Mourning the museums

Over the past months, many worried about the destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage by bomb and shell. Informed opinion, however, was always most concerned about the prospect of opportunistic looting of museums and archeological sites upon the outbreak of war.

Now it appears the looters have done their worst. The museums of Iraq have been ransacked, and though reporters dutifully list the lost masterpieces, the greatest losses may lie elsewhere. As appalling as the damage and destruction may be, it is likely that most of the stolen artifacts will eventually reappear. Yet if the objects have been more dispersed than destroyed, the opposite is true regarding the information that they once embodied. The loss of museum records – which is surely no accident, but rather a matter of thieves covering their tracks – has been mentioned in passing, but is likely to prove the greatest loss of all. For archeology, despite popular misconceptions, is not a hunt for objects so much as a hunt for knowledge: archeologists typically destroy an excavation site at least as thoroughly as do most looters, but they do so systematically, in order to extract the maximum amount of information. The loss of artifacts and excavation records, many of which are either unpublished or only partially published, is tantamount to the loss of the site, and of all that it could have told us about its history, and ours.

Faced with such a tragedy, the natural reaction is to protest that more could and should have been done. A Baghdad curator has been widely quoted as stating that a single tank or five Marines would have been enough to safeguard the museum. Yet would it have been quite so simple? When the looting began, the city was far from pacified, with active combat still under way and a constant threat of counterattack by guerrilla forces and suicide bombers. Leaving a small unit isolated on guard duty would not have been prudent, and there may not have been the manpower to spare to make up an adequate defensive force (that this minimum unit size was much larger than required for simply deterring looters was demonstrated by the cordon around the Oil Ministry, widely described as “heavily defended” even though the Marines were chiefly defending themselves). In hindsight, it is a pity that the United Nations did not take a more flexible approach to safeguarding Iraqi cultural properties, preparing contingency plans in case efforts to avert war failed. Where small units drawn from the invading army would be too vulnerable to enemy action if left as guards, neutral UN peacekeeping forces might have done the job quite nicely. On the other hand, it seems no one expected Baghdad to fall so quickly, and it is still not clear to what extent museum insiders may have played a role in the despoliation; for all the second-guessing, war has always been chaotic, destructive, and unpredictable, despite the best of plans and intentions.

ADDENDUM: For a comprehensive summary of art & archeology in Iraq amid recent events, look here (reference thanks to Dr. Weevil).

MORE here questioning how much of the looting was truly random mob action. There is certainly ample grounds for suspicion from what has been reported so far.

AND NOW more confirmation that the thefts were planned, along with more questions about how much is actually missing. I suspect we'll be on this story for some time to come, so take a look at our main page for the latest.

Posted by David on April 14, 2003 1:19 PM