The Iraq War & Archaeology Archive 58

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.

"National Endowment for the Humanities Grants. August 2005," in National Endowment for the Humanities, online, [August 30, 2005]: 3 Recovering Iraq’s Past grants were announced: "University of California, Berkeley ... $99,971. Project Director: David Stronach. Project Title: Archaeological Field Data from UC Berkeley Expedition to Nineveh: 1987, 1989, 1990. Description: The creation of a digital database of field documentation from the university's archaeological survey and selected excavations at the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh (7th millennium into 1st millennium B.C.E.) that were conducted in 1987, 1989, and 1990." "Center for Jewish History ... $98,536. Project Director: Robert Sink. Project Title: The Iraqi Jewish Archive. Description: The creation of an item-level collection assessment and inventory database of books and documents in Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and Arabic that provide evidence of the history and culture of the Jewish community in Iraq since 762 B.C.E. A sample of the variety of paper-based materials in the archives would be conserved as a testbed for a future phase of the project." "Stony Brook: SUNY Research Foundation, Stony Brook Main Campus ... $99,999. Project Director: Elizabeth Stone. Project Title: Remote Sensing and GIS Training and Research for Iraqi Archaeologists. Description: An intensive training program for two faculty members each from Baghdad and Mosul Universities and two members of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS)."
In an e-mail dated August 30, 2005, Dr. Donny George communicated: "In August 23-24th, a two day meeting was held at the auditorium of the Library of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, to study and discuss the work of the different departments of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, the work that had been done since April 9th 2003 until now. Discussions took place about the future of the work of this institution. The meeting was headed for the two days by HE Minister of State for Tourism and Antiquities, Mr. Hashim Al-Hashimi; also over two hundred of the member staff of the SBAH attended the meeting, together with Iraqi and Arab media. The minister enriched the discussions and put [forth] his ideas for the coming future of the institution. The security situation of the archaeological sites, in the southern parts of the country, was discussed thoroughly, together with the danger that threatens the archaeological sites from the military actions by the multinational forces in the country, especially in Samara', Babylon, Hatra, Tell Afar, the city of Ur, and other places. In the restoration part of the discussion, special attention was given to three very important monuments in Iraq: the arch of Ctesiphon in Baghdad (built 339 AD), the minaret of Al-Noory Mosque in Mosul, also known as the kneeling minaret (built 1172 AD), and the dome of the Al-Sahrawardy Mosque in Baghdad (12th century AD). These three monuments are suffering so much from deterioration, because, for a long time nothing was done to restore or support them. In this regard, HE the Minister announced a call for all the International Institutions, Universities, and Governments of the donors' countries, to do something, to help support the urgent restoration works for these very important monuments in Iraq."
8-30-05: I am pleased to announce that Archaeos, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to archaeological education and research, has agreed to become the American home for The Iraq War & Archaeology. Bear with me while I'm updating and improving the web site. Soon the site will be mirrored both on the Archaeos server and at the University of Vienna. Thank you, David Gimbel and José Alcayaga! By the way, I have decided to drop the "2003-" from the title as it was too confusing: it meant to indicate that the war started in 2003 and was still ongoing but many readers missed or misunderstood the hyphen anyway. Please use the abbreviation "IW&A." Many improvements and enhancements are under consideration.
O. Weber, "Indiana Jones à Bagdad," in Le Point (France), 1724 (September 29, 2005): review of the novel "Uruad" by Jean-Christophe Issartier: an erudite archaeological thriller with a tight plot; one dives into the arcana of writing, from the Code of Hammurabi to the tablets of Ur; the book invokes some of the legends of Indo-European civilization [sic]; a daring voyage into our myths [see also Le Télégramme August 28, 2005]

"Les secrets de Babylone," in Le Télégramme (France), August 28, 2005: review of "Uruad. Par Jean-Christophe Issartier, éditions Le Félin, 19,90 €."; theological/archaeological thriller set at the time of the invasion of Iraq in early 2003; did the US go to war to protect a secret that could change the world? Iraqi archaeologists excavating the Sumerian site of Aruad [fictitious] had found something special; invading US military proceeds to systematically destroy museums, ancient sites and remains, Iraqi archaeologists disappear, Uruad is bombed; a US officer ruthlessly kills anyone approaching certain burials; the hero is William Fisher, an English Sumerologist... [see also Weber September 29, 2005]

Photo: [no caption]

