[MSN] New shadows are cast over Iraq's pre-Islamic art

Tue Sep 12 05:25:44 CEST 2006

New shadows are cast over Iraq's pre-Islamic art  
By Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton The New York Times

Published: September 11, 2006

BEIRUT There is mounting concern among scholars that the appointment of
religiously conservative Shiite Muslims throughout Iraq's traditionally
secular archaeological institutions could threaten the preservation of the
country's pre-Islamic history.

Donny George's recent departure as chairman of the State Board of
Antiquities and Heritage, and his flight to Syria, is among the latest
results of a transformation that began in December when a Shiite-dominated
government was elected in Baghdad. The radical Shiite cleric Moktada
al-Sadr, who commands his own militia, emerged with enough seats in
Parliament to take control of four ministries and to create a Ministry of
Tourism and Antiquities.

The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, traditionally under the
Ministry of Culture, now reports to this new ministry as well. "The Ministry
of Tourism and Antiquities wants to control Iraq's archaeological heritage
by demolishing this institution, one of the oldest institutions in Iraq,"
George said in a telephone interview from Damascus. "This will be a disaster
for this field, and for the cultural heritage of the country."

Although the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has begun operating, the
law creating it has not yet been approved by Parliament, which is about to
begin debating the measure, said Abdul Zahra al-Talaqani, a spokesman for
the new ministry. The proposed law would divide the State Board of
Antiquities and Heritage into four administrative departments: museums,
excavations, manuscripts and heritage. The present departments of
restoration and research would be eliminated, suggesting that preservation
and scholarship would no longer be the institution's focus.

The long history of secular scholarship in Iraq has covered all periods,
including excavations at the Islamic site of Samarra and the restoration of
Ukhaidir, an Islamic fortress near Karbala. Earlier sites include ruins from
the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Parthian and Sassanian civilizations.

The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage was created in 1923, when
Gertrude Bell, the British explorer and administrator, founded the Iraqi
National Museum. "It was the best in the whole Middle East," said McGuire
Gibson, a professor of Mesopotamian archaeology at the University of
Chicago.

Liwa Sumaysim, the new minister of tourism and antiquities, is a dentist
whose wife, a member of Parliament, is related to Sadr. The new ministry has
already replaced employees of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage at
both the national and local level.

Burhan Shakur, an archaeologist who was director of excavations at the Iraqi
Museum, was fired in the spring, then given the option to retire; he has
left for Germany. Abdul-Amir Hamdani, the inspector for antiquities in the
Dhi Qar Province, an area rich in pre-Islamic sites, was jailed in April on
charges of corruption. After three months he was released, and the charges
were dropped. But his job was then filled by a man with ties to Al Fadilah,
an Islamist party aligned with the Sadr movement.

With the looting of archaeological sites in southern Iraq still thriving,
control of the antiquities department is a significant prize. Most of the
archaeological sites in the southern Dhi Qar Province are pre-Islamic,
dating roughly from 3200 B.C. to A.D. 500. A link between Islamic militants
and looting at pre-Islamic archaeological sites has long been suspected, but
is difficult to prove. The Nasiriyah Museum was burned and looted in 2004 by
militants affiliated with Sadr. The museum's guards reported that the
militants promised to do to the antiquities there exactly "what the Taliban
did."

The center for Iraq's illicit antiquities trade, Fajr, is also a stronghold
for militants loyal to Sadr. And anti-Western graffiti has appeared at
looted archaeological sites. "It is hard to say yes or no if these gangs
have a relation with the Sadr movement," cautioned Mufeed al- Jazairi,
Iraq's first minister of culture after the Coalition Provisional Authority
disbanded. "But it is not surprising to imagine that one of these gangs will
announce that they are allies with Sadr, hoping to gain a political shield
in case they are being followed by authorities."

"If the destruction of sites continues, it is not just the death of
archaeology," Gibson of the University of Chicago said. "Antiquities are key
to Iraq's economy; at some point the oil will run out. Iraqi tourism will be
built on archaeology."

Yet Gibson warned that putting an archaeological department under a tourism
office tends to have negative consequences because sites may become
mothballed, and research possibilities lost.

The Sadrist leadership in the new ministry has made its views known in other
ways. Recently two pre-Islamic statues it returned to the Iraqi Museum were
accompanied by a note describing them as "idols." Elizabeth Stone, an
archaeologist and professor of anthropology who has excavated in southern
Iraq, said that officials of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities had
also visited the museum before the departure of George, who is Christian,
and asked, "Do you want to be governed by a crusader?"

 BEIRUT There is mounting concern among scholars that the appointment of
religiously conservative Shiite Muslims throughout Iraq's traditionally
secular archaeological institutions could threaten the preservation of the
country's pre-Islamic history.