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Babylon Chronicle: Iraq Cannot Recover Stolen Artifacts, Lawmaker Says

tammuz:

February 26, 2013

Hussein Aziz Al-Sharifi, a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Tourism and Antiquities told Al-Mustaqbal News that the budget allocations to the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities are very limited and will not lead to the recovery of the stolen Iraqi artifacts. Al-Sharifi said that “the budget of the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry is very small compared with the rest of the ministries.” He also added that “the government did not pay any attention to that ministry as if it were non-existent, despite the fact that tourism is the second largest contributor to national income after oil exports.”

Al-Sharifi said that the budget of the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry needs to be increased so that the country can afford the process of recovering the stolen artifacts. He also pointed out that the ministry is in an urgent need to hire 12,000 guards to protect the archaeological sites of Iraq, indicating that the Parliamentary Commission on Tourism and Antiquities already submitted a proposal to increase the budget allocations for that ministry.

Al-Mustaqbal News

(via gwebarchaeology)

archaeologicalnews:

Iraq’s Khan al-Shilan, a former Ottoman military headquarters that later became a government administrative building, will turn into a museum featuring antiquities and archaeological pieces

It served as an Ottoman headquarters, a prison, an ice factory and a mill before falling into neglect.

Now, Najaf’s historic and much-loved Khan al-Shilan is getting a new lease on life as a museum.

Local authorities in Najaf plan to turn the structure into a museum featuring antiquities and archaeological pieces as well as statues of rebels and some of the actual weapons they used in a 1920 Iraqi uprising against the British, during which captured soldiers were held at Khan al-Shilan.

In addition to its long history, Khan al-Shilan is significant due to the remains of drawings and dates left by the captive British soldiers, which are still visible on its walls. Read more.

Airport expansion in Iraq uncovers 1,700-year-old church
Sevaan Franks, ablogabouthistory.com

The remains of a 1,700-year-old monastery have been uncov­ered dur­ing an air­port expan­sion project in Najaf, Iraq.

A hun­dred meters (yards) or so from taxi­ing air­lin­ers, Iraqi archae­ol­o­gist Ali al-Fatli is show­ing a vis­i­tor around t…

mouthyheritage:

lootinginphotos:

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Iraqi National Museum Deputy Director Mushin Hasan holds his head in his hands as he sits on destroyed artifacts April 13, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq. http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0305/pcox.html

Submit to Holes: Looting in Photos on the Flickr group pool, and see more photos on the official Flickr and Pinterest. Learn more about looting at Things You Can’t Take Back. 

Holes: Looting in Photos is an effort to bring together many images of looted archaeological sites and looted artifacts to more effectively present what our destroyed human past actually looks like. By displaying both the individual artifacts/sites alongside the repetition of countless holes, dug up bodies, and defaced stone, I hope to provide a different kind of resource for learning about looting, as well as a more meaningful comprehension of the overwhelming global scale. 

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(via museumsandthings)

archaeologicalnews:

ATHENS - Greek archaeology students hit by state funding cuts are making an online appeal for donations to join excavations in Iraqi Kurdistan, the state-run Athens News Agency said on Monday.

In a posting on donation site www.indiegogo.com, the group of Athens University students ask for help to cover the 500-euro ($632) plane fare.

“Without wishing to sound like a cliche, everyone knows that times are tough right now,” the students said in their posting.

“The university cannot cover the cost of our airplane tickets,” they said. “So please donate and send us there.”

The university of Athens has three ongoing projects in what was once ancient Mesopotamia, including a topographical survey for the location of the battle of Gaugamela between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia in 331 BC. Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

The sound of hammers echoes from ancient brick as Iraqi workers battling damage done by wind, water, and modern history race to shore up the crumbing walls of Babylon.

If we don’t do something, in the next 10 years it will disappear completely,” says Thierry Grandin, a consultant to the World Monuments Fund overseeing workmen erecting wooden scaffolding to stabilize the 2,600-year-old north wall.

The capitol of the Babylonian empire, one of the wonders of the ancient world, has fallen on hard times.

Only a fraction of the 4,000-year-old site has been excavated but the ruins above ground have been eroded by wind and salt water, and damaged both by sweeping reconstruction ordered by former President Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and the more recent US military occupation. Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

Iraq is the home of the Fertile Crescent, the Cradle of Civilization. But the country’s importance in human history goes back even further, to the time of the Neanderthals. In 1951, American archaeologist Ralph Solecki discovered Neanderthal remains in Shanidar Cave. The cave sits in the Zagros Mountains in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, about 250 miles north of Baghdad. From 1951 to 1960, Solecki and colleagues excavated the cave and recovered fossils belonging to 10 individuals dating to between 65,000 and 35,000 years ago. Politics prevented further archaeological work, but the Shanidar fossils still provide important insights on the Neanderthals of West Asia. Here are a few of the most intriguing finds:

Shanidar 1: Nicknamed Nandy, Shanidar 1 lived sometime between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago. He had a hard life. A blow to the head in his youth probably blinded him in his left eye. A withered right arm and leg suggest the head injury probably also caused brain damage that paralyzed the right side of Nandy’s body. He also fractured his foot at some point. Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

AFP - Babylon’s Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but heritage appears to be no match for Iraq’s booming oil industry in a dispute over a new pipeline.

As Baghdad is working to get UNESCO to list Babylon as a World Heritage Site, archaeologists and oil ministry officials are in a battle over a pipeline that one side insists threatens the site and could cause irreparable damage to the ruins.

Qais Rashid, head of the Supreme Board of Antiquities and Heritage, said the oil ministry drilled to extend a pipeline that runs about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles) in length, to transport petroleum products through the archaeological site of Babylon.

The pipeline was officially opened in March.

“The work could damage priceless antiquities belonging to the modern era of Babylon, especially by drilling,” Rashid said. Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

On December 17th, the same day the last U.S. troops left Iraq, a group of archaeologists from Stony Brook University arrived in the country, becoming one of the first foreign archaeology teams to visit in more than 20 years.

According to a recent report by USA Today’s Dan Vergano, the team spent four weeks excavating a mound called Tell Sakhariya near the southern city of Nasiriyah.  It was a “small” dig, but for international archaeologists who have tracked every conflict in the region with bated breath — and who have anxiously awaited another chance to study Iraq’s ruins — the news was significant.

Elizabeth Stone, one of the archaeologists on the trip, described it as “a really hopeful moment,” saying, “It was wonderful to be back.”

Vergano’s article includes information about other historic sites in Iraq, including Ur, famed as the birthplace of Abraham and home to the world’s largest ziggurat. Read more.

archaeologicalnews:

MOSUL, Iraq — On land where Assyrian kings once reigned, an Iraqi farmer named Araf Khalaf surveyed the scrap of earth that has nurtured three generations of his family. It is little more than a mud hut and a scraggly vegetable patch, yet his land has become a battleground, one pitting efforts to preserve Iraq’s ancient treasures against the nation’s modern-day poor.

With violence ebbing, Iraqi and international archaeologists are again excavating and repairing the country’s historic sites. But they are running into a problem: thousands of Iraqis have taken up residence among the poorly guarded ruins of Mesopotamia, in illegally built homes and shops, greenhouses and garages. And they do not want to leave.

“My father grew up here,” Mr. Khalaf said. “This is our land.” Read more.

archaeology:

allmesopotamia: Sumerian queen Puabi on a 1966 Iraqi stamp