Ingenious thieves ransack ancient Nineveh, other sites in troubled Iraq
by Les Donison, Chronicle Foreign Service, Sunday, February 11, 2001
Atop a hill near the heart of the city, walls and foundations rise from
the
ground to tell stories of an ancient time.
These are the excavated remains of the palace of Assyrian King
Sennacherib,
ruler of a once-great empire. In 612 B.C., the Medes and Babylonians
marched
on the storied city of Nineveh, site of modern-day Mosul. The city --
and
with it Sennacherib's glorious palace -- was laid to waste.
Now, once again, the palace is under attack -- by looters desperate for
quick cash.
"They are just destroying the heritage of mankind," bemoaned Donny
George,
one of Iraq's foremost archaeologists. "They are crushing it, turning
it
into this stupid matter called dollars."
Since 1990, when the United Nations imposed sweeping economic sanctions
on
Iraq because of its invasion of Kuwait, world-famous sites such as
Babylon,
Hatra, Umma, Ur and Nineveh have become prime targets of looters.
"Not only are things being destroyed, but the accumulation of knowledge
at a
breathtaking speed has been replaced by destruction at the same sort of
pace."
Virtually no illegal trade in Iraqi antiquities existed after Saddam
Hussein
came to power in 1979. Hussein set about ensuring the country's rich
heritage would be accessible to all Iraqis, ordering establishment of
more
than a dozen regional museums to house important local artifacts. In a
nation with 10,000 historical sites, archaeology flourished.
Then came the invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf War and the ensuing
sanctions.
Throughout the country, all archaeological work halted abruptly. The
regional museums were closed. The destruction began.
The U.S.-led military coalition was responsible for some damage. Bombs
from
allied aircraft left large craters at Ur of the Chaldees in the south,
the
site reputed to be the birthplace of Abraham. A ziggurat was blasted
with
more than 400 rounds of machine-gun fire. Trenching and bulldozing
occurred
at Tell el-Lahm in the north.
Amid the chaos immediately after the war, most of the regional museums
were
looted, some burned to the ground. In the years since, the thieving has
continued nonstop.
Some of the damage is caused by desperate people hit hard by the
sanctions.
Other sites are hit by highly organized, well-armed teams of looters.
In stark contrast to the careful, time-consuming methods of modern
archaeological excavation, the antiquity bandits use hammers, heavy
earth-
moving equipment and even dynamite to extract their booty.
Before the war, George and Russell worked together at Nineveh,
producing a
complete photographic catalog of the palace reliefs. The reliefs were
in
such good condition they were left at the site rather than moved inside
a
museum.
Today, the evidence of looting is plain to see. The ground inside the
palace
throne room is littered with hammered remains of several reliefs --
proof
that looters smashed the heavy stone slabs into smaller,
easier-to-carry
chunks.
"This was part of a palace of an emperor who was encouraging science
and
literature," George said. "Now it's been destroyed by a hammer."
The destruction is not only physical. The "accumulation of knowledge,"
as
Russell put it, ceases the moment any object, regardless of size, is
moved
from its larger context.
"It's as if you took something out of Versailles and just put it out on
the
market," said McGuire Gibson, a professor of archaeology at the
University
of Chicago. "I mean, what do you learn?"
George, an official with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and
Heritage,
said about 10,000 looted objects have been seized at the border, "but
we
believe even double that, or more, have got out."
The Iraq Museum in Baghdad houses evidence of what George cited as the
single worst archaeological crime.
In 1994, archaeologists digging at Khorsabad, a city built by
Sennacherib's
father, Sargon II, found a huge stone statue of a winged bull in
excellent
condition. With the onset of the winter rainy season, the scientists
decided
to bury the statue and return later, when the ground was firmer and
moving
it to a museum would be easier.
Before they could return, bandits used saws to cut off the bull's head,
then
cut the head into 11 pieces for easier transport. The looters were
caught
attempting to cross the border and were executed. Today, the bull's
head
awaits the arrival of a team of German specialists who will try to
reconstruct it.
Trade in stolen antiquities is a huge business. According to George, a
common route transports the pieces to England for evaluation, then to
Switzerland for auction, then finally into the hands of the purchasers
--
often Americans, Japanese or Israelis. The Internet and small
antiquities
shops, especially in London, are used as clearinghouses for looted
objects.
"The biggest problem you have," Gibson said, "is that some of the
biggest
collectors are also major millionaires, and they're major contributors
to
all sorts of political campaigns. They're movers and shakers. They also
happen to collect stolen goods."
To date, there has been little international movement toward solving
the
problem. After the end of the Gulf War, the U.N. Educational,
Scientific and
Cultural Organization requested permission to go to Iraq to review the
situation. The U.N. Security Council denied the request.
In 1995, experts in Mesopotamian archaeology sent a letter to the
sanctions
committee, asking permission to send photographic equipment to Iraq to
make
an inventory of objects remaining in museums. Again, the request was
denied.
"We are often asked the question, 'Why protect monuments when people
are
dying?' " said Lyndel Prott, a UNESCO official in Paris. "The reason
is, the
people who are dying ring us up and say, 'Please protect our
monuments.'
"If people feel that strongly about their heritage, we don't feel the
international community can simply stand back and say, 'It's not
important.
As long as you're not dying, that's all that counts.' "