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The only real comparison is to the surface of the moon. Craters as deep as 16 feet cover multi-acre sites that are remnants of what is widely considered the cradle of civilization. The craggy, arid earth, all but barren of vegetation, lies in mounds alongside the deep pits where thousands of Iraqi antiquities—cuneiform tablets, ancient scrolls and kings commemorated in stone that might give clues to how civilization began—have been ripped from their resting places and sold to nefarious (or unsuspecting) dealers and collectors. Some sites have been so ravaged that the top 10 feet of earth and all of the irreplaceable artifacts buried there for centuries are gone.
Amid the catastrophe of the war in Iraq—the violence, bloodshed and loss of human life—is the loss of the world’s cultural heritage in the form of hoards of antiquities. It is an ongoing, silent tragedy for which there seems to be no viable solution.
Sources say this is not the work of renegades with shovels. It is planned and executed by organized bands—200 to 300 per site—with heavy machinery at many of the 12,000 sites. And the payout is big. The average Iraqi makes the equivalent of $1,000 per year, yet a cache of looted antiquities can sell for $20,000. And looters can sell two or three such caches every week.
Such looting is not new to Iraq. It has been happening for decades if not centuries, according to Matthew Bogdanos, a Marine Reserves colonel and assistant district attorney in Manhattan who investigated the 2003 looting of the Iraq Museum (an article on his findings appeared in the March/April 2006 issue of Museum News). “The looting is a cottage industry. That is clear,” he says, adding that it is like a trade passed down from one generation to the next. “They say, ‘My father did it, my grandfather did it. What else do you want me to do?’”
What’s changed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003? The pace of looting and the penalties. “Under Saddam [Hussein] the penalty for looting was death—obviously that deterred looting,” said Bogdanos. “When they realized we [U.S. Armed Forces] wouldn’t shoot looters, instead of scattering they would wave to us in the helicopter.” Sources say it is unclear what the current penalty for looting is.
aam-us.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road