oriental review.org - the plundering of iraqs national museum - what really happened

7/29/2019 Oriental Review.org - The Plundering of Iraqs National Museum - What Really Happened

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http://orientalreview.org/2010/07/18/the-plundering-of-iraqs-national-museum-what-rea lly-happened

The Plundering of Iraq’s National Museum:What Really Happened?

Yuliya CHMELENKO (Russia)

We very of ten take in information without thinking about where it comes from or

why it was produced. Unfortunately, that is the way things stand today with news

of events in the Middle East—some things we hear about in distorted form, and

some things we do not hear about at all. A lot of questions surround the story of

the National Museum of Baghdad and the t reasures of ancient Mesopotamian civilizat ions stored

in it . At f irst glance, the situat ion seems very clear—loot ers ransacked the museum, which had

been left undefended, destroying and selling a large number of artifacts. It was all very simple and

apparently there was no question about what happened. But why is it that we so often hear about

events that call into quest ion the of f icial reports t hat the news media are so insistent on giving us

and that sometimes completely contradict the of f icial sto ry? What actually happened to the

museum’s exhibits? Is it possible that instead of the truth they are trying to feed us a new “tale of

the old orient?” In order to make sense of what happened we need to start by looking at t he facts

The Baghdad Museum was founded in 1923 in King Faisal’s Palace at the urging of the English

archaeologist Gertrude Bell. The collection was moved in 1926 to a separate building and was

called the Museum of Iraq. That was when it started admitt ing visitors. By 1966, numerousarchaeological digs in Mesopotamia had signif icantly expanded its collection, and the museum

moved into a new building that could accommodate it. Unique gold art ifacts f rom the Treasure of

Nimrod were added to the collection in 1988. Ten days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saddam

Hussein ordered the Nimrod gold hidden in safes at t he National Bank. The condit ion of the

National Museum’s collection has been unclear since that date. The museum was closed in the

spring of 1991 because military operations began, and it only opened for visitors nine years later

on April 28, 2000, the 63rd birthday of the Iraqi leader. However, none of the Nimrod artifacts were

among the exhibits in the national collection—they were not found unt il Matthew Bogdanos’s

investigation in June 2003.

Disaster struck between the 8th and 12th of April, 2003, when f ighting broke out on t he museum

grounds, and museum employees lef t the building. The museum was massively loo ted and

artifact s of world culture destroyed. Thousands of priceless historic and archaeological relics

belonging to the ancient Sumerian civilization and ot her periods of Mesopotamian history

disappeared f rom storerooms. According to of f icial reports, loo ters plundered the museum for

about 48 hours. Months were required to assess the damage to the museum. Initially, 170

http://orientalreview.org/2010/07/18/the-plundering-of-iraqs-national-museum-what-really-happened/



thousand out of the just over 500 thousand exhibits in the museum were reported lost . However,

that number has since reduced many times. It is currently believed that approximately 15 thousand

items were lost. Among t he sto len artifacts that have been recovered were exhibits of world

significance—the alabaster Uruk vase depicting the goddess Inanna (3200 B.C.E.) and the marble

mask known as t he Sumerian Mona Lisa or the Lady of Warka.

It was only in February 2009, six years aft er the invasion, that the museum was again able to open

its doors to visitors, primarily by using funds from out side the country. Financial assistance

provided by Italy’s government (about €1 million) was part icularly helpful. However, only about 8.5

thousand of the 15 thousand lost exhibits have been recovered. Of f icial sources have the

following to say about the loot ing of the Iraqi museum’s cultural valuables.

The television company NBC televised a report about the devastating invasion of the National

Museum of Ant iquit ies of Iraq in Baghdad by loot ers. NBC said that according to witness reports

the looters plundered exhibits, burned documents and inventory lists stored in the museum and

got into the underground storage rooms where especially valuable artifacts were kept.

Marine Corps Reserve Colonel Matthew Bogdanos organized a large-scale investigation into what

happened and a search fo r the missing property on April 16, 2003. His team was able to assess the

scale of the events and of fer amnesty to the people of Baghdad for returning cultural artifacts.

