Looting of the Iraq National Museum: The Museum Community Responds

Special Public Briefing at the
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Friday, May 9 at noon and Saturday, May 10 at 2 p.m.
RSVP requested: 215/898-2680

The land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, is often called "the cradle of civilization." Much of the long and impressive archaeological record of this region's rich cultural and artistic history resided in the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad--until the tragic looting that took place in mid-April. 

Dr. Richard Zettler offers a public update on the looting of the National Museum of Iraq, and the ongoing response of the international community of Museum directors, curators, archaeologists, scholars and others committed to minimizing the loss of Iraq's cultural treasures, and assisting with the return of stolen artifacts. Returning from London and an emergency meeting coordinated by the British Museum and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization), he will share what steps are being taken, planned, and considered by the international museum community.

Associate Curator-in-Charge of the Near East Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum, Dr. Zettler is familiar with the National Museum of Iraq and its treasures, having spent six months researching at the Museum's collections in Baghdad while writing his dissertation in 1978-79. He has excavated at the site of Nippur, in Iraq (where UPM archaeologists conducted their first excavations in the late 1800s), as well as Umm al-Hafriyat and Üç Tepe, and has been directing excavations at the 3rd millennium B.C. site of Tell es-Sweyhat in Syria since 1989. He is co-curator of UPM's nationally-traveling exhibition, "Treasures of the Royal Tombs of Ur," which features world-famous ancient Sumerian artifacts, circa 2550 B.C., excavated at the Iraqi site of Ur by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum in the late 1920s--early 1930s.

This program is co-sponsored with the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.