Issue 90

September/October 2006

Contents

news

Spoon tops important Anglo-Saxon finds

Unique axe handle found on Welsh shore

Timbers on Lancaster river bed may be Roman ford

Archaeologists drive double eagle on Dirleton dunes

In Brief

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Blackpool? World Heritage?
You can not be serious...

Plucked in her prime
We reveal what treasure came out of the Mary Rose.

By the waters of Babylon
Iraq: must the loss of heritage continue?

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ISSN 1357-4442

Editor Mike Pitts

features

By the waters of Babylon

The damage to the Baghdad museum collections when Iraq was invaded in 2003 was well publicised. But Roger Matthews and Michael Seymour are concerned that archaeological destruction in the country is continuing.

In April 2003, as American tanks entered the streets of Baghdad, local resentment against the regime of Saddam Hussein manifested itself in a wave of looting, asset-stripping and burning of government and official buildings across Iraq's capital city. Cultural facilities such as universities, libraries, art galleries and museums were not excluded from the destruction and uncontrolled appropriation that affected government ministries, official residences and elite palaces. The looting of the globally significant Iraq Museum, above all, briefly commanded the full attention of the international media and was widely recognised as a disaster. Concern became mired in confusion over the nature and quantity of the losses, however, before the subject steadily sank from public view.

There had been a precedent for this ransacking of the Iraq Museum. In spring 1991, as Republican Guards retreated from Kuwait to their bases in Iraq and as George Bush Sr encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein, nine of Iraq's regional museums, in cities such as Basra, Diwaniyah and Kut, were looted. Some 4,000 objects were taken, of which only a handful has since been recovered. By the time of the invasion of Iraq in spring 2003, then, it was clear that museums and other public facilities of Iraq's rich cultural heritage would be highly vulnerable to attack from a disaffected populace as the regime collapsed. Despite awareness of this fact, reinforced by more recent communications from British and American archaeologists, the occupying forces took little or no suitable measures to protect the Iraq Museum and other cultural facilities of the Iraqi state, with the noted catastrophic results.

The basic problem seems to have been the US decision to keep occupying troop numbers to an absolute minimum. Commanders on the ground were obliged to make tactical decisions about where to deploy guards around the city as the social apparatus came tumbling down. One cannot blame commanders for ranking sites such as museums, art galleries and libraries as low-level priorities. One can, however, most severely blame the architects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq for not taking seriously enough a threat that had been clearly articulated before the invasion.

Since 2003 occasional reports on the status of Iraq's cultural heritage have provided some limited information, including important reviews of the impact of a large military base at Babylon. Nonetheless, the most archaeologically destructive aspect of Iraq's recent history – the intensive looting of sites mainly in parts of southern Iraq – has received far less attention than it deserves. In this article we present some aspects of the background to that destruction, of the problems currently being faced in the protection of sites, and of attempts to improve the situation.

It is worth stressing the unique significance of the archaeology and history of Iraq – ancient Mesopotamia, the land between and around the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Numerous major developments in the human story took place in the region, including the growth of some of the earliest sedentary and agricultural communities anywhere on the planet. By 3200BC the world's first truly urban civilisation had arisen. Immortalised in such city names as Uruk, Ur, Babylon, Nimrud, and Nineveh, it was characterised by the use of writing (in cuneiform script on clay tablets), extensive trade networks, sophisticated scientific and mathematical capabilities, and a tautly structured social hierarchy that gave birth to the first kingdoms and empires. More recently Iraq hosted the great Abbasid state, with its spectacular capital cities at Baghdad and Samarra. One could reasonably make a case for Iraq as the single most important arena for archaeology anywhere in the world.