That resulted in the return of almost two thousand exhibits to t he museum. A large number of

exhibits were also f ound during special raids. In addition, Bogdanos gave information about the

destruction of the museum to UNESCO, museum curators and ant iquarians in Europe and the

United States, the coalition forces headquarters and the customs services of all Middle Eastern

states. These actions led to the recovery of a large portion of the stolen exhibits—about f ive tosix thousand items, including the gold of Nimrod that had disappeared in 1991.

Over the next f ive years the FBI, Interpol and customs off icials in Syria and Lebanon recovered

about 1.5 thousand more items and returned them to Baghdad. Iraqi Minister of Tourism and

Ant iquities Qahtan Abbas told AFP in an interview that items surfaced in Europe, Middle Eastern

countries, Japan and Peru. However, part of the collection has found its way into private

collections. According to UNESCO, three to seven thousand items are still considered missing.

Virtually all of the blame for what happened belongs

to the inaction of American soldiers and the

thought less acts of the loot ers. Former museum

director Donny George called the failure of the

Americans to intervene the “crime of the century.”

Deputy Director Nabhal Amin believes that the

Americans were obligated to protect the museum: “If

they had just one t ank and two soldiers not hing like



this would have happened. I hold t he American

troops responsible for what happened to t his museum.” Her resentment is entirely understandable

by the t ime the Americans finally put a guard on the museum, it was the most looted building in the

Iraqi capital—28 galleries, storerooms and archives were in ruins. Mohsen Kazim, who had guarded

the museum for 30 years, was outraged by the recklessness of the looters: “We know people want

to eat , but what will they do with these ancient art ifacts?”

However, stat ements by eyewitnesses that are mentioned less frequently in the news media

provoke interest and raise quest ions. In t rying to understand what went on, we are of ten faced

with the fact that t he museum staf f believe the loo ters knew what they were looking for and

acted intentionally, destroying and carrying off only the most valuable exhibits. The robbery was

carried out by a well-prepared group of people completely unopposed by American soldiers. Of

course, there were also thieves who acted spontaneously. Some sources claim that the Americans

almost seemed to guard the looters. These surprisingly well-prepared criminals easily opened t he

steel doors of sto rerooms and were well acquainted with the layout of even the underground

storerooms. US Attorney General John Ashcroft confirmed that in his interview: “From theevidence that has emerged, there is a strong case to be made that the loo t ing and theft of the

artifact s were perpetrated by organized criminal groups—criminals who knew precisely what t hey

were looking for.” Officials hastened to say that the thieves were Iraqis. However, Rumsfeld took

no act ions to prevent the thefts or stop them, which can hardly be called a simple oversight. US

scholars warned the Pentagon about the possibility of theft even before the war started and

requested that it prevent t he destruction of ancient artifacts. In its report on t he subject broadcast

Monday, NBC referenced the well-known American orientalist Maguire Gibson o f the Oriental

Institute of the University of Chicago. Gibson said that he visited the Pentagon three t imes beforethe beginning of US military operations in Iraq and warned American military authorit ies about the

value of the unique collections in the Baghdad museums. Similar meet ings were held in t he US

Department of Defense by a delegation of museum workers, scholars and collectors who also

called on the Pentagon to make every possible ef fort to save that world heritage. However, they

were unable to prevent the Baghdad museum from being loot ed.

The reason why off icials displayed so litt le willingness to stop the loot ing can be explained by the

fact that they saw their mission as reducing Iraq’s significance as a nat ion, and the act ions by the

Iraqi looters only contributed to that. According to Michigan University President Peter McPherson,who headed the Treasury Department’s Iraq team, “The privatizat ion that occurs sort of naturally

when somebody took over their state vehicle, or began to drive a truck that t he state used to

own, was just f ine.” John Agresto saw his job in Iraq as the remaking of Iraq’s system of higher

educat ion f rom scratch. In that context, the loot ing of local universit ies and the educat ion ministry

was, in his words, “the opportunity for a clean start.” However, it is unlikely that he knew Iraq had

the best educat ion system in the region bef ore it was st rangled by sanctions. Iraq had the highest

level of literacy in the Arab world—89% of Iraqis were literate in 1985. Unfortunat ely, according to



local residents, many American soldiers did not even know t hat Iraq’s history st retches back more

than seven thousand years.