Ch. Jones, "Acting director of the Iraq Museum," in Iraqcrisis, online, August 26, 2005: "I am informed by a reliable source that Dr. Ahmed Kamil has been appointed as acting director of the Iraq Museum. He is an assyriologist and head of the Cuneiform department at the Museum." [he replaces Dr. George who was just made SBAH Chairman, see Jones August 21; but see later Jones October 31, 2005]
N. Muhalhal, "New grants to preserve ancient sites in southern province," in Azzaman (UK), August 24, 2005: "Denmark, Italy and the United Nations have extended new grants to preserve ancient sites in the southern Province of Dihqar [sic], the province’s deputy governor, Ahmad Ali, said. ... 'An agreement has been signed with the United Nations Development program to maintain and develop archaeological and tourist sites in the province,' Ali said. He said Italy has allocated $450,000 for the construction of 'a cultural and information center in Nasiriya, the provincial capital." [am I to assume this is on top of the $125,000 for the museum mentioned in Adnkronos International August 17?]; "Ali declined to give figures about the U.N. and Danish grants but said 'the sums are good.'"
In an e-mail dated August 24, 2005, Dr. Trevor Watkins (University of Edinburgh) was so kind to respond to my call for info concerning the castle area of Tel Afar (see Azzaman August 21): "In the late 1980s, I excavated a damaged early Neolithic site on the outskirts of Tel Afar as a salvage archaeology one-off. Previously, I had worked within the area of the Saddam dam project. We were based in the citadel at Tel Afar, which was managed by the Directorate-General. There was an office and an antiquities staff of one, and a small museum that had never been opened to the public. We lived there and had our finds-processing set-up in the citadel, too. The Directorate-General had repaired and restored some of the medieval fortifications around the top of the citadel mound, but about half of the circuit had been lost. The town's clinic was also inside the citadel area, and some stone-built houses that had grown up in the least well-preserved half of the area. The citadel was almost certainly constructed on a fairly large and steep-sided tell, but I don't think that any soundings had been carried out. Below the citadel walls to the north and west, there was an area of the old town, full of large, stone-built, multi-storey courtyard houses that accommodated extended families. The commercial centre of the town stretched away to the south, and was not particularly old."[the tell might hide the remains of ancient Nemet-Ishtar/Nemed-Issar]
8-24-05: I was asked to post the following announcement: "John Russell has received a temporary appointment as 'Special Coordinator for Iraqi Cultural Heritage' in the Cultural Heritage Center of the U.S. Department of State." [congratulations, John!]
"U.S. troops bomb Tel Affar despite parliament speaker’s warning," in Azzaman (UK), August 21, 2005: "U.S. troops have been bombing the city of Tel Affar in the past four days ..." "Even the city’s historic castle reputed for its ancient dwellings and settlements has not escaped the U.S. shelling." [I must admit I have no idea of the antiquity of this section of Tel Afar; can someone help me out, please? 8-24-05: bad news, see Watkins August 24]
Sh. Farr, "Lost treasure of Iraq," in The Seattle Times, August 21, 2005: "Yet few in the United States realize that as the Iraq war pushes into its third year, the stealing of cultural artifacts continues unabated, with little attention from the media." "'The story is larger than the museum. The wholesale looting going on across the country is devastating,' said the book's other co-editor, Milbry Polk, by phone from her home in New York. 'It's an absolute travesty that none of these sites are being protected. We bear a huge responsibility.'" "But some 8,000 objects from the [National M]useum are still missing, of an estimated 15,000 that disappeared during the looting of April 10-12, 2003. Among the lost are many extraordinary tablets and cuneiform documents and cylinder seals — precursors to cuneiform script, the world's earliest written language." [as far as I know, supposedly no cuneiform tablets or at least no significant number are missing, so this sentence is misleading?]; "One of the foremost frustrations for Schuster is what she calls the U.S. military's disregard for major historical architectural monuments. 'We had an option to do things appropriately,' she said. 'Then there are crazy things like having an airbase on Babylon." [actually, there was no airbase in Babylon, just a regular base with a helicopter landing pad]; "For many concerned people around the world, the pillage of the Iraq Museum remains clouded in contradictions, a story without an ending. All that can be done now is to try and restore what was damaged and hope that stolen objects can be recovered. For the authors of 'The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad,' the story is simply the most obvious part of an ongoing cultural crisis, one that they hope will not be repeated. 'We just hope that people will remember that these things were really formative in shaping who we are,' Schuster said. 'This is where we learned to be civilized humans and it is going away in uncivilized ways.'" [see also Farr Questions ... August 21, 2005]
Sh. Farr, "Questions about museum's looting linger," in The Seattle Times, August 21, 2005: "The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad' is misnamed, its co-editors agree. The book does not delve into the mystery of what took place on April 10-12, 2003 as looters smashed through the museum stealing or damaging thousands of objects. 'We'd have preferred <a title> that looked at the cradle of civilization. It was a publisher's decision,' said co-editor Angela Schuster." "Donny George, director of the Iraq Museum, wrote a preface for the book ... He does not give further details about how the looting occurred, nor does the book make clear which objects are missing and which have been returned. Co-editor Milbry Polk said that with the inventory in flux and objects still being recovered, that would have quickly dated the book." "In a documentary video made shortly after the 2003 looting and aired on PBS earlier this year, British reporter Dan Cruickshank attempted to interview George and other museum employees about what happened. They were not forthcoming and said no inventory of the museum contents existed, making it impossible for U.S. investigators to determine what was actually missing. After seeing evidence of military fortifications at the museum, including a hand grenade and weapons in the building, as well as other irregularities, Cruickshank concluded that some museum staff may have been allied with Saddam Hussein's regime and complicit in the looting. 'I think there weren't a lot of choices,' Schuster said, stressing the extreme danger and uncertain political situation that the staff of the state-run museum faced. 'Clearly a lot of it was an inside job and we did say as much.'" [for links to comments on these and other Cruickshank claims, see Farr March 17, 2005; see also Farr Lost treasure ... August 21, 2005]
Ch. Jones, "SBAH news," in Iraqcrisis, online, August 21, 2005: "I am informed that as of today, August 22nd, Donny George is the President of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage [of Iraq]" [congratulations, Donny! see also Jones August 26]

