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PRICELESS HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS LOST
IN IRAQ WAR
By Tristan Baker
The most important remnants of Mesopotamian artwork could very well be lost forever.
Just hours after Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian regime in Baghdad collapsed; tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets, looting shops, hospitals, and perhaps most tragic of all, Iraq’s National Museum. Thousands of pieces of priceless artwork, dating back to 3000 B.C. when Mesopotamian civilization was the most advanced in the world, was stolen or smashed when looters broke into the Museum.
As the Museum’s curators sift through the rubble left behind by the looters, many art historians inside and outside Iraq are placing the blame on the American government. Irving Finkel is a curator of the British Museum. In a recent Newsweek article, he expressed his feelings on the issue.“The Americans basically sat there while the museum was raped and pillaged,” said Finkel.
Among the missing pieces of art are at least 100 small, intricately carved cylinders which were used as signature seals by the Mesopotamians. The cylinders are one-of-a-kind, and incredibly valuable despite their size. The museum’s staff placed those pieces that could be moved into the museum’s vaults. At least 49 pieces of art that remained in the main gallery were stolen, some of which were so large they could have been moved only by a large group of people.
Those that fault the American government argue that while U.S. troops guarded power plants and oil refineries, they let the looters pillage everything else in the city at will.Art historian Cynthia Blanchette was appalled that the American troops didn’t prevent the looters from entering the museum.
“You can fix or rebuild power plants and oil wells,” said Blanchette, “Once those pieces of artwork are gone, that’s it, our history is gone with it. I hope they find at least some of what went missing.”
Blanchette also said that the longer the artworks remain missing, the greater the chance that copies or reproductions of the original pieces could be made, complicating the process of finding the real artwork.
Maj. Brady Baker of the Vermont Army National Guard and veteran of the first Gulf War, believes the American troops did all they could under the circumstances.
“There just weren’t enough troops to guard everything in the city,” said Baker, “It would be nice to protect everything from looting, but the troops already had their hands full seeking out the remnants of Saddam’s Republican Guard.”In a recent MSNBC article, Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke of the distinct possibility that the National Museum was looted by highly organized thieves, and not by an angry mob.
“From the evidence that has emerged, there is a strong case to be made that the looting and theft of the artifacts were perpetrated by organized criminal groups — criminals who knew precisely what they were looking for,” Ashcroft said.
Ashcroft’s theory comes from evidence that was found in the aftermath of the looting. Whoever broke into the museum had access to at least some of keys to the vaults, said curators from the National Museum. According to MSNBC, the looters knew to bypass a myriad of less valuable artifacts and instead took the aforementioned signature seals, which were squirreled away inside a cabinet. They were also able to move the incredibly large, heavy artifacts that remained outside the vaults. This suggests the looters were prepared to move these pieces before they entered the Museum. Frustrating the process is a lack of reliable information regarding exactly what went missing from the museum and where the thieves might have taken it. Ashcroft believes the thieves might already have taken the artwork outside Iraq.
“Although the criminals who committed the theft may have transported the objects beyond Iraq’s borders, they should know that they have not escaped the reach of justice,” said Ashcroft.
Some of the missing artwork may indeed be already outside Iraq; the FBI is already investigating a case where a piece of artwork believed to be from the Iraqi National Museum was seized in an American airport.In another MSNBC article, Lynn Chaffinch of the FBI’s Art Theft Program said she expected the stolen artwork to surface in wealthy countries including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, and Switzerland, where the majority of the world’s artwork is sold.
“If it really did leave Iraq, it’s going to be a long, long time before the majority of the artwork stolen from the museum is found,” said Blanchette, “This will still be a story when my grandchildren are all grown up.”