“I firmly denounce a very serious fact: after the looting that took place in many Iraqi archaeological museums, many pieces are now circulating in the black market. They can be purchased in various auction houses in Zurich, Paris, London, Berlin and New York and they can even be found on the Internet. Nothing has been done to stop this haemorrhage”.
Professor Giovanni Pettinato, tenured professor of Assyriology at the Sapienza University, Rome, and for long involved in research in Iraq, alerts us in such decided terms that also hold an anguished note.
- Can you state a few incidents with more details?
“Certainly. A few days ago Mohammed Fakry, a curator at the Amman archaeological museum, Jordan, called me. He was quite irritated that certain American officials had privately contacted him on their return from Iraq. They proposed the museum of Amman the purchase of tablets and statuettes from Baghdad. And – I repeat – over 100,000 pieces are circulating throughout the world of the wealthy and not just in the museums of leading Middle East capitals.”
-How can such ruin have taken place?
“It is obvious: American soldiers permitted museums to be plundered and later some of them purchased precious objects for a few dollars from the worn-out population. On the other hand let us reason: what would a poor Iraqi do with cultural items when he has urgent survival problems; if he were not sure he could resell them, he would never dream of stealing them. It is a million dollar business!”
- However there are severe sanctions against the trade of objets d’art in industrialized nations. Is this not the case?
“I inform you that a few weeks before the war, when the intervention had already been decided, the United States established less severe laws against those who would trade archaeological pieces from the near east. Besides last November over 150 nations at the UNESCO signed a commitment not to take artistic and archaeological items as spoils of war: these countries numbered neither the United States nor Great Britain. Isn’t that strange?”
- Have you experts already intervened?
“We have repeatedly prepared and presented the UNESCO (the UN in charge of cultural heritage and based in Paris) detailed documents directed at sensitizing politicians and soldiers on the gravity of the situation. But there is nothing to be done: I am entirely pessimistic about the good result of our attempts: the UNESCO is a gigantic association in American hands. Though they have not paid their share for years, Americans make the most important decisions on their own.”
-Now that the war is over, will it be possible to avoid further plundering and to restore damages caused to archaeological sites by the so-called intelligent bombs?
“Missions of experts and restorers are leaving for Iraq. Unfortunately they tell me that the situation throughout the country is so unstable as not to enable archaeologists to work safely and constantly. I know the main sites were spared; however some had already been struck dead by bombing in the ‘no fly zone’ during the ten years embargo. The worst off were the great southern sites, those near Bassora, like Ur, Uruk and Lagash, places where the biblical story began and branched off.”
-What concrete interventions can the Italian government implement?
“Besides sending the civil police, it should organize or at least finance expeditions of experts and specialists (archaeologists, architects, restorers) to support the restoration and in some cases the reconstruction of devastated areas. And it should more effectively strike smugglers of goods from those areas, should they be spotted. But interventions must be coordinated between the nations: a sort of international police must be appointed as soon as possible to safeguard the cultural heritage of regions at risk.”
-Hence, professor, would you also propose a greater “archaeological “ understanding between Middle East governments, often so divided by politics?
“Certainly! The individual nations of that area converge in their interest for a common past, for the “same feeling”. Western civilization was born there, the first urban realities and early models of states were formed there, writing was born there and the three great monotheist religions, who rubbed each other the wrong way up too soon, originated there. The Old Testament’s roots are in Ur: Abraham, the patriarch, is supposed to have set off from Ur on the long journey that was to take him to the land of Canaan, today’s Israel. Historical research, archaeological exploration and in short the management of 7000 years of artistic and archaeological heritage can unite a region that is politically divided and today fatally injured.”
Translated by interpres sas
