Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION May we throw a glance at our small museum and compare its contents with the objects unearthed in this country which have found their way into the museums which have been sending excavation missions into this country and find out whether our share has been a fair one or otherwise? Sawt al-‘iraq (Iraqi newspaper), February 19, 1933 Why? How could they do this? Why, when the city was already burning, when anarchy had been let loose and less than three months after US archaeologists and Pentagon officials met to discuss the country’s treasures and put the Baghdad Archaeological Museum on a military data-base did the Americans allow the mobs to destroy the priceless heritage of ancient Mesopotamia? British journalist Robert Fisk, The Independent Online Edition, April 13, 2003 D uring most of 2002 and 2003, Iraq was at the center of world attention and at the heart of an unprecedented international debate. Much of the discussion, prior to the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, focused on whether or not military action against Iraq was justified. Once the war started the focus shifted toward the execution and strategy of the military campaign and the ensuing loss of human life. By mid-April, however, once it became clear that the government of Saddam Husayn was no longer in power, Iraq’s antiquities and museums became part of the war’s “collateral damage.” For a few days in April, the questions and discussion of wartime strategy, links of Husayn’s regime to al-Qaida, and the presence of weapons of mass destruction were all temporarily swept aside and instead Iraqi antiquities took center stage. Eventually, archaeological artifacts became intrinsically linked to the execution of the war and perhaps symbolic of the difficulties ahead in the reconstruction of Iraq. This sudden interest in Iraqi archaeological artifacts was no mere distraction, but the result of the catastrophic and unprecedented destruction of Iraqi cultural heritage that took place in mid-April of 2003. In Baghdad were stored some of the greatest cultural achievements of human history, indicative of our shared history and accomplishments . But in a matter of a few hours, the Iraqi National Museum, and numerous regional museums and libraries, were either destroyed or looted for anything that seemed valuable. In the “cradle of civilization ,” which Iraq was often called in a tribute to its long and glorious history, a particularly uncivil situation, caused by the power vacuum and the destruction of local authority, shattered its many cultural remnants. The National Museum, for example, housed important pieces from such fabled historic cities as Nineveh, Khorsabad, Uruk, Hatra, Babylon, Ashur, and Samarra. It thus contained some of the earliest pieces of the human endeavor, whether of art, writing, or agricultural tools. The actual scale of the destruction of the National Museum is still unclear, though it obviously suffered considerable damage. According to preliminary estimates from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) during the summer of 2003, around three thousand objects were missing from the National Museum. In November of 2003, Iraqi Culture Minister Mufid al-Jazaeri indicated at a press conference that fourteen thousand objects had been looted and that four thousand of those had since been recovered or reclaimed. Among the missing pieces were unique artifacts such as the Warka vase, an Assyrian ivory carving, a marble head of Poseidon, a relief-decorated cult vase from Uruk, and painted ceramics from Arpachiyah from the sixth millennium b.c.e. Some important items that have been returned were the 330-pound copper statue from Bassetki, from around 2300 b.c.e., which bears the inscription in honor of Akkadian King Naram-Sin, and the famed Warka mask. It was not only the National Museum that was plundered. The Iraqi National Library and Archives (Dar al-Katub wa al-Watha’iq) and the Ministry of Holy Endowments and Religious Affairs (al-Awqaf) were set on fire and/or looted during this same time period.1 In addition to these major cultural institutions, universities and other research and 2 RECLAIMING A PLUNDERED PAST cultural centers were also subject to considerable damage. The Iraqi National Library was subjected to at least two arson attacks. It is still not clear how much of its contents was actually destroyed by the fire and how much the Library staff was able to move to secure locations. The building itself is in...