[C. Hamann], "Third-generation Iraqi looks after Abraham's birthplace," in Yahoo! News, online, August 20, 2005: "[Dhia] Mhesen, 46, is the third generation caretaker at Ur, a 4,000 year-old city located near Nasiriyah, 375 kilometers (235 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital. ... The most imposing building at Ur is the ziggurat, a stepped mudbrick temple with sloping stairways that towers over the flat desert floor." "Since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the eight square kilometer (three square-mile) site has fallen within a restricted area near a US military airport. Speaking surprisingly good English, which he said he had learned from the dictionary, Mhesen recounts how his grandfather excavated the site in 1922 with British archaeologist Sir Leonard Wooley. Then Mhesen's father took over as Ur caretaker from his grandfather in 1961, and he took the job in 1991. He has lived all his life at Ur. Built around 2100 BC, the ziggurat is believed to have been 26 meters ... high during its heyday. But since the top structure was knocked down, today it stands at 17 meters, with a base 62 by 43 meters, Mhesen said. The walls gradually slope upward, with a top level measuring 20 by 11 meters." "During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, Saddam ordered that four of his prized fighter jets from the nearby air base be placed next to the ziggurat to shield them from destruction by US warplanes. When Mhesen's father protested, soldiers threatened to kill him if he told anyone, Mhesen said. The planes were spared, but the air base was largely abandoned when a no-fly zone was established across southern Iraq at the end of the war."

Photo: "AFP/HO-US Army - Sat Aug 20, 6:01 PM ET - A stepped mud brick ziggurat temple of the moon god is seen in Ur in this US Army photo. Ur is the reputed birthplace of Abraham. (AFP/HO-US Army)"

