard to free ourselves from. For what ever damage my countrymen have done to these archaeological sites I sincerely apologize. Many are kids who just want to go home to there girlfriends and don't have a clue.
Erik, Missoula, Montana
The looting of history is a sad thing, but history also tells us that it is merely another one of the many miseries associated with the legacy of political unrest and greed.
It takes very little research to learn that these unhappy events repeat themselves over and over throughout the ages.
The larger question of course, is how will we ever stop it?
Dayfydd Griffing, Naples, Long Beach
The only treasure the US are interested in is the Oil!!
YB, London, United States of Britain
Regarding organized criminal operations, ask yourselves, who has enough contempt for the world to do this lasting damage to knowledge, for profit? Who has enough deep connections into the current US administration to operate with impunity in Iraq? Who has enough contempt for Arabic historical heritage to inflict such systematic horrible damage without guilt?
John Smith, Chicago, USA
America and all the others, even Austria, did a great job with propaganda. The average guy believes that Iraq is a place where only terrorists and religious extremists live. Nothing worth to mention, so it comes as a complete surprise that they actually have something called "art" or pieces of historical value.
Also the Iraq has been a bit careless with educating the world about their value. Everybody knows about London, Paris, Barcelona, Tokio, Sydney, New York, but who knows something good about Baghdad?
Poster, Vienna, Austria
People in America are not encouraged to get their news from any source outside the U.S. for a reason.Most people's ideas and attitudes are formed by state assisted churches(some of which are showing films on terrrorism and the end of the world) and carefully staged news bits designed to keep those in power anonymous and happy.It is better on both coasts, but the Midwest is scary,and the deep south is a lost cause.We are not all content with the way things are here....
Carla , J,C,, K.S...U.S.A
US troops are allowed ( though who said it was ok with the rest of the world? ) to remove/take up to 3 trophies of war.
it could be a solitary coin or a sumerian work of art.
so is that
spoils of war or more shame for a lack of accountability from the US military machine?
suzyn, essex, UK
Well, mohsen, that is likely the most naive comment I've come across in years.
All you have to do is look at the chaos and disgrace in New Orleans to see how unlikely your notion is.
There are many places in the United States itself that would shock the unfamiliar visitor. Giant country and urban junkyards and rotting places and toxic dumps - these things do not bother the sensibilities of large numbers of Americans.
How much worse was this violent war (Shock and Awe being the modern American equivalent of Blitzkrieg) combined with the fact that Bush deliberately minimized the number of troops, I'm sure hoping for minimal casualties and political impact at home.
What happened undoubtedly involved a combination of organized looters, vandals, and mobs desperate for some treasure.
In any case, United States troops simply stood by in many cases nearby during these events.
With the murder of a million souls this disgusting loss is a disgrace blot forever on the U.S.
JOHN CHUCKMAN, toronto, Canada
Iam sure most of the treasures are being kept in the United States for the good of the Iraq. And the will be returned back when Iraq can look after itself. Interesting Sumerians treasures are hard to find.
mohsen, malaga, spain