Posted on Tuesday 23 September 2003

Suffice it to say that this stuff really makes my blood boil...

The Theft of Ancient Cities We are losing the cities of ancient Sumer, where the earliest civilization began, and are doing little to stop it. For thousands of years, these cities have lain relatively undisturbed, as mounds in the desert of southern Iraq. But now, in the chaos of occupation, they are being destroyed by illegal diggers in search of artifacts.

In the last few months, sleepy farming towns like Fejur, Rifai and Afak near the ancient cities have come to life as markets for the illegal antiquities trade. Sellers are hoping that some foreigner, such as a journalist, soldier or contractor, will pay them more than the agents sent by dealers, who give them only a few dollars per item.

Some of the artifacts are being sold inside the country, but the best are smuggled to dealers in Europe, who will sell them to collectors there, or transship them to the United States, Japan and elsewhere. Then, often bearing fraudulent certificates of provenance, they are sold to collectors who justify their collecting by saying that the objects are much safer with them than they are in Iraq. In truth, without their eagerness to possess the artifacts, there would be no illegal digging.

It is easy to dismiss the damage to Iraq's cultural heritage as an unfortunate by-product of war. All wars cause destruction of standing monuments and the theft of moveable artifacts. But most of the looting in Iraq has taken place after major hostilities had ceased. The huge market in illegal antiquities did not exist at all before the 1991 Gulf War, because Iraq had a strong antiquities law. Under the United Nations embargo, illegal digging occurred only at a few sites in the south. But now, in this period of occupation, there seems to be no limit to what will be destroyed.

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