The Iraq War & Archaeology Archive 41

Almost all are accessible for free (or after a free registration) on the internet. Each time, I try to draw attention to the most relevant tidbits of information, esp. things that were not mentioned before; occasionally, I provide some comment. The usual warning applies: many links become defective with time. Inclusion in the list does not in any way mean that I necessarily agree with the opinions expressed in an article. But for a few exceptions, the occasional photos and figures accompanying reviewed articles are just hotlinked images on other web sites, in other words: do not download them or request permission to publish them from me, for I do not own the copyright to them in any way! Please do contact the rightful owners if you would like to use them for publication purposes. Finally, for the sake of convenience, all articles and so on are assumed to have been published on US web sites unless indicated otherwise.

Park Ch., "Culture Ministry Conveys Donation to Iraqi National Museum," in The Korea Times (South Korea), December 15, 2004: "The donation [of 20 million won or about $18,800 at today's exchange rate] comes from Kim Chong-kyu, chairman of the Korean Museum Association, who was awarded the money when he won the Ilmaek Culture Prize last month. Monakairi Mohammad Ali, a naturalized Korean citizen from Iraq and former Arabic professor of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, will receive the donation on behalf of the Iraqi museum. The ministry will also hold a presentation today on the government’s plan to help the Iraqi museum restore its cultural heritage damaged during the U.S-led Iraqi War. In addition, the National Museum of Korea next year will invite two arts and science researchers from the Iraqi National Museum and train them for three months in the field of archaeology and preservation science with full financial support. When Iraq’s political situation becomes more stable, the two museums will work cooperatively on scientific research and pursue to hold an exhibition of Iraqi cultural assets in Korea. The plan to assist the Iraqi National Museum has been made at the request of Culture and Tourism Minister Chung Dong-chea."
S.J. Lyons, "The rape of history," in Chicago Sun-Times, December 12, 2004: "The billion-dollar question in Roger Atwood's riveting report on the voracious pilfering of international antiquities [Stealing History] is: Who is most at fault? The dirt-poor peasant, the rich collector or the museum director? A co-dependency exists among the trio. The peasant, whether in Peru or Iraq, goes out at night armed with a shovel and knapsack and loots an ancient site for precious metals, textiles and body parts of statues. Through a middleman expert in smuggling objects through airports and ports of call, the collector lays out hard cash and greedily awaits the arrival of the smuggled object. Hungry for new exhibits and funding and without closely checking the provenance of the treasure, the museum director accepts the goods from the collector who, in turn, gets a nice tax write-off from the Internal Revenue Service for the donation." "... passages that read like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' In Iraq, Atwood finds a free-for-all in the ruins of the Babylonian town of Isin ..." "Other, drier sections explain the various international laws -- mostly ineffective -- against artifact commerce and attempts by countries to repatriate their history from private and public collections. Compared to Europe, the United States has a stellar history in this regard. 'Derided so often as unilateralist cowboys,' Atwood writes, 'the Americans were leading the way on cooperation, prosecutions, and police action to stop the loss of cultural property, while European governments were dithering or demanding the right to import antiquities unfettered.' The author also recounts exciting sting operations by this nation's undercover FBI agents. However, Atwood's analogy between antiquities smuggling and the drug trade is overstated and mars his otherwise even-handed reporting. Textile trafficking will never approach the amount of deaths and trashed lives that cocaine and heroin do."
J. Young, "Local woman scoured Iraq graves for evidence," in Lincoln Journal Star (Nebraska), December 10, 2004: "You might call Melissa Connor an expert on man's inhumanity to man. Technically, she is a forensic archaeologist ..." "Connor spoke Thursday at the Nebraska Wesleyan Forensic Science Symposium about her three-month mission there. She returned to Lincoln in November. She is an adjunct instructor for Wesleyan's forensic science graduate program. She also is a Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she has taught. She has worked on missions to such places as Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda and Cyprus." "Three crimes apply to mass murders, Connor said. They are genocide, which could pertain to the deaths of the Kurdish people; war crimes, which could result from the alleged use of poison gas in Iran and Kurdistan; and crimes against humanity, which could include execution, deportation and torture of large populations such as the Shiites and Kurds." "Jessica Mondero, a Wesleyan forensic science student from Hays, Kan., who accompanied Connor to Iraq, worked with Iraqi nationals to catalog traditional clothing that might be worn by Kurds and southern Iraqis. They used the information to help identify clothing on bodies found in the graves. Those clothes included homemade dresses with special sleeves, Mondero said Thursday from Hays Medical Center, where she works as an emergency room nurse. Other identifying items were fabric pockets with a piece of the Quran, in the shape of a triangle or rectangle, sewn into children's clothing to protect them from evil."
