UNESCO report on looting in Iraq

More information, not all of it consistent with other recent reports, via the French edition of the International Herald Tribune:

A Unesco survey of Iraq's smashed and looted cultural treasures indicates that 2,000 to 3,000 objects may be missing from the National Museum in Baghdad alone and that the entire contents of the National Library are lost beyond retrieval.

Note that this assessment of the library losses would be in direct contradiction to this report from last week, which I have not seen repudiated or, for that matter, confirmed. The Tribune article does note, "a few of the most valuable manuscripts were held in the Saddam Center for Manuscripts and are believed to be safe."

In addition, more than 1,500 modern paintings and sculptures from the city's Museum of Fine Arts are still missing and only 400 have been recovered, according to Mounir Bouchenaki, assistant director general for culture at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. . .

He said that earlier reports by U.S. officials that as few as 25 pieces had been lost were “a distortion of reality” because they described only major pieces taken from the public galleries of the museum but not objects in the reserve collections.

Although there were mistaken claims that fewer than 30 item were missing, this does not seem so much the fault of the occupation authorities as of reporters who presented (or interpreted) official statements out of context.

Bouchenaki, an Algerian, is particularly well-placed to assess the damage. An Arabic-speaking archeologist, he has worked in the National Museum on several occasions, most recently in 1998 when he helped organize work to install air conditioning and video surveillance in the building. . .

Bouchenaki said that under an agreement signed earlier this month with Interpol, the international police organization, Unesco had already set up a database of missing objects that was being circulated to law enforcement organizations around the world.

Iraqi objects are already being offered for sale on the Internet, he said, and there is evidence of an organized traffic of looted objects from Mosul to Damascus.

Bouchenaki said that Unesco had asked governments in the region to prevent stolen items from leaving Iraq and that he had been impressed on arriving in Amman at how efficiently the Jordanian authorities were complying.

Posted by David on May 23, 2003 7:54 PM