Damage and Impact of War on Mesopotamian Sites in Iraq | Middle East And North Africa

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DAMAGE TO MESOPOTAMIAN SITES IN IRAQ

Looting activity in Iraq

Daniel Estrin of Associated Press wrote: “The plundering of antiquities in the war-torn Middle East has become a primary concern for the archaeological community, and some archaeologists even compare satellite images of sites in Iraq and Syria to moonscapes, after antiquities robbers went through them. Archaeologists claim the Islamic State extremists and militants from other groups are funding their activities in part through illegal trafficking of antiquities, and authorities worldwide have been taking action to try to stem the flow. [Source: Daniel Estrin, Associated Press, February 13, 2015]

“What first sparked awareness of the issue, archaeologists say, was a deluge of cuneiform artifacts on the Western antiquities markets after the first Gulf War in 1991. In the years that followed, archaeologists estimate that hundreds of thousands of small clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions made their way into the hands of dealers. Many contained incrustations, indicating they were “fresh out of the earth,” said Robert Englund of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative.

Damage to Assyria’s Great Cities and Efforts at Recovery

Jason Urbanus wrote in Archaeology magazine: Archaeologists rediscovered Nineveh in the nineteenth century and embarked on excavations of the site that would continue for 150 years. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, archaeological activity had ceased. Located on the east bank of the Tigris River near modern Mosul, Nineveh, like Dur-Sharrukin, has suffered catastrophic damage from modern warfare and vandalism, especially when Mosul was occupied by the Islamic State between 2014 and 2016. Parts of the site and its monuments were even purposely razed by bulldozers. It is also threatened by urban sprawl that is encroaching on the ancient city. In 2010, a report released by the Global Heritage Fund, a cultural watchdog, warned that Nineveh was on the verge of being irretrievably lost. As the political situation has calmed in recent years, however, an archaeological resurgence has occurred, and several international research projects have joined forces with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH). “Things have just kind of come together, where there is access again and the opportunity for international expeditions to partner with the Iraqis,” archaeologist Michael Danti of the University of Pennsylvania told Archaeology magazine “We’re all finding incredible stuff. It’s a real renaissance of exploration.” [Source: Jason Urbanus, Archaeology magazine, Features July/August 2024]

Nineveh’s Adad Gate, which is located along one of Mosul’s main roads, has stood as perhaps the most visible symbol of the ancient city’s past glory. And, as it lay partially in ruins after it was bulldozed in 2016 by the Islamic State, it served as a reminder of the site’s calamitous recent history. Today, archaeologists have restored the gate in an effort that has become emblematic of Nineveh’s archaeological revival. “Whoever used to drive by there would have been familiar with the gate and the Assyrian city walls,” says University of Bologna archaeologist Nicolò Marchetti. “And now they can see that things are changing quickly.” Residents and tourists alike can walk in the Assyrians’ footsteps on a path that leads through the gate and winds its way across the ancient city. The path is part of a new archaeological park that includes a visitors’ center and walkways with informational signs about Nineveh’s history. This is one of very few such parks to be opened in Iraq, and it exists thanks to the efforts of Iraqi and Italian authorities and the University of Bologna’s KALAM project, named after an ancient Sumerian word meaning “country,” which seeks to protect archaeological landscapes in Iraq. Tell Kuyunjik was the location of the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib’s “Palace Without Rival” and of the king Ashurbanipal’s extensive library, along with other monuments and buildings. (Iraq-Italian Expedition to Nineveh)

A six-lane road that was intentionally dug through the ancient city by the Islamic State.As director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program, Danti is seeking to mitigate the effects of the recent conflicts and to help conserve damaged sites. “It has really just been one tragedy after another for the cultural heritage of Iraq,” he says. His Iraqi-American team has recently assessed Nineveh’s iconic Mashki Gate, one of the largest of the gates that once loomed over the formidable city walls. Originally destroyed in 612 B.C. by Nineveh’s enemies, the Mashki Gate was reconstructed by Iraqi authorities in the 1970s. It was demolished again in 2016, along with the Adad Gate and parts of the walls, this time by modern hands. Currently, Danti’s team is working to reconstruct the gate once more. As part of this process, they have conducted new excavations that have involved removing a huge amount of debris. “We’re digging down deeper than previous excavations and excavating rooms that were never explored,” says Danti.

Archeology and War in Iraq

Archeological work in Iraq has been greatly disrupted by the wars and sanctions. In the sanction era in the 1990s between the Persian Gulf wars there was little or no money to do archaeological work or protect sites from looters. Foreign archeologists were for the most part not allowed in the country. Many Iraqi archeologists were forced to find other kinds of work. Famous sites like Jatra were guarded by a single old man with a hunting rifle.

In the Iran-Iraq war many sits along the border of Iran and Iraq were destroyed or damaged. In the first Persian Gulf war Saddam Hussein placed two Iraqi jets next to the ziggurat of Ur. After the war looting began almost immediately and peaked in the mid 1990s.

