Issue 71

July 2003

Contents

news

New Neolithic settlements found on Orkney

Medieval double watermill found at Stafford

Iron Age hilltop ‘town’ found at Margate

Prehistoric landscape of settlement, ritual and magic

Coins reveal how Hannibal bankrupted the Romans

In Brief

features

Underground warfare
Ken Wiggins on the archaeology of mines and countermines

Great sites
David Gaimster on the importance of Henry VIII's flagship

Islands in the Neolithic
Gordon Noble on how farming came to Britain via its islands

Tale of the limpet
Caroline Wickham-Jones on a shellfish with a long history

letters

Roman burials, medieval fields, and Saxons in Scotland

issues

George Lambrick on the looting of antiquities in Iraq

Peter Ellis

On archaeology and today's mentality of hurry, hurry, hurry

books

A History of Childhood by Colin Heywood

Conserving landscapes reviewed by Christopher Catling

Roman Lincoln by MJ Jones

Farming in the First Millennium AD by Peter Fowler

CBA update

favourite finds

Paul Pettitt on an antiquarian book found in a junkshop

ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Simon Denison

issues

After the looting in Iraq

Archaeologists tried to warn the Government about looting in Iraq, but they were ignored, writes George Lambrick. Ministers are listening now, but will they do enough this time?

As long ago as 27th December last year the British Archaeological School in Iraq sent the Foreign Office a clear warning of the dangers of conflict and looting for the cultural heritage of Iraq - and the precautions that should be taken. In February, the All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group, icomos UK, the British and Irish Blue Shield Organisation, and others wrote to Tony Blair and the Foreign Office. Archaeologists in the us were raising the same concerns with the Bush administration. And the response? - the silence was deafening.

On 13th February, the CBA wrote to the mod. Like others, we drew attention to the need to protect all cultural assets both during and after the conflict, emphasising the internationally recognised importance of Iraq's cultural heritage for the rebuilding of a unified peaceful society. We called on the Government to make a commitment to abide by unesco's 1954 Hague Convention on protection of cultural assets, and to press the us Government to do likewise (neither the UK nor the us has ratified this Convention - unlike Iraq).

And we did get a response - of sorts. On 20th March, defence under-secretary Lewis Moonie replied, saying that in principle ministers are committed to ratifying the Hague Convention, but 'to do so will require primary legislation and extensive consultation on the legal, operational and policy issues relating to implementation' - a welcome statement, but with huge potential for kicking the issue into the long grass. Otherwise, he offered only generalised assurances that the UK would abide by international law and that (undefined) practical arrangements were in place to avoid damage by military action.

On 2nd April we sought further clarifications. We asked what sources of heritage information the mod were consulting and how they would be used, including how they were working with local curators and what had been agreed with the us Government.

No reply - but the answer came all too clearly ten days later with the appalling looting that has shocked the world. Much the worst of it was in the us sphere of activity, but this war was a joint operation. It is obvious that despite all the warnings, there was no effective policy to prevent the looting, and seemingly little or no thinking beyond the need to avoid direct damage by Coalition forces. The Government has been keen to be seen not as the poodle of the us, but as a highly influential ally. If so, it must take its share of responsibility for the Coalition having failed so monstrously to protect Iraq's irreplaceable heritage.

After the looting, in a shutting-the-stable-door statement on 16th April, the culture secretary Tessa Jowell said that the Government was now beginning to develop measures to prevent further looting, protect sites and help Iraq to conserve its heritage in the aftermath of the conflict. Together with unesco and other international bodies, UK experts including the British School in Iraq, the British Museum and English Heritage had by then offered support to help pick up the pieces - though the Government has not said if it is providing extra financial support to these cash-starved institutions to do so. There remains a vast amount to be done to try to reconstruct Iraq's museum collections, re-establish proper curation of the cultural heritage there, control borders and police the international antiquities market.

The catastrophe has reinvigorated the Government's support for Richard Allen's Private Member's Bill to make dealing in illicitly acquired antiquities a criminal offence (ba, May), but will they guarantee it parliamentary time? What extra resources are to be made available to enforce it? And what is to be done in Scotland where it will not apply?

In the meantime, the Government's commitment in principle to ratify the Hague Convention must be pursued vigorously in an urgent review with unesco and others to establish what went wrong. We need practical arrangements to ensure the UK will never again enter a conflict with an ally so ill-prepared to safeguard the cultural heritage in the breakdown of civil security that accompanies war.

Perhaps the UK and us Governments will now listen to archaeologists' expert advice as they try to pick up the pieces in Iraq - but will they make the greater leap of giving greater recognition to the universal value of the cultural heritage to society, and the complexity of cross-government responsibilities towards it?

George Lambrick is Director of the CBA

CBA web:

British Archaeology

CBA Briefing

Fieldwork
Conferences
Noticeboard
Courses & lectures
CBA Network
Grants & awards

CBA homepage