Baghdad museum climbdown begins

Reports continue to be incomplete and contradictory, but recent news suggests that the losses to looting at the Iraqi National Museum may be much less significant than feared -- much, much less. Today's NY Times, for example, reports:

A top British Museum official said yesterday that his Iraqi counterparts told him they had largely emptied display cases at the National Museum in Baghdad months before the start of the Iraq war, storing many of the museum's most precious artifacts in secure "repositories."

The official, John E. Curtis, curator of the Near East Collection at the British Museum, who recently visited Iraq, said Baghdad museum officials had taken the action on the orders of Iraqi government authorities. When looting started, most of the treasures apparently remaining in display halls were those too large or bulky to have been moved for protection, Mr. Curtis said. . .

Mr. Curtis's remarks may help explain recent reports by both Iraqi officials and American authorities that losses at the National Museum are less extensive than previously feared. For instance, Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting, said recently that Baghdad museum officials had listed only 25 artifacts as definitely missing.

Mr. Curtis said it appeared that a vast majority of the looting at the National Museum had not taken place in its display halls but in its basement storage rooms, where more commonplace objects were kept.

An even more radical reassessment was published in yesterday's Chicago Tribune:

The vast majority of antiquities feared stolen or broken have been found inside the National Museum in Baghdad, according to American investigators who compiled an inventory over the weekend of the ransacked galleries.

A total of 38 pieces, not tens of thousands, are now believed to be missing. Among them is a display of Babylonian cuneiform tablets that accounts for nine missing items. . .

The inventory, compiled by a military and civilian team headed by Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos, rejects reports that Iraq's renowned treasures of civilization--up to 170,000 artifacts--had been lost during the U.S.-led war against Iraq. It also raises questions about why any of the artifacts were reported missing. . .

Damage to the museum's administrative offices was extensive, with desks, wiring, fixtures and chairs hauled out by looters. Artifacts, apparently obscured in some instances by the rubble left by looters, emerged largely unscathed. "There is no comparison in the level of destruction seen in the museum and that seen the administrative offices," Bogdanos said. "It's absolute wanton destruction in the offices. We didn't see anywhere near that destruction in the museum. [People] stole what they could use. . . . They left the antiquities."

Investigators, compiling information about what occurred during the chaotic takeover of Baghdad by U.S.-led troops, are concluding that little damage occurred to antiquities displayed at the museum. Investigators counted 17 display cases destroyed out of 300 to 400 cases. Many of the items apparently were removed before the looting. In addition, investigators have counted 22 items that were damaged, including 11 clay pots on display in corridors. Most of those damaged artifacts are restored pieces and can be restored again, museum officials told investigators.

The most significant of the damaged pieces was the Golden Harp of Ur. But investigators determined that the golden head on the damaged antiquity, feared missing, was only a copy. Museum officials confirmed this week to investigators that the original head had been placed in a storage vault at the Iraqi Central Bank before the war.

It also seems that many minor items were taken from the museum's storage areas without any sign of forced entry, leaving open the question when those particular thefts occurred:

The inventory was compiled after investigators examined five large storage areas in the museum Saturday to check for looting. Each room was lined with shelves holding plastic containers filled with envelopes of small, less-valuable artifacts, such as beads or amulets.

There was no apparent sign of forced entry to the storage sites, and the doors were locked when investigators arrived. Museum staffers told investigators they had no keys to the room, so investigators remain uncertain how entry was made. Investigators found that the basement storage area, which held thousands of small items not deemed suitable for display, had been disturbed in one of the rooms. They broke through a cinder-block barrier to the room to find hundreds of cardboard boxes intact and about 90 plastic boxes, containing about 5,000 less-valuable items, missing. A boxful of such items was retrieved about a week ago near Al Kut, investigators said, and it is likely that the intruders are attempting to move other such artifacts outside Baghdad.

Interestingly, some of the storage areas were in upper floors of the museum; in one there was evidence confirming reports that American forces were fired upon from the museum:

In one storage area on the second floor, [investigators] discovered evidence of a gunner's nest. From debris left behind, investigators concluded that a gunner was armed with an assault rifle and rocket-propelled grenades. About a foot from the gunner's lookout was a hole punched through the wall by a 25 mm shell. Investigators surmised that the gunman fled after that single volley from allied forces.

Posted by David on May 6, 2003 4:02 PM