Before the first Persian Gulf war Iraq’s antiquities department employed 2,600 people. At the time Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 there was a great deal of archeological activity taking place in Iraq . Dozens of foreign and Iraqi teams were engaged in projects. All that came to a halt after Kuwait was invaded. The shortages of funding reduced the number of people employed in the antiquities department to a few hundred. All 33 archeological museums were closed to the public. There was few resources available to police sites and people took up looting to feed their families.

After the first Persian Gulf war excavation work did not begin again into 1997. Then work was only done at only 32 sites, with archeologists protected by armed guards. Only four sites were worked by foreign archeologists.

Did the U.S. Bomb the Ziggurat of Ur?

Bombing raids during the first Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991 left four craters in the temple precinct and 400 holes in the ziggurat. Who shot the ziggurat? David Wooddell wrote in National Geographic: “Some archaeologists—U.S. and international—believe the U.S. was responsible for shooting the ziggurat. They claim that since the Iraqis did not fly any aircraft in the gulf war, they couldn't have shot it themselves. Nor would they be likely to do so, since it was their own antiquity. But according to U.S. Central Command and the U.S. Marines, the Iraqis did fly during the 1991 gulf war—they flew to escape to other countries, or they flew and were shot down by coalition forces.

“A U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) photo, presented in a closed Pentagon briefing in February 2003, showed the ziggurat at Ur with two Iraqi MiG jets parked like decorations at either side of the grand staircase. The accompanying text from the briefing noted the Iraqis had set the aircraft there to try to provoke the U.S.-led coalition forces into attacking them and damaging the ziggurat. It also stated that the allies resisted attacking the MiGs.

U.S. Air Force base

“Going back and forth between the DOD and the Defense Intelligence Agency to check the reliability of the briefing photo did nothing to refute the serious claims made by U.S. archaeologists. They alleged that in 1991, Dick Cheney—at that time Secretary of Defense—had presented a different photo showing a MiG next to the ziggurat and claiming that our military "had taken care of it." Academics and some of the press took that to mean the U.S. had blown it up. When those same archaeologists visited the site after the 1991 gulf war, they counted a spray of some 400 holes in the surface of the old pyramid.

“A former Air Force attorney at Tactical Air Command, who in 1991 supervised the military lawyers who kept track of the legalities of what got bombed or shot by the Air Force, was confident the Air Force had not caused the damage during the 1991 gulf war. He suspected it was done by Iraqis during the rioting and uprisings that occurred right after the war, when Iraq's citizens realized that perhaps Saddam Hussein was not as firmly in power of his brutal, repressive regime as they had previously thought.

“News clips claimed that just before the 1991 gulf war Iraqi soldiers had caused the damage while digging in their machine guns or while establishing artillery on top of the ziggurat. Other news clips claimed the damage was caused by U.S. Marines digging in after they captured the ziggurat in 1991. One news story in a British newspaper was based on an interview with a U.S. officer who said he had called off the bombs that were targeting the ziggurat at the last minute because the site was listed on a document of historic locations provided by the archaeological community. So who shot the ziggurat? We will probably never know unless someone confesses.”

Looting of Ancient Treasures in Iraq

Looting of antiquities had been a problem in Iraq ever since the Iran-Iraq War, when attention was focused on war not archeology, and accelerated after first Persian Gulf War ended in 1991 and sanctions were imposed and money to protect archeological sites dried up. Looting was one of the ways a person could make money and get rich quick. Many famous archeological sites were looted; pieces that went missing from Iraq’s museums as ancient treasures from Iraqi’s great Mesopotamian cities flooded international markets.

Most of the pieces were small things like seals, cuneiform tablets and figures. They were sold for a few hundred dollars by looters, and often fetched thousands of dollars or more from buyers on the international market. Looters typically sold artifacts to middlemen and they sold them to dealers who in turn sold them to private collectors. Gold objects were sometimes melted own for their gold.

Items from Iraq that were rarely seen on the international art market before the first Persian Gulf War in 1990-91 became plentiful afterwards. In some cases cuneiform tablets could be purchased on E-bay for a little as $100. Art shops in London were filled with similar cuneiform tablets. American and British archeologists complied a list of more than 2,000 stolen objects stolen after the First Persian Gulf War. A decade later no more than half a dozen had been recovered.

Looting of the Iraqi National Museum After the American Invasion in 2003

The Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad—with one of the finest collections of Mesopotamian artifacts in the world and objects more than 50,000 years old—was looted in April 2003 soon after Baghdad fell after the American invasion of Iraq. Over two days, more than 15,000 items were taken. The museum was trashed. Glass cases were smashed and steel cages were torn open to get at the items inside. Ancient vases and ceramics were shattered. Statues were split open or had their heads knocked off. Vaults were pried open. [Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, National Geographic]

At one point thousands of men, women and children—some of them armed with rifles, pistols, metal bars and clubs—ran amok on the museum grounds and carried away stuff by the box-load and cart-full. Items that had been carefully removed from their display cases and placed in storage vaults were also taken after the vaults were broken into. This activity led to speculation that low-level employees of the museum or people familiar with the museum’s layout must have been involved. One British archeologist said, “You’d have to go back centuries, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258" to find looting “on this scale.”

