[CPProt.net] Iraq: Museums closed and looting rampant; officials describe the situation on the ground

[MusSecNetworkCulPropProtNet]

Iraq: Museums closed and looting rampant
Iraqi officials describe the situation on the ground
By Jason Edward Kaufman

Violence and instability continue to threaten Iraq's cultural heritage,
report officials of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage
(SBAH). All museums remain closed, and looting of archaeological sites
continues. The Iraqis lack the funds, equipment, and personnel to cope with
the restoration and maintenance of museums and monuments and the protection
of archaeological sites. "None of the planned international initiatives can
now be carried out inside Iraq", says Elizabeth Simpson, a professor at the
Bard Graduate Center in New York who organised an Iraq session at the
Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting in Boston last month.
The Art Newspaper was there.

Museums
At the National Museum in Baghdad, new security systems have been installed
and a wall topped with razor wire has been erected around the building. Last
summer the museum welded shut the entrances to the storerooms and the
administrative wing. A new storage building with an underground secure
bunker will be finished later this year. The conservation laboratory has
been refurbished and students are training in Jordan.

The latest estimates of objects looted are 15,000 taken from storerooms of
which 10,000 have been documented and 3,323 returned. Another 1,450 pieces
from other sites have been brought to the museum by Iraqis, police, customs,
and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). An in-house report on the
thefts based on interviews with more than 90 people has been delivered to
the Minister of Culture. Abdul Aziz Hameed, director of the SBAH, says that
it is apparent that the perpetrators had inside knowledge of the location of
items in the storerooms. It is possible that some people involved still work
at the museum, although no action has been taken. A public hearing will be
convened when the security situation allows and individuals will be held to
account.

Other museums in Iraq remain damaged and closed: the Basra Museum is
occupied by squatters, the Nasiriya Museum was burned, the Amara Museum was
damaged but has been refurbished, the museums at Kufa and Nejef are occupied
by the Islamist party, the new Tikrit Museum was destroyed by cruise
missiles at the outset of the war (it was empty at the time), and the Mosul
Museum, hit by a shell that damaged the Hatrian gallery roof. According to
Dr Hameed the museum was looted with 30 bronze panels from the 9th-century
BC Assyrian city of Balawat among the losses.

In Hatra, controlled detonations at an ammunition dump are damaging nearby
Hellenistic, Roman, and Islamic-period buildings. In Mosul, the so-called
leaning tower-a slanting minaret that remains from the 12th-century Great
Mosque-is at risk as the US attacks that city.

Archaeological sites
Most of Iraq's 10,000 or more archaeological sites remain unprotected, and
many have been pillaged by bands of looters. The SBAH employs 1,600
guards-locals who watch sites close to their villages-but many more are
needed to begin to control the pillage. SBAH has recently established a
special police division dedicated to archaeological sites. They will patrol
in cars with weapons and communications systems and have direct connection
with the local police if they need back-up. This Facilities Protection
Service already has 1,750 recruits deployed in provinces south of Baghdad.
"Unfortunately, the looters are moving on to other provinces", says Dr
Hameed, who says the aim is to expand the force to cover the country.
Vehicles, radios, and weapons are needed, and Unesco is currently delivering
45 cars as part of a three-year, $5.5-million, UN Development Group
programme for Iraq.

Donny George, director of the Iraq Museum, estimates that no more than 25%
of smuggled objects are stopped at the Iraqi border. To date, Iraqi
antiquities have been seized by customs in Saudi Arabia (18 items), Kuwait
(38), Syria (360), and Jordan (1,250), as well as about 600 items by US
Customs. The confiscated materials will be returned once there is a stable
environment in Baghdad. Turkey and Iran have not disclosed what they have
seized, despite requests from SBAH. Dr George says that Turkish scholars
informed him that antiquities confiscated at the border are being kept in
Turkish museums.

Security concerns
Dr George says he and the museum staff are in constant danger. "These
insurgents are killing very distinguished engineers, doctors-it's a kind of
campaign to empty the country of intellectual people. Every day when I leave
home I sit in my car and I don't know if I will reach the museum or not".

Nevertheless, Dr George remains optimistic. "Everyone is concentrating on
the violence, but no one mentions that children are going to school,
thousands of people are working with the government and getting paid,
sometimes 60 times the salary they used to have. No one is mentioning that
we have theatre and concerts", says Dr George. "Normal life is coming".

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