The Iraq Museum () is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. The Iraq Museum contains relics from the Mesopotamian, Abbasid, and Persian civilizations. It was looted during and after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Despite international efforts, only some of the stolen artifacts have been returned. After being closed for many years for restoration, the museum officially reopened in February 2015.
Foundation After World War I, archaeologists from Europe and the United States began several excavations throughout Iraq. In an effort to keep those findings from leaving Iraq, Gertrude Bell (a British traveller, intelligence agent, archaeologist, and author) began collecting the artifacts in a government building in Baghdad in 1922. On 14 June 1926, the Iraqi government moved the collection to a new building and established the Baghdad Antiquities Museum, with Bell as its director."National Museum of Iraq" . Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Retrieved February 6, 2012 Bell died later that year; the new director was Sidney Smith.
In 1966, the collection was moved again, to a two-story, building in Baghdad's Al-Ṣāliḥiyyah neighborhood in the Al-Karkh district on the east side of the Tigris River. It is with this move that the name of the museum was changed to the Iraq Museum. It was originally known as the Baghdad Archaeological Museum.
Bahija Khalil became the director of the Iraq Museum in 1983. She was the first woman director and she held that role until 1989.
Collections
Due to the archaeological riches of Mesopotamia, the museum's collections are considered to be among the most important in the world, and it has a fine record of scholarship and display. The British connection with the museum — and with Iraq — has resulted in exhibits always being displayed bilingually, in both English and Arabic. It contains important artifacts from the over 5,000-year-long history of Mesopotamia in 28 galleries and vaults.
The collections of The Iraq Museum include art and artifacts from ancient Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian civilizations. The museum also has galleries devoted to collections of both pre-Islamic and Islamic Arabian art and artifacts. Of its many noteworthy collections, the Nimrud gold collection—which features gold jewelry and figures of the precious stone that date to the 9th-century BCE—and the collection of stone carvings and cuneiform tablets from Uruk are exceptional. The Uruk treasures date to between 3500 and 3000 BCE.
Damage and losses during 2003 war
In the months preceding the 2003 Iraq war, starting in December and January, various antiquities experts, including representatives from the American Council for Cultural Policy asked the Pentagon and the UK government to ensure the museum's safety from both combat and looting, but no promises were made. U.S. forces did not bomb the site, despite them bombing a number of uninhabited Iraqi archaeological sites.
On April 9, 2003, the last of the museum curators and staff left the museum, including director Nawala Al-Mutawalli. Iraqi forces engaged U.S. forces a few blocks away, as well as the nearby Special Republican Guard compound. Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz of the U.S. third Infantry Division declared that he "was unable to enter the compound and secure it since they attempted to avoid returning fire at the building. Sniper positions, discarded ammunition, and 15 Iraqi Army uniforms were later discovered in the building". The positions turned out to be museum arranged sandbags and protective foam support and mitigation barriers for large size artefacts, the uniforms and ammunition turning out to belong to the museum curators and staff (being reserve military personnel in state of war) and to the contrary to the U.S. statement, no traces of any serious engagement were detected anywhere in the museum and its surrounding yard. Iraqi staff as a protective measure had built a fortified wall along the western side of the compound, allowing concealed movement between the front and rear of the museum, and the U.S. forces could have secured the museum by simply encircling and isolating it preventing the looters from accessing the facility.
Thefts took place between April 10 and 12, and when a number of museum staff returned to the building on April 12, they fended off further attempts by looters to enter the museum and had to wait until April 16 for the deployment of the U.S. forces around the museum. A special team headed by Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos initiated an investigation on April 21. His investigation indicated that there were three separate thefts by three distinct groups over the four days. While the staff instituted a storage plan to prevent theft and damage (also used during the Iran–Iraq War and the first Gulf War), many larger statues, steles, and friezes had been left in the public galleries, protected with foam and surrounded by sandbags. Forty pieces were stolen from these galleries, mostly the more valuable ones. Of these only 13 had been recovered as of January 2005, including the three most valuable: the Sacred Vase of Warka (though broken in fourteen pieces, which was the original state it was found in when first excavated), the Mask of Warka, and the Bassetki Statue.
