[CPProt.net] Archaeologists fight to save Iraqi sites

[Ellie Bruggeman]

Archaeologists fight to save Iraqi sites

British experts aid computer survey in attempt to protect monuments from 
looters and war damage

British archaeologists are training Iraqis to draw up the first modern 
inventory of the country's ancient sites and monuments in an attempt to 
curtail widespread looting.

The survey of thousands of Sumerian palaces, Assyrian ziggurats (towers) 
and Bronze Age settlements is being delayed because of the threat of 
kidnappings and attacks by insurgents.

The involvement of English Heritage continues a long tradition of 
British participation in Mesopotamian excavations, which in the past has 
attracted such figures as the novelist Agatha Christie and her 
archaeologist husband Sir Max Mallowan.

The scale of pilfering and destruction at innumerable sites is causing 
dismay in the profession, though many items stolen from the Baghdad 
Museum's storage rooms immediately after the American-led invasion have 
been returned.

"The situation has become desperate since the end of the war," said Bill 
Blake, who is the head of English Heritage's Metric Survey Team and 
recently returned from running courses in neighbouring Jordan. "State 
control has effectively collapsed and people are helping themselves to 
whatever they can get. They are taking material for building or digging 
for antiquities to be sold abroad.

"I have seen pictures of Bronze Age sites, dating back to 3000-4000BC, 
which march from horizon to horizon. They are uninvestigated as far as 
we know. There are tell sites [mounds of accumulated detritus from 
previous settlements] which look like moonscapes of hills. They have 
Arab cemeteries on the surface, then you dig down to pre-bronze age 
occupation. All sorts of cultural artefacts are disappearing - decorated 
pottery, sculptures and cuneiform tablets. Iraq was the cradle of 
western civilisation."

The English Heritage team, working in partnership with the Getty 
Conservation Institute and World Monument Fund, have been advising their 
Iraqi counterparts on latest surveying techniques, such as the use of 
GPS mapping equipment, data recording forms and satellite imaging.

The sessions are being held in Jordan because of the dangers for 
westerners in Iraq. Archaeologists who worked on the reconstruction of 
Babylon for Saddam Hussein as well as those from Baghdad and the Kurdish 
north have attended.

"I'm very impressed at the commitment of the people. Some of them had to 
work at gunpoint on the Babylon reconstruction. Now they are preparing a 
full inventory of the sites in Iraq. It's an opportunity to encourage 
those living near local sites to teach them to value historic remains in 
a new way."

Not only ancient monuments but unique 19th century houses in Baghdad are 
being destroyed, Mr Blake added. "There's a terrible loss of early, 
steel-framed buildings, for example, which are being pulled down because 
people want the metal."

Gaetano Palumbo, from the World Monument Fund, said the last known 
survey recorded 10,000 archaeological sites in Iraq. "This new and 
comprehensive inventory will be a computer-based system which will be 
used for conservation and to prevent looting," he said.

"We need to give a lot of training to ensure the best skills are passed 
over to staff from the Iraqi Board of Antiquities. We will use satellite 
imagery analysis and expect to discover new sites."

As well as the looting, damage has been caused by occupying troops. The 
most notorious example was at Babylon where US helicopters were said to 
have sandblasted fragile bricks in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
Babylon from 605-562BC.

"There are a number of bases which are still too close to ancient 
sites," Mr Palumbo revealed. "There's one near Ur and another near 
Kirkuk. Both are American, I believe. It's impossible to know what 
damage is being done."

A new police force to protect the nation's extraordinary cultural 
heritage and deter looters is being trained by Polish and Italian troops.

Britain's involvement in unearthing Iraq's antiquities was at its most 
intensive in the years after the first world war when the country was 
formally a British protectorate. Among those who led the excavations was 
Sir Max Mallowan, first director of the British School in Iraq.

His wife, Agatha Christie, spent several seasons cataloguing 
archaeological finds at Ur and Nineveh in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Her novel Murder in Mesopotamia draws on her experience in Iraq. "An 
archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have," she famously 
remarked of her time there. "The older she gets, the more interested he 
is in her."

One British archaeologist who has been to Iraq within the past year is 
John Curtis at the British Museum. He reported on the damage done to the 
Babylon site by US helicopters and vehicles. Earlier this spring he 
arranged for three Iraqi colleagues to come to the museum and University 
College London for training courses.

"The security situation has to improve before we have any substantial 
progress," said Dr Curtis. "Iraq is really one vast archaelogical site 
which has been continually inhabited for 8,000 years. Some of the sites 
are being pillaged in a very intensive way. It's certainly being 
organised by tribal groups.

"Some of what has been looted is being sold abroad. A consignment of 
artefacts was impounded in Newark, New Jersey. But I'm not aware of any 
Iraq items reaching London."

http://www.guardian.co.uk