Today's Boston Globe had a good editorial on the subject of the looting
and destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq
"Crimes against history"
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/105/editorials/Crimes_against_history+.shtml
and also an informative article on archaeologists' plans to rescue what
can be saved
"Treasure hunt: For antiquities experts, the chase is on to recover the
relics looted from Iraq's National Museum"
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/105/living/Treasure_hunt+.shtml
________________________________________________________________________
For info, photos & updates on Iraqi art and archaeology and the 2003 war,
see
http://cctr.umkc.edu/user/fdeblauwe/iraq.html
and
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~museum/iraq.html
and
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0126/index.html
________________________________________________________________________
IMAGES:
The Iraq Museum was closed for several years after the 1991 Gulf war,
but it was restored with German aid and the reinstalled galleries,
with the museum's chief treasures on display, were reopened to the public
just two years ago, in April 2000.
For a virtual tour of the restored galleries, with photos of the --
now-missing or destroyed -- star displays, see the Univ. of Innsbruck's
Iraq Museum Web site
http://info.uibk.ac.at/c/c6/c616/museum/museum.html
Click on
Erdgeschoss (lower level)
http://info.uibk.ac.at/c/c6/c616/museum/lower.html
and on
1. Stockwerk (upper level)
http://info.uibk.ac.at/c/c6/c616/museum/upper.html
(click on the names of the galleries for thumbnail photos,
then click on the thumbnails to see larger versions of the images)
________________________________________________________________________
A widely available English-language guide to the lost collections is:
Basmachi, Faraj.
Treasures of the Iraq Museum
Baghdad, Iraq: Ministry of Information, Directorate General of
Antiquities, 1975-1976.
426 p. : ill., map, plans ; 29 cm.
Bibliography: p. 413-422.
________________________________________________________________________
Those interested in questions of law and responsibility in the pillage
of the Iraq Museum may be interested in the following message, forwarded
from the International Council of Museums Discussion List (ICOM-L)
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html
The author is Patrick Boylan, professor of heritage policy and management
at the City University, London and an expert on cultural property issues.
http://www.city.ac.uk/artspolicy/resource/boylan.htm
Note what Prof. Boylan says about the difference in the actions of U.S.
troops -- and of looters -- on the east and west side of the Tigris River
in Baghdad. The facts he cites cast doubt on the official line that
there was nothing the U.S. military could have done to prevent the
destruction and looting.
Days later, the military is still busy making up excuses - made all
the more incredible by the (otherwise creditworthy) fact that they had
consulted archaeologists and monuments experts on the eve of the war,
who'd warned them specifically of the danger of looting (with the example
of what happened after the end of the war in 1991, when 7 of Iraq's 12
regional museums were looted in civil disorders) and who'd put the Iraq
Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad on top of 150 key sites that needed
to be protected. From an AP wire service report (Tues. April 15, 2003):
Much anger at the destruction has been directed at U.S. troops
who stood by and watched it happen. On Tuesday, U.S. officials
acknowledged they were surprised by the rampage and said troops
were too occupied by combat to intervene when they first arrived
in Baghdad.
"I don't think anyone anticipated that the riches of Iraq would be
looted by the people of Iraq," said U.S. Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks
at a U.S. Central Command briefing Tuesday in Qatar.
That's bending the truth, to put it charitably, but I'm glad to see
that the general feels sufficiently guilty about what happened to want
to cover up -- his command clearly failed to anticipate or prevent what
UNESCO has termed "a cultural disaster" in Baghdad, but they had the
information in hand. They just failed to act on it.
Andras Riedlmayer
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