John
WHO PLUNDERED IRAQ NATIONAL MUSEUM ?
Tue Apr 15 00:47:54 2003
208.152.73.146

Subject: WHO PLUNDERED IRAQ NATIONAL MUSEUM ?
From: info Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 10:05:26 +0200

US plans to loot Iraqi antiques
07.04.2003 [08:33]

FEARS that Iraq's heritage will face widespread looting at the end
of the Gulf war have been heightened after a group of wealthy art
dealers secured a high-level meeting with the US administration.

It has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts
lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy
(ACCP), met with US defence and state department officials prior to
the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving
the country's invaluable archaeological collections.

The group is known to consist of a number of influential dealers who
favour a relaxation of Iraq's tight restrictions on the ownership and
export of antiquities. Its treasurer, William Pearlstein, has
described Iraq's laws as 'retentionist' and has said he would support
a post-war government that would make it easier to have antiquities
dispersed to the US.

Before the Gulf war, a main strand of the ACCP's campaigning has been
to persuade its government to revise the Cultural Property
Implementation Act in order to minimise efforts by foreign nations to
block the import into the US of objects, particularly antiques.

News of the group's meeting with the government has alarmed
scientists and archaeologists who fear the ACCP is working to a
hidden agenda that will see the US authorities ease restrictions on
the movement of Iraqi artefacts after a coalition victory in Iraq.

Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, leading Cambridge archaeologist
and director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research,
said: 'Iraqi antiquities legislation protects Iraq. The last thing
one needs is some group of dealer-connected Americans interfering.
Any change to those laws would be absolutely monstrous. '

A wave of protest has also come from the Archaeological Institute of
America (AIA), which says any weakening of Iraq's strict antiquities
laws would be 'disastrous'. President Patty Gerstenblith said: 'The
ACCP's agenda is to encourage the collecting of antiquities through
weakening the laws of archaeologically-rich nations and eliminate
national ownership of antiquities to allow for easier export. '

The ACCP has caused deep unease among archaeologists since its
creation in 2001. Among its main members are collectors and lawyers
with chequered histories in collecting valuable artefacts, including
alleged exhibitions of Nazi loot.

They denied accusations of attempting to change Iraq's treatment of
archaeological objects. Instead, they said at the January meeting
they offered 'post-war technical and financial assistance',
and 'conservation support'.

Источник: Liam McDougall/Sunday Herald



>
> AFP. 12 April 2003. Iraq National Museum Treasures Plundered.
>
> BAGHDAD -- The famed Iraq National Museum, home of extraordinary
> Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections and rare Islamic texts,
> sat empty Saturday -- except for shattered glass display cases and
> cracked pottery bowls that littered the floor.
>
> In an unchecked frenzy of cultural theft, looters who pillaged
> government buildings and businesses after the collapse of Saddam
> Hussein's regime also targeted the museum.
>
> Gone were irreplaceable archaeological treasures from the Cradle of
> Civilization.
>
> Everything that could be carried out has disappeared from the museum --
> gold bowls and drinking cups, ritual masks worn in funerals, elaborately
> wrought headdresses, lyres studded with jewels -- priceless
> craftsmanship from ancient Mesopotamia.
>
> "This is the property of this nation and the treasure of 7,000 years of
> civilization. What does this country think it is doing?" asked Ali
> Mahmoud, a museum employee, futility and frustration in his voice.
>
> Much of the looting occurred Thursday, according to a security guard who
> stood by helplessly as hoards broke into the museum with wheelbarrows
> and carts and stole priceless jewelry, clay tablets and manuscripts.
>
> Left behind were row upon row of empty glass cases -- some smashed up,
> others left intact -- heaps of crumbled pottery and hunks of broken
> statues scattered across the exhibit floors.
>
> Sensing its treasures could be in peril, museum curators secretly
> removed antiquities from their display cases before the war and placed
> them into storage vaults -- but to no avail.
>
> The doors of the vaults were opened or smashed, and everything was
> taken, museum workers said.
>
> Gordon Newby, a historian and professor of Middle Eastern studies at
> Emory University in Atlanta, said the museum's most famous holding may
> have been tablets with Hammurabi's Code -- one of mankind's earliest
> codes of law.
>
> Other treasures believed to be housed at the museum -- such as the Ram
> in the Thicket from Ur, a statue representing a deity from 2600 B.C. --
> are no doubt gone, perhaps forever, he said.
>
> "This is just one of the most tragic things that could happen for our
> being able to understand the past," Newby said.
>
> A museum employee, reduced to tears after coming to the museum Saturday
> and finding her office and all administrative offices trashed by
> looters, said:
>
> "It is all the fault of the Americans. This is Iraq's civilization. And
> it's all gone now."
>
> --
> ProletarianNews
> http://www.utopia2000.org
================================================

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9/11: The Evangelical Christian Connection
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• Did US Dealers/Collectors Organize Museum Looting? — John Ray, Wed Apr 16 00:28
• The 2003 Iraq War & Archaeology — APFN, Tue Apr 15 03:28