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Cultural Organizations Deplore Destruction of Iraq’s AntiquitiesCultural organizations and intellectuals around the world have voiced their dismay over the destruction and theft of Iraqi antiquities from the National Library and National Museum in the looting and burning rampage that followed the takeover of Baghdad by the United States military in mid-April.Two Bush administration advisers, Martin Sullivan, eight-year head of the U.S. President’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Property, and committee member Gary Vikan, resigned in protest at the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the wholesale looting and destruction. “We certainly know the value of oil, but we certainly don’t know the value of historical artifacts,” Vikan said in an April 17 Reuters report. “It didn’t have to happen,” said Sullivan. “In a pre-emptive war that’s the kind of thing you should have planned for.” Among the treasures feared lost is a priceless trove of ancient Mesopotamian writings known as the “Sippar Library,” the oldest library ever found intact on its original shelves. Dating from the sixth century B.C. and consisting of about 800 tablets, it was housed in the National Museum. Its fate is unknown, the Washington Post reported April 18. Following an April 17 meeting in Paris, UNESCO issued an official communiqué deploring the destruction and offered recommendations to those responsible for civil order in Iraq—among them that all cultural sites be secured and guarded, that antiquities be prohibited from leaving Iraq, and that UNESCO lead a fact-finding mission to determine the damage and loss. Deputy Director General Mounir Bouchenaki called the looting “a catastrophe.” A Heritage Emergency National Task Force—which includes the Library of Congress, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the American Library Association, and various cultural organizations—has mobilized to coordinate with the efforts of UNESCO and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions to assist librarians in Iraq in the restoration of the National Library, the National Archive, the Awqaf Islamic library, and university libraries in Mosul and Basra. Posted April 28, 2003. |
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