Unleashing looters

This significance has long been recognised. Through the late 19th and 20th centuries foreign and, increasingly, Iraqi archaeologists and historians worked to explore that heritage in a host of productive ways. From its inception the government of Iraq took steps to protect its own cultural heritage. As other countries of the region succumbed to the plague of illicit digging and site looting, stimulated by a flourishing international market in antiquities, Iraq was largely successful in keeping that scourge at bay, employing some 2,600 guards to protect fenced sites across the country, and punishing with great severity any transgression of the laws relating to protection of sites and monuments. By these means Iraq maintained an enviable record in site protection until 1991. The uprisings of spring 1991, mentioned above, witnessed the first major setback to Iraqi cultural heritage, with significant losses of objects from several regional museums. Once Saddam's regime had regained its fierce grip on power, however, order was reestablished, guards were reinstated at sites and Iraq's cultural heritage seemed safe once more.

The next major development showed itself slowly through the 1990s. UN economic sanctions took a devastating toll on ordinary Iraqis. Some turned to looting sites for income despite the severe risks associated with this illegal activity. In response to this unwelcome, but in the circumstances hardly culpable, development the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage took decisive action on two fronts. Local tribal leaders were involved ever more closely in the protection of sites, and official excavations were established at the worst affected, thereby setting up a more or less permanent presence further to discourage looting. Led in particular by Donny George, teams of excavators established bases at sites such as Umma and Umm al-Aqarib with armed guards, in the process making valuable archaeological discoveries. Thus, by the spring of 2003, in the face of extremely difficult conditions the Iraqi authorities had done far more than could be expected of them in attempting to protect their cultural heritage.

Then came the looting of the Iraq Museum. The episode dramatically illuminated the vulnerability of cultural heritage in times of war, and received extensive coverage in the world's media. Confusion over the museum's ability to determine the extent of the losses, and indeed over what those losses meant, led to the unfortunate suggestion in some coverage that the real losses were minimal. In fact such was not the case, as the "Red List" of 30 of the most important looted artefacts illustrates at least as well as the very large – but difficult to interpret – estimates for total number of pieces taken. This currently stands at some 15,000, of which about 6,000 have been recovered or returned. Still missing are large quantities of cylinder seals and small valuable items looted from the Iraq Museum.

An important success story has been the voluntary return of many of the artefacts taken from the museum. US Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, appointed in 2003 to investigate the looting, declared an amnesty on artefacts returned to the museum, working with religious and community leaders in Baghdad to encourage returns. A large proportion of the looted material has been recovered, including some of the most famous items on the Red List, such as the Warka Vase (c3200BC) and the Bassetki statue of the Akkadian king Naram-Sin (c2250BC). Col Bogdanos continues to investigate smuggling and the international trade in stolen Iraqi artefacts (see My archaeology).

Poverty and insecurity

Located to the south of Baghdad, Babylon is one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia and needs little introduction to any audience. Up to the 1990s the main threat to its integrity lay in the ambitious programme ofbuilding reconstruction sponsored by Saddam and carried out by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. The establishment of a military base at Babylon from 2003 onwards was partly intended, according to us Colonel John Coleman, former chief of staff at Babylon, to prevent looting there. In this regard it was successful.

Nevertheless, Camp Alpha, used initially by American, then by Polish troops, caused a considerable amount of destruction in its own right, as detailed in reports produced by archaeologists on behalf of the Polish Ministry of Culture and by John Curtis of the British Museum. Key points include the construction of a helipad, the introduction of large quantities of chemically treated gravel, and the use of archaeological material from Babylon and its environs in sandbags, irreparably disturbing and contaminating the site.

Babylon was handed over to the Iraq Ministry of Culture in January 2005. In a 2006 BBC interview, Col Coleman offered to apologise for the damage, but also asserted his view that the site would have suffered greater damage through looting had Camp Alpha not been there. Sadly, he is doubtless right.

The damage to Iraq's museums and libraries, and to Babylon, has been bad enough. Amid all of this, however, the greatest damage has been far less visible to the public eye and coverage of this destruction has been limited in foreign media. In some parts of southern Iraq, in particular, looting has increased dramatically since the 2003 war. The extent of the damage has been difficult to measure, although it is almost certainly true that looting since 2003 has constituted the single most destructive episode in history for Iraq's archaeology.

