Plundering of Iraqi artifacts points to a sinister picture
Tempest
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Raiders of the lost art
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/20/wloot20.xml
The plundering of Iraq's antiquities looked like an act of random
vengeance but a new and more sinister picture is emerging. William
Langley reveals that many of the 170,000 missing artefacts are speeding
through the underground art market into the hands of foreign collectors
It's fast, easy and encouragingly cheap to enter the booming market in
Iraqi antiquities. How about an early Sumerian glass-beaded necklace for
only $24? A 2,000-year-old bronze arrowhead for $14? Or an ancient
cuneiform tablet, moulded from Mesopotamian clay, and bearing the
imprint of a barter deal for sheep or wine, for $1.25? They can all be
found within a few seconds on ebay and other websites on the internet,
and there's plenty more on the way.
The sacking of Iraq's National Museum last week may at first have looked
like an act of random vengeance against a convenient emblem of the
state. Why else would a people loot their own history? Especially a
people so closely connected to a past of incomparable richness.
The more the scale of the losses became apparent - at least 170,000
items are missing or destroyed - the less sense it seemed to make. Who
had done it? And what would the plunder be good for in the slums of
Saddam City? Impressing the neighbours?
But even as the world of antiquities reeled from a tragedy that Paul
Zimansky, the eminent American archaeologist, likened to the burning of
the library at Alexandria in classical times, a new and more sinister
picture of what happened in Baghdad was emerging. It now appears that
the looting of the museum was neither spontaneous nor random. In all
probability, it was planned well in advance of the American-led
invasion, and the thieves almost certainly benefited from inside help.
Interpol and FBI agents who have been brought in to investigate believe
the most valuable pieces were stolen to order, and are already on their
way to Europe, America or Japan. "The vaults where the best pieces are
kept, were opened with keys," says McGuire Gibson, the president of the
American Association for Research in Baghdad. "Looters coming in off the
streets, don't usually have keys, do they? It appears to have been a
deliberate, planned action. My feeling is that it was organised abroad."
Witnesses have spoken of seeing well-dressed men with walkie-talkies at
the scene, and of artefacts being transported away in orderly convoys of
vans rather than over the heads of the crowd. "We already have reports
of exhibits being offered for sale in Switzerland and Japan," says
Karl-Heinz Kind, Interpol's specialist officer for art and antiquity
trafficking. "Even in a war zone, even with the country practically
sealed off, these things can move with incredible speed."
Last night Jordanian custom officers reported that they had confiscated
some exhibits looted from the Iraqi National Museum, the first stolen
items to be recovered. But the rescued artefacts were merely 41
photographs and four oil paintings of Saddam Hussein.
To those familiar with the sophisticated international market in stolen
antiquities, the wholesale plundering and rapid dispersal of a great
museum's contents is all too credible. "Archaeological and cultural
organisations had been warning of attacks like these for months," says
Dr Neil Brodie, of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre in Cambridge.
"But it seems nobody was listening."
Long before the latest war began, millions of pounds worth of Iraq's
ancient treasures were quietly flooding each year into the hands of
Western and Far Eastern collectors. There is a sad irony in this, for if
Saddam Hussein could boast of one good thing in the course of his
30-year dictatorship it was his vigorous early programme to protect the
nation's cultural heritage.
Soon after Saddam's Ba'athists came to power in 1967, harsh laws were
passed to prevent the export of antiquities. "And they worked," says
Richard Zetter, of the University of Pennsylvania, a leading authority
on Mesopotamian history. "Virtually nothing was allowed out, money was
put into museums, and we all applauded and considered it a model for the
region."
But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the weakening of Saddam's grip on
power - at least beyond his Baghdad and Tikrit strongholds - and the
dire economic circumstances in the country began to render the laws far
less effective. Regional museums and important archaeological sites
around the country became easy prey for thieves, whose booty was
spirited out of the country by highly organised gangs, which developed
around the trade. "After the Gulf War," says Mr Zetter, "smuggling
became a profession." In the West, where Iraqi antiquities had a
long-standing cachet, a ready market was waiting.
There was more. Preoccupied by the business of staying in power, Saddam
lost interest in history - except for his own place in it. Money for
museums dried up, many of the archaeological sites were effectively
abandoned, and the scholars and curators at the heart of the nation's
conservation programme gave up the struggle. "Their cars were
commandeered," says Mr Zetter, "their telephones didn't work, their
salaries were frozen. People just drifted away from antiquities."
To make limited resources stretch further, thousands of antiquities were
moved from small provincial museums to Baghdad in the unfortunate belief
that they would be safer.
In recent years Saddam's own officials appear to have given the stamp of
approval to the lucrative business of selling antiquities abroad. Last
year a large sculptural frieze, originating from a 3,000-year-old
Assyrian palace in north eastern Iraq, weighing more than a tonne and
measuring more than six feet square turned up for sale on the British
market. Art experts believe it unlikely that such a major piece
could have been exported without the acquiescence of someone in
authority.
Julian Radcliffe, the chairman of the Art Loss Register, the
organisation which indentified the frieze, says: "There may have been
theft from Iraqi museums by their own government working with the staff
or by criminal elements working with the staff. Curators have often been
worried about keeping the roof on the building of the museums they work
in and desperately need the money to pay for it."
It is hoped that the frieze will end up back in Iraq in due course. In
the meantime, a group of nine archaeologists from the British Museum are
being drafted in to help the salvage and recovery operation at the
Baghdad museum. "We are uniquely placed to do something to help our
Iraqi colleagues," says Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director.
It is clear that a catastrophe has befallen the cultural heritage of
Iraq."
And the devastation continues. The latest target of the looters is the
museum at Nebuchadnezzar's palace - home of the hanging gardens of
Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Thieves smashed their
way in through a brick wall, stealing statues, vases, burial masks and
relics of the ancient Babylonian kings.
The galleries were completely stripped, and the floors left littered
with broken glass and debris. Ahmed Mansour, 37, who lives nearby said:
"This is one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world. I cannot
believe that people would want to steal from it. They have no respect
for our ancient culture and they do not care about the future of Iraq."
Horrified by the scale of the plundering, many Iraqis are blaming the US
troops for not mounting an effective guard on the museums - and they are
not alone. Last week three advisers on cultural affairs to President
George W Bush resigned in protest at the alleged failure of the US
forces to protect Iraq's treasures. "This tragedy was not prevented due
to our nation's inaction," wrote Martin Sullivan, the chairman
of the White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee, in a
resignation letter.
Others are less inclined to blame weary and wary young Marines, freshly
arrived in a conquered capital that they had expected might lay on a
bloodbath.
Behind the looting of the National Museum lies a triumph of street
smartness over military intelligence. The Pentagon may have been unsure
how the battle for Baghdad would play out, but the local gangs, flush
with orders from wealthy overseas collectors, seem to have anticipated
that the city's fall would be swift and made their plans accordingly.
Certainly Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco, the United
Nations educational and cultural agency, knows whom to blame. "It is
those bandits who looted their own heritage," he said, at a meeting of
30 Iraqi and world antiquities experts in Paris. "These were conditions
of confusion and turmoil, and they took full advantage."
Even as he was speaking, the lost treasures of Iraq - a 5,000-year trove
of learning and beauty - were speeding through the channels of the
underground art market into the hands of foreign collectors. If the
prices seem reasonable it's because there is plenty to go around.
--
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