Archeological consequences of war in Iraq

There have been quite a few articles over the past several months on the risk to historical sites in case of war in Iraq. A good overview is in today's Boston Globe:

If the 1991 war is any guide, protecting this country's archeological treasures will not prove easy. Far more severe than bomb damage was post-war looting, which flooded the international art market with priceless pieces of mankind's past.

''Private collectors refer to this as the `Golden Age' of collecting,'' said [John] Russell, who has excavated at Nineveh. ''Judging from what you see [at auctions], dozens of sites were looted, and some of them by bulldozer.''

This emphasis on the risk of wholesale looting is noteworthy -- most other articles have focused instead on the more dramatic threat posed by bomb and shell.

As an aside, I should note that at least one major site, that of ancient Babylon, has already been destroyed by the Iraqis themselves. At least, that is what I have been told by a reliable colleague who has been there himself: apparently Saddam Hussein ordered the ruins of the palace complex rebuilt, which entailed remaking them in grandiose modern brickwork. A series of snapshots of Iraqi sites that ran in the NY Times Sunday Magazine at the beginning of January would seem to bear this out -- the picture of Babylon showed a reconstruction like something out of Mussolini's Italy.

ADDENDUM: H.D. Miller has more on the "reconstruction" of ancient sites in Iraq, including this link to an article I probably should have searched out myself.

Posted by David on January 24, 2003 10:00 AM