F. Deblauwe, "Attending RAI 51. Observations on the 51e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale in Chicago, July 17-23, 2005" (IW&A Documents, 4), in The Iraq War & Archaeology (Austria), online, August 5, 2005, updated August 20, 2005: "Monday July 18 ... Robert McC. Adams ... drew attention to the horrible situation in Iraq and expressed his opinion that the pending civil war (which may even have started already) can probably only be avoided by a US withdrawal." "[MacGuire Gibson] showed many photos of the looting of the archaeological sites of Iraq. The photos of the Ur III temple palace in Umma from 2001 (before) and 2003 (after), for example, spoke eloquently of the huge damage. Nippur looted for 2 months in the summer of 2003 but now safe. Abu Salabikh safe as far as 6 months ago. Finally, Robert McC. Adams made some concluding remarks. Perhaps the destruction of the big, important sites may force us to pay more systematic attention to the many smaller sites out there which after all were an important aspect of ancient society too. Better availability of satellite photography may be of great use here. ... The big discussion on how to deal with looted artifacts, how to prevent, curtail looting, etc. started. No easy solutions, I'm afraid." "Over Wednesday [July 20] breakfast, Michael Müller-Karpe briefed me on his October 2004 trip to Baghdad." "The general meeting of the International Association for Assyriology (IAA) took place today in the late afternoon. ... A discussion was then started about the last point on the agenda: 'Policy on unprovenanced inscriptions.' Let's just say there was no perfect agreement. MacGuire Gibson: it all started when 5,000 artifacts were stolen from museums in Iraq after the 1991 War, of which only 45 were recovered. He met a Ms. Osthoff two weeks ago in Amman: she said looting has now reached the Diyala region. Irene Winter: the AIA has already instituted programs to educate military personnel on Mesopotamian antiquities at their deployment centres in Georgia, etc." [9-20-05: see now Archaeological Institute of America September 19, 2005]; "There are two purist positions on the issue: one that says no to any dealings with looted artifacts of any type as that only encourages more looting, and one that says that looted cuneiform tablets contain precious textual information and should therefore be studied anyway. A committee will be formed to formulate a policy by the next RAI. I personally am disappointed: this is the year 2005, more than 2 years after the start of the Iraq War and we as a scholarly organization still haven't figured out a sensible policy in this matter we can all more or less agree with? Sad!"

I'd like to quote an idea I expressed even if it's not directly related to the plight of Iraqi archaeology: "During lunch [on Thursday July 21], I chatted with Frauke Weiershäuser about the evolving standards of academic publishing in our field. Digital formats are gaining ground but the problem of what counts for academic promotion and the like remains unsolved. Still, funding of the institutes and researchers doing the publishing as well as the academic libraries doing the purchasing is only decreasing. I feel that the established academic series, esp. the ones published by university departments, should be edited and prepared for print with the same quality standards as usual but then, just before the usual step of sending a manuscript to a printer, it should instead be converted into a high-quality pdf file. This then should be placed on the web to be downloaded for free by anyone interested so as to encourage research in our small field. Academic libraries could download it, print it out and bind it into a book to place in the stacks. If there are fine photographs or plans, they should have it printed out by their university copying/printing service on a high-quality printer. This approach would save the money for a limited and expensive print run which is almost always totally subsidized anyway. Any academic library could also acquire a lot more of the literature without having to make the painful choices that are all too common today. And because it would go through the same process as before, it would still count fully for academic achievement." [comments, anyone?]

"Saturday July 23, 10:45 am ... And then the big day arrived: ... the Workshop 'The Threat to Iraq's Cultural Heritage - Current Status and Future Prospects.' After an introduction by organizer Clemens Reichel, MacGuire Gibson [spoke:] ... Basetki statue has lost another toe while it was stolen. Ur harp was taken apart by looters to try get the gold out of it. ... Every little tell around Nippur has been badly damaged by looting, according to information from a Spanish army officer. The next paper was 'Legal or Illegal - Can We Afford a Market for (Un-)Excavated Objects?' by Michael Müller-Karpe. He explained the proposed German legislation that would finally enact the UNESCO convention of 1970; it has so many loopholes that it would not be good at all, it would also not abide by the UNESCO convention of 1995. A major defect is that protection is limited to a finite number of important artifacts explicitly listed by a country, ignoring for instance all archaeological objects looted from sites. ... MacGuire Gibson then read Joanne Farchakh-Bajjali's (who was unable to come) richly-illustrated paper 'Cultural Heritage Condemned to Destruction--the Looting of Archaeological Sites in Southern Mesopotamia.' It was actually retitled 'Heritage on Death Row' by Farchakh. Looters dig trenches and then dig tunnels to stay out of the sun. Parthian site of Farwa also extensively looted. Smugglers were initially overpaying to recruit farmers to loot. Arshad Yasin, Saddam Hussein's brother-in-law who had been involved in [looting and] smuggling operations in the past, is active again since 2003 in looting and smuggling of artifacts. Farchakh is working on a film about all this." "... Paola Negri Scafa and Salvatore Viaggio [ENEA/Università di Pisa] ... They have an incipient 3-D image and text database project of the cuneiform tablets of the National Museum in Baghdad." <August 4 addition: but using solely already published tablets, I think; also, as was remarked from the audience, why re-invent the wheel already invented by the CDLI project at UCLA/Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte that has already processed more than 125,000 texts?>" [see also Daubree July 25, 2005]; "[David] Myers started with explaining how the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund joined in 2004 for their Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative. They already have run a training session in November-December 2004 in Amman with 16 SBAH participants, a session in April 2005 at the British Museum in London with 3 SBAH staff, and in June 2005 a session for 6 SBAH staff; still to come: August-September 2005 for 18 SBAH staff, November 2005, April 2006, May 2006, June 2006, October-November 2006; to continue for several years. Savage continued with more detail on the Iraq Cultural Heritage GIS database which will be bilingual Arabic/English (see [Photo 2]). It's a significantly enhanced version of the JADIS one of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. They plan on making it web based eventually. Roberto Parapetti [Iraqi-Italian Centre for the Restoration of Monuments] and Carlo Lippolis [Università di Torino] were then scheduled with 'The Contribution of the Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino to the Reconstruction of Iraq's Cultural Heritage.' They have been studying about 1400 artifacts seized by the Jordanian authorities, though not all are from Iraq. Some still have the 'IM' number on them. He showed an interesting overview of the type of objects confiscated. The workshop concluded with 'The New FBI Art Crime Team and Iraq' by Bonnie Magness-Gardiner. The new rapid-deployment Art Crime Team was created in response to the crisis in Iraq. Legally, no Iraqi artifacts have been allowed to be imported into the US after 1990."