V. Ascione, M. Di Lucchio and D. Primerano, "Lettura, copyleft, crescita: le sfide della piccola editoria italiana," in raraMente.net (Italy), online, December 10, 2004: report on small-publishers book fair in Italy; the new book Saccheggio in Mesopotamia. Il Museo di Bagdad dalla nascita dell’Iraq ad oggi by Dr. Frederick Mario Fales [Università degli Studi di Udine] drew a lot of attention and praise; fellow archaeologist Dr. Carlo Zaccagnini (Università di Napoli "L’Orientale") and Corriere della Sera journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi [see Cremonesi January 2, 2004] spoke at the presentation; the latter suggested that Shi'ites were behind the looting of the National Museum and National Library with the intent to destroy proof of the Assyrian-Babylonian roots of Iraq and reclaim Iraq for Islam [a theory not necessarily shared by Fales, I think] [see also Fahrenheit December 9 , Zaccagnini December 22, 2004, Vagheggi January 3 and Yahoo! Italia Notizie June 8, 2005]
"Speciale Fahrenheit in diretta dalla Fiera," in Fahrenheit (Radio3; Italy), with online audio, December 9, 2004: interview with Dr. Frederick Mario Fales about his new book on the National Museum in Baghdad, its history and the looting [see also Ascione, Di Lucchio and Primerano December 10]
D. George, "Iraq Museum. Policy for Access to the Collection for Study," in The 2003- Iraq War & Archaeology, online, December 8, 2004: "In the international conference for ICOM, that took place in Seo[u]l, Korea, last October, I announced a statement ..." "Access to the collection for purposes of study or cataloging shall be granted to all scholars, regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnicity. Access will be granted, depending on the condition of the objects and by previous approval and appointment with the museums. Research will be conducted within the museum's facilities. Access will not be granted to scholars and institutions that are known to work with stolen Iraqi antiquities or give expertise to the illicit market in antiquities, whether that work involves Mesopotamian Antiquities, the Cultural Heritage of Iraq, or antiquities illicitly acquired from other countries."
Ch.E. Jones, "Signed by the president: 'Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act of 2004,'" in Iraqcrisis, online, December 7, 2004: "H.R.1047: "To amend the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States to modify temporarily certain rates of duty, to make other technical amendments to the trade laws, ... Became Public Law No: 108-429"
"Czechs to aid with archaeology," in Iraqi Press Monitor (UK), online, 204 (December 6, 2004): " (Al-Bayan) – Baghdad Council leader Muhammed Baqir al-Suhail said the Czech government would examine archeological sites in Baghdad in cooperation with the municipal government. He added that a Czech technical staff would participate in the process in accord with a protocol to be signed by Baghdad Municipality and the Ministry of Culture. (Al-Bayan is issued ... by the Islamic Dawa Party, chaired by Vice-President Ibrahim al-Jafari.)"
McG. Gibson, "Request info on Naram-Sin's head," in Iraqcrisis, online, December 6, 2004: "... it was removed, with all the other Museum obje[c]ts, after the [Central Bank] vaults were drained of the water that flooded in during the eve[w]nts of April 10-12., 2003. It [w]had been in[ ]the water, but was treated by the conservators of the Mus[eu]m . It was then put once again into secure storage." [see also Reichel December 3]
M. Garen, "Status of major sites in the south (mdsaba@uchicago.edu)," in Iraqcrisis, online, December 6, 2004: "There is no accurate picture since it is so difficult to get out to the sites. When I left in August, 200 or more looters were still digging almost every night at Umma and Adab. Other sites had been heavily damaged, but were no longer being loote[d], perhaps because there was almost nothing left to loot. The situation has improved since August. The Ministry of Culture has provided six vehicles with about fifty men to patrol the archaeological sites in the south, which has made some difference. The ultimate cost won't be know fully until it is safe enough to get out to the sites, but from ariel [sic] photographs, the damage is extensive to most of the 18 major Sumerian city states."
S. Paley, "Status of major sites in the south," in Iraqcrisis, online, December 5, 2004: "The estimates are three shipments of [looted] antiquities [are smuggled] a week to Iran and Syria, 3000 objects in each shipment, 1/3 forgeries. This from Micah Garen at a recent meeting at Columbia U." [see also Garen December 6]
J. Connolly, "'Gilgamesh': The Iraq War, 2500 B.C.," in The New York Times, December 5, 2004: "[Stephen] Mitchell's soothing, sanguine popularizations attract a large readership partly because they read as both self-help books and spiritual manuals." "And when Mitchell overreaches in his attempt to move the reader, the epic's subtle balance between the quest for immortality of the body and for eternal life through fame is undone. What is alien does not always alienate, however. There actually is enlightenment to be found in this jolting confrontation with the foreignness of the past. And in light of the attempts to remake Iraq into a democratic reflection of the United States, Mitchell's well-intentioned Americanization of Mesopotamia's ancient epic has an uncomfortably ironic flavor."
C. Reichel, "Request info on Naram-Sin's head," in Iraqcrisis, online, December 3, 2004: "During the war, the bronze head of an Akkadian King from Nineveh (n.b. the assignment of this piece to Naramsin is conventional; stylistically it is closer to sculptures and relief[s] depicting Sargon, esp. in its hairdo) was reportedly stored in the vault of the National Bank in Baghdad, together with the Nimrud treasure and the gold objects from the Royal Cemetery of Ur. I do not recall having seen any recent (i.e., post-war) photograph of it that would show its present condition. However, during his visit to Chicago in October 2003 Donny George told me that, in the face of rumors last June about this piece having been seen in a Western collection, he inspected it himself in the bank vault and found it to be present." [no. 53 in the Oriental Institute's Lost Treasures from Iraq database; see also Gibson December 6]

