IRAQ: Artefacts are smuggled out to dealers in the west, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad
While the treasures of Iraq's national archaeological museum are now well guarded, archaeological sites are being plundered by organised gangs who export most of the loot to dealers in the west.
Caretakers stationed by the Department of Archaeology at the main excavations are outnumbered and outgunned by tribal raiders recruited by well-established Iraqi smugglers who form the second link in the long chain from site to buyer.
Dr Burhan Shaker, director of archaeological investigation and excavation, told The Irish Times that the current focus of the looters were Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian sites in the Diwaniyah and Nasiriyah provinces.
The main Sumerian cities have been demolished by thieves who established mafia-like networks after the 1991 Gulf war. The smugglers exploit desperate tribesmen and farmers impoverished by three wars, misrule and sanctions.
These people did not know the importance of Iraqi civilisation, which goes back 11,000 years, Dr Shaker said. There were 10,000 surveyed sites in Iraq and another 100,000 which have yet to be investigated.
Statuary and other artefacts portraying human beings and animals are also under threat from extreme religious elements released from the bottle of political repression when the secular Baathist regime was toppled.
Dr Shaker compared these fanatics to the Taliban in Afghanistan who destroyed a great deal of that country's cultural heritage, including the sublime Bamayan Buddhas.
"They want to demolish Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian statues because they are considered as heresy," he said.
While the department currently employs 1,200 guards, he said, at least another 1,300 were needed to oversee thousands of sites.
"They must be trained and given vehicles, weapons and communication equipment as well as the authority to arrest and hold looters. They must mount daily patrols in order to stop theft," he said.
While he visits sites, he said, it is too dangerous for foreign archaeologists and journalists to do so.
It is impossible to estimate the quantity of material smuggled out of Iraq at the present. An indication of the volume was given by Dr Elizabeth Stone, an archeologist from the US who has worked for many years at Abu Dhuwari in the southern province of Diwaniyah.
Speaking on the sidelines of a workshop for Iraqi archaeologists in Jordan, she said this single site had been cleared of as many as 250,000 items.
In her opinion, dealers could be hoarding Iraqi material to see how the market develops.
Dr Donny George, the director of all Iraq's museums, said Syria and Jordan attempted to interdict the flow of archaeological material across their borders and provide descriptions of items seized by the police and customs.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were also co-operating, but Riyadh had not yet reported any items confiscated by officials. Turkey and Iran had been approached by the Iraqi authorities, but there had been no feedback, he said. "We know stolen material has been crossing these borders. Since 1936 no antiquities can leave Iraq legally," he added.
While in Istanbul at the end of last month attending a conference on the illegal trade in antiquities, Dr George was told by Turkish scholars that there was a lot of [stolen Iraqi] material in the museums of Dir Bakir, Mardin and Istanbul.
They could not understand why it had been put in museums and not returned to Iraq. He has no information at all on cultural material being exported to Iran.
Dr George said 15,000 items were still missing from the museum. Of these 4,000 had been recovered or traced.
"There are 1,054 in Jordan, 200 in Syria, 35 in Kuwait, 300 in Italy and more than 600 in the US. Civil engineers are working in the museum. The Italians are cleaning the reliefs in the Assyrian gallery and building a new display modelled on Assyrian religious sites," he said. The museum's collections of gold jewellery were in a safe place.
The museum will not reopen until its exhibits are redesigned and the fabric of the building is renewed.
Dr George said the museum was "part of myself." He started work there in 1976 and rose to be director of research before being put in charge of all the country's museums last November.
"The museum is the front page for what we do. We are going through a really hard time. Nobody can do excavations.
"We have plans but everything depends on the security situation. Although it is getting better and better, little by little, it may take another year to get back to the excavations," he said.
US and other foreign forces were not protecting sites.
"The British did not do much in Basra. The museum is filled with squatters, and its director cannot even use his office. All the artefacts were transferred here before the war," Dr George said.
The staff of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the fifth most important in the world, was "better prepared than ever to deal with thieves." He added that Iraqis were now fully in charge.