National Geographic survey of sites in Iraq

This report is being widely reprinted in condensed form, but the full article is here:

A National Geographic Society archaeological expedition to significant ancient sites and key museums in Iraq reports that although U.S. bombs spared most sites and treasures, some ancient locations have been seriously damaged by recent looting or long-term neglect.

Several key sites out of two dozen visited were found to be unguarded. Hundreds of people could be seen making illegal excavations at many places.

"Far more material than what has been reported missing from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad is being ripped from the ground and leaving the country," expedition leader Henry Wright said in a conference call with journalists today. "Extraordinary damage is being wreaked on this irreplaceable archaeological record."

Unfortunately, the hue and cry over the Baghdad museum pretty well pushed aside reports of the plundering of archeological sites; and after having joined in so wholeheartedly in crying wolf, art historians and archeologists may have a hard time now getting others to share their alarm over the ongoing losses.

[Expedition leader Henry] Wright reports that the team's findings are mixed. "Somebody in the U.S. government deserves positive credit for sparing the archaeological sites from bombing, and we found nothing but concern and politeness from the military people we encountered," he said. "However, several important sites have been badly looted and remained unguarded when we were there.

"Very little archaeological work has been done in key parts of Iraq, so much of its history—the worlds heritage—still lies in the ground. Protecting these places for future research at this very vulnerable time is crucial if we are to have any hope of understanding the fundamental processes that gave rise to the earliest civilizations," Wright said.

The distinction between artifacts as objects and artifacts as knowledge is vitally important, and one which has been consistently overlooked or obfuscated by most commentators. As we have noted:

. . . 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 . . .

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.

UPDATE: The survey has now also been written up in the Washington Post.

Posted by David on June 11, 2003 2:50 PM