It has been impossible for any assessment to be made on the ground, and aerial reconnaissance has been limited. The available aerial photographs show "lunar surfaces" – large, flat sites pockmarked with the small robber holes of hundreds of illicit diggers. In almost every photograph these holes cover the entire surfaces of sites. Only those areas where previous archaeological excavations are visible remain untouched, because there it is presumed that anything valuable will already have been taken. The latter outcome is itself depressing, indicating the work still to be done in distinguishing archaeological excavation from looting in popular thought, and in enfranchising local people in archaeological research.

The Iraq War and Archaeology website (iwa.univie.ac.at), run by Francis Deblauwe, lists sites known to have been looted or damaged (sometimes both). At the time of writing 41 such places are featured, mainly but not exclusively in the south of the country. The actual number is likely to be far higher. Among the sites known to have been heavily looted are Isin, Larsa, Fara, Umma and Umm al-Aqarib. Most of Iraq's best-known sites have suffered to some extent and there has been looting at Ur, Uruk, Nineveh, Nimrud, Ctesiphon, Borsippa and Hatra.

In southern Iraq most sites are relatively shallow, and digging to a depth of a metre or so can be enough to destroy a site in its entirety, although multi-period sites may have lower levels preserved for the time being beyond the reach of the diggers. At the same time, those looted artefacts that are recovered will be without provenance. The thoroughness of this destruction of information will only become fully apparent over time, as future archaeological work is hindered by the disturbance and contamination.

The problems cannot be solved without addressing the broader issues of poverty and insecurity. Many Iraqis received very low wages between 1991 and 2003. After the fall of Saddam site guards and other state employees went unpaid for many months. With the disbanding of the army, site guards no longer had any credible means to deter well-armed groups of looters. That illicit digging should increase under such circumstances is inevitable.

The money diggers receive for their finds will be a tiny fraction of artefacts' eventual black market value. However, opportunities to work for the state are few, poorly paid and, when connected with policing or security, dangerous. Illicit digging remains a relatively attractive means of making a living under very difficult circumstances. Attempts to curb the looting have consistently been hampered by security issues and lack of resources, particularly vehicles for site guards. To some extent this is a vicious circle: some of the income from looting will fund insurgent groups and be used to buy arms and equipment, further weakening the state's control. At the other end of the market, much of the present destruction can be blamed on collectors of illicit antiquities and of those experts willing to authenticate unprovenanced material for sale.

So what lies ahead? Despite the difficulties, efforts are being made to halt the illicit excavations, and to reestablish systematic protection of sites. While resident at Babylon the Polish military helped to establish some degree of control and protection over sites in the region immediately south of Baghdad, including Kish, Cutha and Jemdet Nasr. Italian guards further south have assisted in site protection in the region of Ur and Eridu, with mixed results. In April it was reported that Roger Ulrich (classics professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire) had received US Defense Department funding to develop materials aimed at helping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan prevent further site damage. Iraqi archaeologists, both at the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and at regional universities, have tried their best to implement a network of guards and protection, rooted in local tribal allegiances. Without adequate funding and resources their task is highly dangerous and difficult.

None of these measures will succeed in the long term without an environment of peace and security within which to operate. The past of Iraq, astonishingly rich and varied as it is, depends entirely upon a future that presently looks bleak and uncertain.

Roger Matthews was the last resident director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, living in Baghdad until 1990, and is currently professor of Near Eastern archaeology at ucl Institute of Archaeology. Michael Seymour is a specialist in the history and politics of archaeology in the Middle East. He recently completed a doctorate at UCL Institute of Archaeology, and is now Raymond and Beverley Sackler scholar in ancient Iranian studies at the British Museum for 2006–7.

See also: R Matthews 2003 The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories & Approaches (Routledge); S Pollock 2003 "The looting of the Iraq Museum", Public Archaeology 3, 117–24; M Polk & AMH Schuster (eds) 2005 The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad (Abrams) and, in this book, Z Bahrani "The fall of Babylon", 214–6; P Stone 2005 "The identification and protection of cultural heritage during the Iraq conflict", Antiquity 79, 933–43.

The British School of Archaeology in Iraq has launched an appeal for funds to assist Iraqi scholars, museums and academic departments. See www.britac.ac.uk/institutes/iraq/newappeal.htm.

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