"The British 'queen' of Iraq," in BBC News (UK), December 2, 2004: "[Explorer Gertrude] Bell (1868-1926) is one of 17 great Britons featured in the 'Movers and Shakers' exhibition at the National Archives in Kew, west London." "... but despite her love of adventure she was politically conservative and joined the Anti Suffrage League." "... she was the only woman drafted as an intelligence agent and became Oriental Secretary to the High Commission in Basra. ... When Winston Churchill was made Colonial Secretary in 1921, he summoned his greatest experts on the Middle East to a conference in Egypt to determine the future of Mesopotamia. There were 39 men and Gertrude Bell. In 1921, she was asked to draw up the borders of the new nation of Iraq and helped choose its first ruler, Prince Faisal. For years she was one of Churchill's closest personal and political advisers, a position that earned her the title of 'Uncrowned Queen of Iraq'. As her political role in Iraq declined with the new regime in power, she returned to her first love - archaeology. In 1923 she became Honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq and established the Baghdad Museum."

Photo 1: "Bell analysed the political situation ahead of elections" [in 1921 Iraq]

Photo 2: "Letter from British High Commissioner to the Colonial Office, 1927. This letter reveals the request by King Faisal for part of the Baghdad Museum to be named after Bell."

B. Gopnik, "An Exotic Tale Formed of Clay And Imagination," in The Washington Post, December 2, 2004: a timely exhibition at the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC, reminds us that Iraq stands for more than Mesopotamia: 9th-cent.-AD Chinese ceramics influenced Iraqi potters in Basra whose innovations in turn were picked up on by their Chinese colleagues
"War Wrecks Iraq's Heritage," in The Digger (UK), 34 (December 2004): "Although military authorities claim they respect Iraq’s buried heritage, worryingly British troops refer to the area outside their bases as 'the Gifa' (Great Iraqi F*ck All)." "Ironically, millions of dollars of USAID grants have been allocated for archaeology and museum conservation in Iraq. These programs, often subcontracted to companies with Republican party ties, are a problem for Iraqi institutions. If they cooperate, they risk being identified with the occupation and targeted by the resistance as a result." [thanks for quoting me and referring to this site!]
J. Lambrecht, "Mandeeër in Basra," in De Brakke Hond (Belgium), 85 (Winter 2004 [December 2004]): about a June 30, 2004, meeting in Basra with a Mandaean who talks about the persecution of his ancient Christian sect; Lambrecht mentions a "Babylonian pot" he saw in an antique shop in the old bazaar of Baghdad during an earlier visit [no time indication]: a not very refined [i.e., earthenware] bowl, with an incantation in ancient writing spiraling to a representation of a "chained demon with an enormous phallus" at the bottom; he also saw one in the "thieves bazaar" in Amman consisting of 8 poorly-glued-together shards [for other examples, see for instance the Kelsey Museum at the University of Michigan]

This site is edited by Belgian archaeologist Francis Deblauwe, Ph.D., living in Streamwood, Illinois (USA), who is affiliated with Archaeos, Inc., and a research associate of the University of Vienna (Austria).