It was originally thought that the looting was mostly done by ordinary Iraqis to earn some money to take care of their families. Later it was realized that much of it was done by professionals, who took priceless items while leaving behind flawless copies and destroying records so the objects would be hard to trace. It is believed that particular items were stolen to sell to private collectors for millions of dollars.

Damage, Looting at Other Iraqi Sites and Museums After the American Invasion in 2003

The Museum of Modern Art, the National Archives, the National Library, the Central Library of Baghdad University, the Science Academy and the Central Religious Endowment Library, all in Baghdad, were badly looted and damaged. Other museums around the country were also hit. More than 160 pounds of treasures from Nimrud, including a queen’s crown and jewelry and hundred of gold and ivory items, were looted from a vault in the national bank.

The Mosul Museum of Antiquities—containing treasures from Nineveh, Nimrud and Hatra—was also badly looted. Particularly devastating was the loss its rare book and manuscript collection. The Basra museum and library and museum in Kirkuk were also hit. A librarian at the Central Library in Basra was able to save 30,000 rare books (70 percent of the library’s collection) by taking them to her house. Looters also struck archeological sites such as the ancient city of Isin. Buildings associated with archeological sites in Kirkuk, An Naja, Baquba and Ashnuna were also looted. Both guards and looters have been killed.

Damage to archeological monuments during and after the Second Persian Gulf War occurred at Ummm al-Aqarib, a Sumerian site near Umma. Nineveh, the ziggurat Ur, the spiral minaret at Samarra and the temple precinct of Babylon were all damaged.

Jason Felch wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Damage from illegal excavations in Iraq has far exceeded the more notorious thefts from the Iraqi museum in 2003, experts say. At the ancient Sumerian city of Umma, for example, thousands of tablets...have been found by looters who have dug pits over an area the size of 3,000 soccer fields in search of new finds. At the height of the looting, an estimated 150,000 cuneiform tablets were being stolen from Iraq every year. [Source: Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2013]

Checking Out Archaeological Sites in Iraq Soon After the American Invasion in 2003

Andrew Lawler wrote in National Geographic, “Don't shoot! We're Americans!" Henry Wright shouts as he thrusts his head out the window. It's dark, but dead center in our headlights is a jumpy young U.S. marine aiming his weapon at the windshield of our white SUV. This team of archaeologists and journalists who've come to assess the damage to Iraq's ancient sites had been warned of armed looters, not friendly fire. But cruising the backstreets of the battered town of Nasiriyah after dark in search of the local museum, we've run into a Marine roadblock. The museum, we discover, is now a military barracks. [Source: Andrew Lawler, National Geographic, October 2003 |]

“Grim tales of mass looting have brought our expedition, sponsored last May by the National Geographic Society and led by Henry Wright, a researcher at the University of Michigan's Museum of Anthropology, to this dusty place where humanity's first great cities once dominated the vast Mesopotamian plain. While media attention has focused on the loss—and recovery—of artifacts in Baghdad's Iraq Museum, we're investigating reports that poverty-stricken villagers and organized bandits are ransacking ancient mounds across the country, feeding the foreign appetite for antiquities. The five archaeologists on the team are anxious to see what's happened to the sites in the decade since the 1991 gulf war prompted U.S. restrictions that kept Americans from digging in Iraq. |

“Our expedition finds both tragedy and reason for hope. Some sites resemble moonscapes, cratered with freshly dug holes and trenches where looters may have ripped out more artifacts in a few weeks than archaeologists have excavated in decades. Others shimmer intact and silent in the desert heat. While half the expedition team travels through southern Iraq, the other half probes the situation in the north, where the damage is less dramatic but still a cause for serious concern. |

“In Nasiriyah we are in luck. Marine Maj. Glenn Sadowski is extremely helpful. He has organized an armed escort to take Iraqi archaeologist Abdul Amir Hamdany to survey the local sites, and he invites us along. The two men are an unlikely duo. Sadowski is a strapping reservist whose platoon lost seven men during the 1991 gulf war. Hamdany is a soft-spoken scientist who's been evicted from his own museum, where off-duty marines are pumping iron to heavy metal music. Neither speaks the other's language. But Hamdany returns day after day to stand on the burning sidewalk and ask Sadowski's help. "In the bazaars they are selling antiquities," he says. "We have to do something." |

“The aim of the National Geographic survey is to put a spotlight on the crisis. Without U.S. troops or paid Iraqi guards providing round-the-clock protection, many sites will remain vulnerable. Keeping Iraq's treasures safe will require a level of security that at this point is elusive at best. But Hamdany knows that careful assessment of site damage is a critical first step.

"You can tell he has a passion for this," Major Sadowski says, after agreeing to supply the escort. "It's the least I could do." On such slender threads of trust and respect hangs the future of Mesopotamia's past.” |

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated June 2024