According to museum officials, the looters concentrated on the heart of the exhibition: "the Warka Vase, a Sumerian alabaster piece more than 5,000 years old; a bronze Uruk statue from the Akkadian period, also 5,000 years old, which weighs 660 pounds; and the headless statue of Entemena. The Harp of Ur was torn apart by looters who removed its gold inlay."Thanassis Cambanis and Charles M. Sennott. Looters Pillage Babylon Leaving Iraqis, Archeologists Devastated. The Boston Globe Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. April 21, 2003, Among the stolen artefacts is the bronze Bassetki Statue, a life-size statue of a young man, originally found in the village Basitke in the northern part of Iraq, an Akkadian Empire piece that goes back to 2300 B.C. and the stone statue of King Schalmanezer, from the eighth century BC.Newsweek. The Last Word: Donny George. A Real-Life Treasure Hunt. Newsweek International. March 21, 2007. Available: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7169977/site/newsweek/
In addition, the museum's above-ground storage rooms were looted. Approximately 3,100 excavation site pieces (jars, vessels, pottery shards, etc.) were stolen, of which only 3,000 have been recovered. The thefts did not appear to be discriminating; for example, an entire shelf of fakes was stolen, while an adjacent shelf of much greater value was undisturbed.
The third occurrence of theft was in the underground storage rooms. The thieves attempted to steal the most easily transportable objects, which had been intentionally stored in the most remote location possible. Of the four rooms, the only portion disturbed was a single corner in the furthest room, where cabinets contained 100 small boxes containing cylinder seals, beads, and jewelry. Evidence indicated that the thieves possessed special master keys to the cabinets but dropped them in the dark. Instead, they stole 10,000 small objects that were lying in plastic boxes on the floor. Of them, only 2,500 have approximately been recovered.
One of the most valuable artifacts looted was a headless stone statue of the Sumerian king Entemena of Lagash. The Entemena statue, "estimated to be 4,400 years old, is the first significant artifact returned all the way from the United States and by far the most important piece found outside Iraq. American officials declined to discuss how they recovered the statue."Barry Meier and James Glanz. Looted treasure returning to Iraq national museum. The New York Times. July 26, 2006 The statue of the king, located in the center of the museum's second-floor Sumerian Hall, weighs hundreds of pounds, making it the heaviest piece stolen from the museum – the looters "probably rolled or slid it down marble stairs to remove it, smashing the steps and damaging other artifacts."
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the recovery of the statue of King Entemena of Lagash on July 25, 2006, in the United States. The statue was returned to the Iraq government. It was discovered with the help of Hicham Aboutaam, an art dealer in New York City.
International reaction to the looting The U.S. government was criticised for doing nothing to protect the museum after occupying Baghdad.Robbing the Cradle of Civilization , Deutsche Welle, April 18, 2003 Dr Irving Finkel of the British Museum said the looting was "entirely predictable and could easily have been stopped."Talbot, Ann. US government implicated in planned theft of Iraqi artistic treasures. 19 April 2003. World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved 10 July 2020 Martin E. Sullivan, chairman of the U.S. president's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property, and U.S. State Department cultural advisers Gary Vikan and Richard S. Lanier resigned in protest at the failure of US forces to prevent the looting.US experts resign over Iraq looting , BBC News, April 18, 2003
The extent of the looting of The Iraq Museum has been disputed. Based on a miscommunication by the first crews on the scene, and the empty display cases in the main galleries that in most cases had held objects which museum curators had removed before the First Gulf War and invasion, news organizations for weeks reported that as much as 170,000 catalogued lots (501,000 pieces) had been looted. The accurate figure was around 15,000 items, including 5,000 extremely valuable cylinder seals.
On April 12, 2003, The Associated Press reported: "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."
On April 14, National Public Radio's Robert Siegel announced on All Things Considered: "As it turned out, American troops were but a few hundred yards away as the country's heritage was stripped bare."
Reacting to the loss, French President Jacques Chirac on April 16, 2003, declared the incident "a crime against humanity."
When asked why the U.S. military did not try to guard the museum in the days after the invasion succeeded, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "If you remember, when some of that looting was going on, people were being killed, people were being wounded ... It's as much as anything else a matter of priorities." Civil Affairs expert William Sumner, who was tasked with handling arts, monuments and archives, explained that the postwar Civil Affairs planners "didn't foresee the marines as going out and assigning marine units as security ... The issue of archaeological sites was considered a targeting problem," to be dealt with by those flying bombing missions.Rothfield, Lawrence The Rape of Mesopotamia (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 82–83. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking about the museum's looting, said "stuff happens"Donald Rumsfeld book admits 'misstatements' over WMD sites , The Guardian, February 8, 2011. and "to try to pass off the fact of that unfortunate activity to a deficit in the war plan strikes me as a stretch," and described the period of looting in general as "untidiness." Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "The United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with respect to antiquities in general but this museum in particular," but all such promises were only partially honoured considering the staggering increase in Iraqi archaeological site looting during the U.S. occupation period of Iraq.