"... there appeared an article about the RAI on the front page of the Chicago Tribune of July 23: "Babylon's dirty secrets: No tablet left unturned. Experts in a 4,000-year-old language find Mesopotamians faced rising home prices, booming harems and doctors who laid it on thick" by W. Mullen. ... Too bad this journalist didn't speak to any archaeologists... He seems to have left with the impression that cuneiform texts was the thing the RAI was solely about. ... It's also odd that there wasn't a mention of the events in Iraq. Looting of sites, anyone? Which brings us to the impromptu but vehemently requested addition to the program of the Saturday workshop discussed in my 2 previous postings: a discussion on how to deal with unprovenanced, i.e., most-likely looted artifacts, esp. cuneiform tablets. Unfortunately, I had to leave early in order to catch my plane back home. It [the discussion, of course, not my leaving early ;-) ] was partially instigated by the petition that Michael Müller-Karpe had circulated." "I'd like to attend the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) sometime and compare. The next one is in April 2006 in Madrid. ... I see the organizing committee has already proposed a 'The State of Iraqi Archaeological Heritage (1990-2006). Looting, Restoration Projects, Current Situation' workshop!"

"Regarding the discussion about what to do with artifacts looted from Iraq, esp. cuneiform tablets, that appear on the market in the West, let me tell a 'what if?' story I used as an example a couple of times while in Chicago. As looters in Iraq are plundering rather systematically, on an unprecedented scale, at a fast rate of tell destruction and without much meaningful opposition, it would be quite possible that they hit upon the city of Agade. This capital of the later-3rd-mill.-BC Akkadian empire has long eluded us scholars and presumably would contain many remains that would elucidate this pivotal episode in Mesopotamian history and culture. Now say some tablets from this site reach an Assyriologist who's willing to ignore the telltale signs of recent looting. He examines the texts and comes to the conclusion that they must have come from an archive in Agade! He is ecstatic, tells the dealer. The latter at once tracks down what tell the tablets came from and puts in an order for more. Word gets around in the antiquities trade and among the smugglers and looters. After all, a find like this is impossible to keep a secret. A treasure hunting frenzy ensues. A couple of weeks later, there is nothing left of the tell of Agade worth excavating. At about that time, some Iraqi FPS archaeological guards finally arrive to check out what's going on but it's too late. Lots of artifacts (sculptures, tablets, seals, etc.) pop up on the antiquities market, all claimed to have been dug up at the now (in)famous Tell X. None of them have any archaeological context, stories about some having been found together may be true or may be just a ruse to drive up the price, even whether artifacts for sale are truly from Tell X is hardly certain. This confused, hopeless mess is all that's left of Agade. Some scholars wish the darn Tell X would never have been identified as Agade in the first place, instead left to be discovered at a later time when Iraq would have been at peace."