But none of this explains the intent ional destruction by loo ters of the most important ant iquit ies.

For example, they f lat tened the nose and beard of the copper head of the Akkadian king (about

4300 B.C.E.) and, and they dest royed hundreds of clay tablets with ancient cuneiform writing. The

ournalist and writer Viktor Filatov sees in these actions nothing more than a desire by Jewish

nat ionalists to destroy all t races of a more ancient culture. As we know, virtually the entire Old

Testament is largely a repetition of ancient Sumerian legends about the f lood, which refutes the

Jewish claims of being the progenitors of mankind’s cultural heritage. Filatov believes that the

loot ers acted on instructions f rom Jewish nationalists to destroy not only art ifacts, but ancient

culture as such.

Apparent ly, the people who damaged the head of the Akkadian king were governed by blind

vengeance similar to other Iraqis who were opposed t o Saddam Hussein’s regime and vented their

feelings on his many stat ues. It is diff icult to say whether it was Jewish nat ionalists and peopleact ing under their orders or Iraqi extremists indignant at what was happening in their count ry. It

may have been both. Most likely, it was mainly specially trained groups who destroyed the cultural

artifact s in the Iraqi museum; the number of Iraqi looters was small. All of the authors generally fall

into two extremes. Either they blame Americans after Iraqi oil, or they blame Jewish nationalists

who want to dest roy the real “cradle of human culture.” Someone is st ill screaming about world

terrorism. However, there are specif ic individuals behind all of these events—people obsessed with

huge amounts of oil money or with an ideology who try to cover up and depersonalize t heir

act ivit ies with concept s like “the Americans,” “Iraqi looters” or “Jewish nationalists.” After all, those

“Americans” that most people blame so vehemently are millions of housewives and ordinary

working men and women who have lit t le understanding even of the price of oil, and American

soldiers are only people carrying out the orders of their leaders—specific individuals. The word

“soldier” has no nationality. We should not forget that it was the US government t hat funded the

restoration of the museum (Washington allocated $13 million). So all of these accusations are

nothing more than a cry in the wilderness. We cannot put all Americans, Iraqis and Jews on t rial. It

turns out that there is an enemy, and everybody knows him. He is discussed and accused, and

people feel better for that . We know who the guilty party is, but who specifically is accountable for

what happened? Unfo rtunately, only a few scapegoat s snatched from the crowd of “guiltyparties.”

Thanks to Google, cultural support by Italy and f inancial support f rom the US State Department, a

virtual Nat ional Museum of In Iraq has been created on the Internet. It gives all Internet users

access to the treasures of the Baghdad Museum, including the lost and missing exhibits. “This is

not just a repository of objects stored in the museum. This is a virtual journey through t he six

thousand years of Mesopotamian histo ry, intended for the general public, and fo r the scientif ic

community,” said Roberto De Mattei, Director of the National Research Council of Italy. However,



the virtual project can never replace the actual art objects. As Gordon Newby, a historian and

Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Emory University in Atlanta said, what happened in the

museum “is just one of the most t ragic things that could happen for our being able to understand

the past.”

Accusat ions that Abdul Talakani’s ministry is not overly concerned about the fate of pre-Islamic

artifacts are certainly not justified. He justifiably refutes the accusations by saying it is hard to talk

about ant iquit ies when people are dying, or when they have no lights or water, and he added that

it nevertheless needs to be done before it is too late. Therefo re, the main task now is to prevent

museum valuables from being loot ed again and provide the needed level of security bot h for t he

National Museum of Baghdad and for the other no less important historical facilities in Iraq.

Source: New Eastern Outlook

http://www.journal-neo.com/php/content.php?id=1386

oriental review.org - the plundering of iraqs national museum - what really happened

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