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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Dear Cori Wegener,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Thank you very much for this correction. I must admit that
sometimes I do need specialists like you who are able to filter out
incorrect information from the abundance of information that is passing me each
and every day.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Yours</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Ton Cremers</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=764450712-07072005><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
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<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> Cori Wegener
[mailto:coriwegener@hotmail.com] <BR><B>Sent:</B> 07 July 2005
14:03<BR><B>To:</B> moderator@cpprot.net<BR><B>Subject:</B> Iraq Goverment Dam
story posted today<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class=RTE>
<P>MSN Moderator:</P>
<P>Please note that the story below is quite old news from 2002. The dam
project was abandoned after the U.S. invasion. Having been posted in
Baghdad working with the Ministry of Culture, I know that Muyad Damerji no
longer works for the Ministry and that there are no archeological digs going
on in the country. The British Museum conference on Nimrud that is
mentioned happened in March 2002. I'm not sure what revived this old
story.</P>
<P>Thanks very much for the service you provide.</P>
<P>Best regards,</P>
<P>Cori Wegener</P>
<P>The Minneapolis Institute of Arts</P>
<P><BR>Message: 5<BR>Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 07:03:27 +0200<BR>From: "MSN
CPPnet" <<A
href="http://by103fd.bay103.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=da834ce00788214b541ebca9a4d71e24&mailto=1&to=museum-security@museum-security.org&msg=80B7F1D4-D400-46DD-B810-581A2307121F&start=0&len=25001&src=&type=x"><FONT
color=#000099>museum-security@museum-security.org</FONT></A>><BR>Subject:
[CPProt.net] Iraqi government is building a dam wich will<BR>destroy the
capital of the ancient assyrian empire <BR>To: <<A
href="http://by103fd.bay103.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=da834ce00788214b541ebca9a4d71e24&mailto=1&to=list@cpprot.net&msg=80B7F1D4-D400-46DD-B810-581A2307121F&start=0&len=25001&src=&type=x"><FONT
color=#000099>list@cpprot.net</FONT></A>><BR>Message-ID:
<20050707050333.HCLB1641.amsfep17-int.chello.nl@cremers><BR>Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR><BR>Wednesday 6th July 2005 (22h42) :
<BR>The Iraqi government is building a dam wich will destroy the capital of
the<BR>ancient assyrian empire <BR> <BR>Tigris dam damns Assur The
Iraqi government is building a dam which will<BR>obliterate the capital of the
ancient Assyrian empire Martin Bailey , The<BR>Art Newspaper<BR>LONDON, July,
2005 - The Iraqi government is building a dam which will<BR>destroy the
ancient city of Assur, the former capital which gave its name to<BR>Assyria.
Although it has received no publicity outside Iraq, the dam across<BR>the
Tigris is likely to result in one of the greatest archaeological losses<BR>of
modern times. John Curtis, the British Museum’s keeper of Ancient
Near<BR>East, returned from a visit to Baghdad last month, and he told The
Art<BR>Newspaper that the project “will destroy most of the remains of Assur”.