"A statement was prepared by Michael Müller-Karpe for the RAI. It condemns the looting of archaeological sites in Iraq and specifically urges scholars worldwide '... to refrain from providing expertise to the antiquities market and to private collectors, unless the artifacts in question can be proven to be neither excavated illegally nor exported without permission.' It was presented at the Workshop [on Saturday] ... and was subsequently signed by 46 of its attendees. It has now been posted at the Workshop's web site. Scholars in the field of Assyriology and Mesopotamian archaeology/art history are encouraged to add their names to the list of signatures (see the web page on how to contact Clemens Reichel to do this). ... And yes, as you can see in the list of signed names, the Universität Wien now has a satellite program in the US, viz. in Kansas City, Missouri! Just kidding. As most people probably know by now, [IW&A] and assorted academic web stuff of my hand have been kindly 'adopted' by the Institut für Orientalistik of the University of Vienna in Austria, and, as an added bonus, they threw in a nice title to put on my business card. However, I still don't have a permanent or full-time job, hence the PayPal buttons I've added just in case anyone has some spare change they'd like to donate."

"Furthermore, a paper I didn't attend but should have... is now fortunately available online, both the text and the slides—thank you!—, 'New digital tools for Mesopotamian cultural heritage preservation at CDLI' by Cale Johnson." "... slide 12 is esp. interesting: '... a couple years ago, ... Bob Englund noticed several proto-cuneiform tablets that were being auctioned by Bonham’s in London. ... Englund and staff at CDLI do regularly monitor not only the traditional markets, but also new media of circulation such as eBay. Given the images of the tablets published in the auction book, Englund did a search, located the tablets in our database and also noticed that the same tablets had been offered for sale in Amman in September of 2000. It is thus likely that these were a few of the growing number of Late Uruk, Early Dynastic and Old Akkadian tablets, presumably from Umma and its vicinity, that have been flooding the markets since the 1990-91 Kuwait War. The important thing in this case is that only because of such basic tools as catalogs, archival images and transliterational corpora now in place was it even possible to know which tablets these were, and where they had been until recently.'" "Finally, as of August 18, there were 78 signatures under the Chicago Statement. If you haven't signed yet, please do, and if you have, find a colleague who hasn't and make sure he/she does... ;-) "

Photo 1: "I include a photo of the looted site of Zabalam from the Four Corners Media web site"

Photo 2: [no caption; screen shot of the Iraq Cultural Heritage GIS database being set up in co-operation with the Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative]

Photo 3: [no caption; poster for the 5th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE), April 2006, Madrid; showing what looks like a 19th-cent. drawing of ruins of an Achaemenid palace in Iran]

On August 18, 2005, I received an e-mail from Dr. Donny George (Director General of Museums, SBAH): "Thank you very much for keeping me posted all the time, I have some news for you from the museum. The reconstruction work in the Iraq museum is continuing, the last phase of the security project is going on now, surveillance cameras outside the museum are being installed, motion detectors inside all the halls and electronic switches are all over, the control room is almost finished. This was after the earlier phases of good strong fences and gates, redoing roofs, and iron bars for all the windows of the museum. More work will be done very soon, that includes repainting all the museum halls, building lifts for disabled people, new lighting systems for the old parts of the museum that were built in 1960, and more. While all this is happening, in the morning of Tuesday Aug. 16, 2005, at about five o'clock in the morning, gun clashes started on the street beside the museum, at 5.15 that morning a helicopter gunship came in, and opened fire into that street, not speaking about the number of the casualties which was on the news, the museum western walls and the outer wall received a good number of shots and a water pipe was blown up, and also some small bits of bodies were inside the museum gardens." "I think it was reported that it happened in Street # 6 in the Alawi area, by Al-Arabia station, as I heard, no one mentioned the museum ..." [indeed, the news reports I found so far didn't mention this either: Yahoo! News, Middle East Online]; "Dear Francis, this is the situation surrounding the area of the Iraq Museum, but we are still there."
"Iraq: Italian Funds for Nasiriya Museum's Makeover," in Adnkronos International (Italy), online, August 17, 2005: "Italian troops stationed in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya, will provide 125,000 dollars for the restoration of the local museum which has been looted and vandalised since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. 'Work will be carried out by an Iraqi company under the surpervision of the Italian military,' the museum's director, Abd al-Amir al-Hamdani, told Adnkronos International (AKI). 'Restoration will include the building's first floor, with seven separate exhibition halls, including prehistoric, Sumero-Babylonian, Assyric [sic] and Islamic sections, as well as exhibition space on the second floor and the museum's library and the administration offices,' ... Italian police are holding a training course in Nasiriya for Iraqi guards who will be in charge of safeguarding their country's museums and archaelogical sites." [see also Muhalhal August 24]

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).