British Museum & Iraq’s National Museum: Fostering a continuing relationship
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London- Karen Dabrowska
Islamic Tourism magazine, May/June 2004
A team of conservators brought together by the British Museum is eager to leave for Iraq in the second half of April to assist in the restoration of hundreds of artefacts damaged during the looting which followed the 26 day war.
But security is a major concern and, like all development projects in Iraq, the reality on the ground may alter the most carefully thought out plans.
A frenzy of looting followed the ‘liberation’ of Baghdad on April 9th, 2003. After visiting the Iraq National Museum, veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk wrote on April 13th: “They lie across the floor in tens of thousands of pieces, the priceless antiquities of Iraq’s history. The looters had gone from shelf to shelf, systematically pulling down the statues and pots and amphorae of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Sumerians, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks and hurling them on to the concrete. Not since the Taliban embarked on their orgy of destruction against the Buddhas of Bamiyan and the statues in the museum of Kabul – perhaps not since the Second World War or earlier – have so many archaeological treasures been wantonly and systematically smashed to pieces”.
The Director of Iraq’s National Museum, Dr Nawalaai Mutawalli estimated that one in ten of the country’s treasures had been looted. They include the Lion of Nimrud, the iconic ivory of a lion attacking a Nubian carved around 850BC, eleven statues and heads of statues from the Roman-period Parthian city of Hatra, a statue of Hermes from Nineveh and a seated copper figure from the reign of King Naran-Sin of Akkad 2250BC. To-date ten out of 40 world-famous pieces have been returned. Among them was the Warka vase, a Sumerian masterpiece decorated with reliefs from 3100BC. Of the 14,000 items not yet back in the museum, 1,000 have been confiscated in the US, 500 in Paris, 250 in Switzerland and a few hundred in Jordan. When they are returned 7,000 – 8,000 will still be missing.
Museum staff were dismayed that among the looters were professionals stealing particular pieces to order for foreign collectors. They also lambasted the Americans for failing to protect the museum. Dr Donny George, the museum’s director of research described how one of the museum’s employees went to one of the tanks and begged the soldiers to come and stand in front of the museum. They told him they did not have orders to move a tank 50 or 60 meters, which would have saved part of the heritage of mankind.
The entire museum complex, which houses the State Board of Antiquities, the museum’s laboratories and store rooms was so badly damaged that serious conservation work could not begin until early March this year when a large consignment of laboratory equipment arrived from the UK.
“It has taken since the time of the looting until now to refurbish the infrastructure of the museum complex”, Sarah Collins a curator in the British Museum’s Department of the Ancient Near East, told Islamic Tourism. Collins worked in the complex from June – August 2003 assisting in the reinforcement of the superstructure. “The buildings needed roves, all the equipment including computers was stolen, we had to get new windows, doors and furniture. The conservation labs had to be refurbished. It has taken longer than anticipated because it is very difficult to get equipment into Iraq – there are no international flights”.
The British Museum is now co-ordinating a team of conservators from the BM, the Metropolitan in New York, the States Museums of Berlin, the Hermitage in St Petersburg and possibly the Louvre to work on the conservation of damaged objects in the Iraq National Museum and provide assistance to Iraqi staff. The World Monuments Fund will send experts to evaluate buildings and structures in Baghdad which will need to be conserved. The team may leave for Iraq in April with three Iraqi women who are training in the Conservation Studio of the British Museum.
The conservation of damaged items has got off to a good start. The United Nations incorporated a ban on international trade in Iraqi cultural property in its sanctions-lifting resolution, the British government gave its wholehearted backing to a private member’s bill which aimed to make it more difficult to trade in antiquities of uncertain provenance and antiquities dealers throughout the world are joining forces to combat the trade in Iraqi treasures. But tragically looting of archaeological sites throughout the country is continuing.
Um Alakrab (mother of scorpions) looks like it has been carpet-bombed by a B-52. For 10 square miles looters dug, smashed and gouged into the ancient earth and destroyed the priceless heritage of Mesopotamia. The sites in the south, especially those around Nassiriyah and the famous Isin site, were extensively looted. American troops put a guard on Ninevah and Hatra but only after the thieves had run amok. Babylon and Ur are actually within military encampments and are protected.
The Coalition Provisional Authority has been implementing a training scheme for site guards but the task if massive. There are around 3500 sites in Iraq and 1300 guards – some employed on more than one site. “When a guard on a very large site is confronted by an armed band of looters there is very little he can do”, Collins explained. “Looters can be chased off by a helicopter but they return the next day. We need a long term solution for guards to have training, back-up vehicles, guns and radio-communication”.
The priorities are conservation and site protection but the British Museum is also supporting new ventures like the Ashurbanipal Library in Mosul. In one of his letters the ancient Assyrian King, Ashurbanipal gave an instruction to “hunt for the valuable tablets which are in your archives and which do not exist in Assyria and send them to me. I have written to officials and overseers and no one shall withhold a tablet from you”. He collected 25,000 cuniform tablets which are in the British Museum. In 2002 the museum was approached by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education for assistance with an Assyriological Centre it wanted to build. The British Museum has agreed to provide replicas of 1000 tablets and has completed an assessment of the most suitable works from its collection. Iraq’s Interim Governing Council has agreed funding for the project and the replicas will eventually be on permanent display when the construction of the centre is completed. The British Museum is also collecting books for the library at the Iraq National Museum.
Collins emphasised that a media frenzy followed the looting of the Iraq Museum and archaeological sites and the devastation of the country’s heritage was brought to international attention. “Never before was there so much pressure on governments to act. There was an immediate, knee-jerk reaction to the looting but the British Museum has always thought in terms of a long-term plan. We have a history of working in Iraq and we will continue supporting the National Museum and other projects”.
There are no quick fixes or instant solutions and it is much too early to think about new excavations. The National Museum is in no position to receive more objects and is unlikely to open to the public for quite some time.
“It may be possible to open one or two galleries for the benefit of schoolchildren but it isn’t really safe enough to display objects again”, Collins said. “The museum has to cope with conservation and taking care of the objects that have been returned”.
She believes there is a tremendous potential for archaeological tourism – eventually, in future. “Archaeologists do not want a lot of people turning up at sites – it will be detrimental to the sites. Archaeological site protection and heritage management is going to be a big issue. The sites have to be developed, protected and managed in such a way that visiting them will be an enjoyable, beneficial experience”, Collins emphasised.
She is eager to point out that the people in Iraq “are working very hard to re-establish things. A lot of very good things are happening but they are not publicised”.
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Baghdad Office / Agents
Mr. Walid Abdul-Amir Alwan
Bab Al-Mudham
P.O. Box 489, Baghdad - Iraq
Mobile: +964 790 183 1726,
E-mail: itmbaghdad@tcph.org
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