Showing 3 results for the tag: Iraq National Museum.

November 7, 2011

RIP – the archaeologist who fought to protect Iraq’s treasures from the looters

Posted at 2:03 pm in Similar cases

Donny George – the Iraqi Archaeologist who tried to protect Iraq National Museum in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein recently died aged 60.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Donny George
Donny George, who died on March 11 aged 60, was an Iraqi archaeologist who, following the 2003 invasion, fought a brave battle to prevent looters ransacking the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad, then led efforts to recover thousands of stolen artefacts.
6:35PM GMT 15 Mar 2011

Ancient Mesopotamia — modern-day Iraq — was the cradle of urban civilisation, and Iraq’s National Museum is the main repository of its archaeological treasures, resonant with such names as Babylon, Nimrud, Asher, Uruk, Nineveh and Ur.

When the Allies invaded Iraq, George, an Assyrian Christian, was director of research at the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. In the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, he fought his way through the chaos to report to the museum, but found that he could not persuade American troops to protect it by moving their tanks across the entrance because they had not been ordered to do so. It was a question about the looting that prompted American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s laconic observation “Stuff happens”. Or as General Tommy Franks of Central Command said at a pre-war briefing when the subject of securing cultural sites came up, “I don’t have time for this —-ing bullshit!”
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February 17, 2010

How much cultural heritage is really loot

Posted at 1:45 pm in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

The Parthenon Sculptures are just a small proportion of the many other cases of disputed artefacts around the world. The countries that currently posses them rarely admit that these pieces are anyting other than legitimately acquired & owned.

From:
Pravda

Heritage, Loot or Booty?
07.02.2010

Western Museums are brimming with cultural heritage…from other countries. The Elgin Marbles are just one set of tens of thousands of artefacts looted from distant lands during colonial or imperialist times. However, the same desecration of cultural heritage continues. How many of the 13,000 artefacts stolen from Baghdad National Museum are today in the United States of America?

The list was drawn up and given to Vice-President Richard (Dick) Cheney before the first US or British soldier set foot in Iraq. It was a shopping list of archaeological treasures which the White House cronies wanted to see on their shelves in Rhode Island, in Maryland, in Virginia. UNESCO claims that when the Baghdad National Museum was looted in April 2003, 13,000 objects disappeared. How many of these are sitting in private homes in the USA?
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March 2, 2009

The difficulties of recovering looted artefacts

Posted at 9:58 pm in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

The recovery of looted artefacts is often accompanied by many underlying political dimensions – both on the part of the party requesting return & of the current holders.

From:
Democracy Arsenal

March 02, 2009
Stolen Art and International Relations
Posted by Hanna Lundqvist

The looting of art and historical artifacts is often dismissed as a factor in international relations. Having studied art history in college and now working in foreign policy, I feel that when dealing with an issue portfolio that includes nuclear proliferation, war, economic crises, and global warming, the lower priority of art and culture is usually reasonable – however, this does not mean that the problem of looting should be entirely ignored, particularly because of the strong ties between art and national pride. Stolen art is not merely of concern due to the loss of object context for art historians and archeologists or cultural patrimony. Though usually rightly on the back-burner, looted art is a legitimate and often hot-tempered foreign policy issue.
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