He<BR>points out that the city, occupied by the Assyrians for some 2,000
years, is<BR>“arguably the most important archaeological site in the Near
East.”<BR><BR>Dr Curtis warns that the archaeological losses are likely to be
even greater<BR>than those caused by the Aswan High Dam in 1970, when temples
along the Nile<BR>were flooded. On that occasion, Unesco launched a huge
international rescue<BR>operation, but in the current political situation that
would be impossible<BR>in Iraq. The rapid timetable for the Iraqi dam and the
unexcavated nature of<BR>the remains at Assur would also make rescue work a
major challenge.<BR><BR>Iraq is embarking on the dam because its hostile
neighbour Turkey is taking<BR>more water from the source of the Tigris. At
times there is so little water<BR>in the river downstream that it is
apparently possible to walk across it at<BR>Mosul, the main city of northern
Iraq. The new dam will store water,<BR>providing supplies for agriculture and
the towns during the dry season.<BR><BR>The Makhul dam is being built 80 miles
south of Mosul, spanning the Tigris<BR>valley between the Jebel Makhul and
Jebel Hamrin mountains. This will create<BR>a lake which will run back for
more than 20 miles and flood most of Assur.<BR><BR>The ancient city lies on a
promontory, with its eastern edge on the flood<BR>plain of the Tigris and its
northern edge in the valley of the river’s old<BR>course. The new lake would
rise well above the lower levels of the ancient<BR>city and the water table
would cause severe damage higher up. In addition to<BR>Assur, at least 100
other Assyrian sites would be lost or damaged by the new<BR>lake. These
include Kar Tukulti-Ninurta, the important city built in the<BR>13th century
BC just to the north of Assur.<BR><BR>Assyrian capital<BR><BR>Assur (or Ashur)
became the capital of Assyria by 2000 BC and it remained<BR>the religious
centre of the empire until its capture by the Babylonians in<BR>614 BC. It
represented the centre of an empire which at its height stretched<BR>from
present-day Egypt to Iran.<BR><BR>German archaeologists began to excavate
Assur in 1903 and many of the most<BR>important finds are in Berlin’s
Vorderasiatisches Museum. But despite a<BR>century of extensive excavations,
large areas of the city remain virtually<BR>uninvestigated. Only a third of
the 34 temples which were recorded shortly<BR>before the Babylonian invasion
have been found. Still buried must be the<BR>greatest works of art from the
royal workshops of the 13th century BC,<BR>residences of merchants from the
18th century BC and temples built before<BR>the 21st century BC.<BR><BR>The
commercial and residential areas of Assur were on the lower levels,
and<BR>these will be completely flooded by the Makhul Dam. Although the upper
level<BR>of the city is 100 feet above the present river, the new lake will
mean a<BR>substantial rise in the water table, and this will destroy most of
the<BR>archaeological remains. Cuneiform tablets, for instance, will simply
turn to<BR>mud.<BR><BR>In order to minimise damage to Assur, two solutions
have been proposed by<BR>Iraqi archaeologists. The first would be the
construction of a coffer-dam or<BR>dyke around the entire site of Assur. This
would have to be several miles<BR>long and would be very expensive, possibly
several times more than the main<BR>Makhul Dam. With the present shortage of
government funds because of the<BR>economic problems resulting from
international sanctions it is difficult to<BR>see Saddam Hussein being willing
to divert resources for a coffer-dam.<BR><BR>The second proposal is that the
Makhul Dam should not be as high as<BR>originally planned, resulting in a
smaller storage lake. However, this would<BR>negate many of the benefits of
the water storage project, probably making it<BR>uneconomic. It would also
still flood low-lying remains at Assur, and the<BR>rise in the water table
would cause further damage.<BR><BR>Rescue<BR><BR>Last month senior Iraqi
government antiquities official Muayad Damerji told<BR>The Art Newspaper that
he personally believes that the solution is to “build<BR>a concrete wall
around Assur.” He admits it would be “very expensive”, but<BR>points out that
“we need water and we need Assur.”<BR><BR>Dr Damerji says that although the
Ministry of Irrigation is considering a<BR>coffer-dam, detailed information on
the levels of the archaeological strata<BR>has not yet been requested from the
antiquities department. There is clearly<BR>great concern over whether funds
will be available for this protective<BR>scheme.<BR><BR>It is difficult to
discover what is happening on the ground, but work has<BR>apparently begun on
the foundations of the main dam. Completion is expected<BR>to take around five
years, and the project is being undertaken entirely by<BR>Iraqi contractors.
Although some archaeological excavations are currently<BR>under way by German
and Iraqi specialists, this is normal work and not a<BR>rescue dig. Within the
time available, it would be very difficult to mount<BR>any large-scale
excavation programme.<BR><BR>However, archaeologists have now decided to do
what they can to mobilise<BR>international support to save Assur. At an
academic conference on Nimrud,<BR>held at the British Museum in March, a
resolution was approved which warned<BR>of the damaging consequences of the
Makhul Dam : “The conference urges all<BR>concerned parties, both within Iraq
and internationally, to explore every<BR>possible means of preserving the site
of Assur which is of unique importance<BR>in the history of Iraq in particular
and world civilisation in general.”<BR><BR>Friday, 1 July 2005<BR><BR><A
href="javascript:ol('http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m13277&l=i&size=1&hd=0');"><FONT
color=#000099>http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m13277&l=i&size=1&hd=0</FONT></A><BR><BR>Transmis
par Joëlle P.<BR><BR><BR><BR>by : Joëlle<BR>Wednesday 6th July
2005<BR><BR></P></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>