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This
editorial first appeared in the Washington Post. Click here
to view the Post's online version, which includes editorials
by other experts, including Martin Sullivan, who resigned as chairman
of the U.S. Cultural Property Advisory Committee to protest U.S. failure
to stop the looting in Iraq.
The Next Step: Reconstruct Records by Dr. Richard L. Zettler, Associate Curator-in-charge of the Near Eastern Section Archaeologists and editorial writers alike have compared the looting and wanton destruction at Iraq's National Museum to the mysterious demise of Alexandria's royal library in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago. Facts remain sketchy, but as the story in Baghdad unfolds, it may prove as difficult to sort out as was the burning of that ancient repository. Be that as it may, the National Museum's losses were apparently compounded by the ransacking of its registration records, as well as reports, catalogues and photographs from excavations in the "cradle of civilization" dating back to the early 1920s. The critical importance of such documents, housed in the museum's offices, cannot be overstated. They not only provide inventory data, but record the context on which our interpretation of excavated artifacts depends. While the recovery of artifacts documenting Iraq's rich history remains the priority, the reconstruction of the National Museum's records is possible, at least for some archaeological sites, and equally urgent in determining what was taken and to rebuilding that institution over the longer run. Tell al Muqayyar -- ancient Ur, one of early Mesopotamia's major city-states, located near Nasiriyah -- illustrates the magnitude of the task at hand. The British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum (UPM) began large-scale work at Abraham's birthplace after World War I. The Joint Expedition was the first archaeological project in modern Iraq. The British archaeologist, C. Leonard (later Sir Leonard) Woolley, excavated the site from 1922 to 1934, digging five or six months a year, with 200 to 300 workers, a scale few could afford today. He uncovered major public buildings, including the ziggurat, or stepped temple tower, of the moon god, Nanna; a cemetery numbering 2,000 burials, including the tombs of the kings and queens who ruled Ur around 2500 B.C.; private houses of the time of Hammurabi; and the prehistoric phases of occupation at the site. To his credit, Woolley promptly published the excavation results in popular works, as well as preliminary reports and final accounts encompassing nine oversized volumes. In 12 years of work, Woolley and his excavators uncovered tens of thousands of artifacts, which he recorded in field catalogues. He drew or photographed some, but merely described or listed the majority by reference to idealized types. Under Iraq's 1924 Antiquities Law, the finds were divided between Iraq's National Museum and the excavators, who, in turn, shared their half. Woolley's records are in the British Museum, bound in more than 60 volumes. Copies of the artifact catalogues are at the UPM. Both institutions have rudimentary lists of their Ur collections, but niggling problems exist. For example, Woolley did not register all of the artifacts he found and he often registered many artifacts under a single number. In some instances, the field and/or museum registration numbers on artifacts have disappeared over the years, eliminating their link to excavation records. Though it will be a Herculean task, the British Museum and the UPM need to produce a computerized database of the artifacts in London and Philadelphia so that, by process of elimination, we can generate an accurate list of what was originally assigned to Baghdad. In turn, the Iraq Museum's curators will be able to inventory their own holdings to help determine what may have disappeared. Copies of the complete inventory of artifacts can then be deposited in the National Museum as a permanent record of the excavations. The work of producing the inventories will be slow and tedious, taking many months, but it is a small price for reclaiming a key part of the world's cultural heritage. |