[CPProt.net] Looting of ancient sites threatens heritage

[MSN CPPnet]

Looting of ancient sites threatens heritage  
By Mark Wilkinson 

Reuters, Jordan Times July 1, 2005

BOSTON - Iraq's archaeological sites, despite protection efforts, are so
ravaged by looters that the pillaging has landed the entire embattled nation
on a list of the world's 100 most endangered cultural sites. Two years after
the US-led invasion of Iraq and a widely publicised break-in at the Baghdad
Museum, the country is a hotbed of antiquities plundering that threatens to
put huge gaps in the understanding of its rich history, experts say.

Once called Mesopotamia, Iraq is regarded as the cradle of civilisation and
the birthplace of cities. This year's World Monuments Fund's list of the
world's 100 most endangered sites named Iraq, the first time an entire
country was listed as at risk.

"It's devastating. It's obliterating the country's heritage, and we might
never know the full story of Iraq," said Clemens Reichel, an archaeologist
at the University of Chicago. "Archaeological sites now look like lunar
landscapes."

The ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh, the ziggurat at Ur, the temple
precinct of Babylon and the 9th century spiral minaret at Samarra have been
"scarred by violence," the World Monuments Fund said, while adding that
looting has damaged other equally significant sites, especially in the
South.

Touring Iraqi sites from a US military helicopter, McGuire Gibson, a
professor at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, said he
could see between 250 and 300 men digging at the site of the ancient city of
Adab. "The damage was unbelievable," he wrote in a paper.

The pillaging could hurt a wider understanding of human history, said Donny
George, director of the Iraq Museum.

"What was stolen is not just Iraqi heritage," said George, recently in
Boston to promote a book on the museum's collection entitled "The Looting of
the Iraq Museum, Baghdad."

"It is the heritage of mankind, the origins of agriculture, animal
husbandry, so when you lose such material, even just one piece, it's a great
loss," he said.

Black market

In spite of efforts by UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, and
law enforcement agencies including the FBI and Interpol to curb ransacking
and the trafficking of artefacts, Iraqi pieces chronicling millennial of
human history are finding their way to private collections across the world.

Archaeologists worry that once removed from their surroundings, relics
become almost impossible to understand in context. Once unearthed, they are
smuggled out of the country through Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to Europe and
the United States and flood the black market.

Some pieces such as cylinder seals - small engraved stone cylinders used to
stamp impressions on wet clay that once fetched small fortunes at auction -
sell on the online auction site eBay for a few hundred dollars.

In the past two years, about 1,000 objects were confiscated at airports in
the United States, and hundreds more were found in Europe and neighbours of
Iraq such as Jordan and Syria.

In spite of the international effort, Reichel, who coordinates a clearing
house of missing Iraqi antiquities designed to help in their recovery, said
more could be done.

"What they are doing now is like waving your hands around to try and catch
flies," he said. "One thing they could do is forbid the trade of Iraqi
antiquities."

UNESCO sends information on missing artefacts to Interpol, which tries to
track them down. The UN group also has trained and equipped border patrol
and site guards to ensure relics are not smuggled out of the country.

Tradition of looting

Conflict and looting have historically gone hand in hand, although
motivations may have changed through the years.

"In ancient wars, getting the statue of a king would have been an act to
insult the conquered country or city," George said. "Now it's about the
material value."

Tomb raiders and looters abound from Latin America to Asia and the Middle
East. In Israel for instance, a land rich in ancient history, thieves raid
about 300 antiquity sites every year and hundreds more in the nearby West
Bank.

During the 1991 Gulf War, looters broke into nine of Iraq's regional
museums, stealing more than 4,000 objects from statues to clay tablets and
pottery. Less than a handful of those artefacts have been recovered.

The thieves who stole 15,000 pieces from the Baghdad museum as US troops
took the city in April 2003 were believed to be professionals with inside
knowledge of the museum and archaeology, George said.

Using glass cutters, they entered the building and carefully picked ancient
relics from replicas and found a storeroom that held boxes full of precious
jewels.

About half of the pieces have been returned to the museum, including the
Warka Vase, an alabaster piece from 3000 BC, and the marble Warka Head.

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