Burning a library, especially an ancient one, is usually seen as the act of ignorant, barbaric, people with the intellect of a crow bar. The Library of Alexandria is the canonical example; burned once by the Romans, and later again by the Muslim invaders, I believe that if this library had survived, the Renaissance would have come about much sooner. More recently during World War I, global public sentiment hardened against Germany when their army wantonly burned the great library of medieval manuscripts at Louvain (Leuven). Thousands upon thousands of priceless, irreplaceable works went up in smoke in what amounted to an act of posturing by the forces of a militarist, imperial government ruled by a mad Kaiser.

Bronze head (ca. 2,200 BCE) traditionally believed to be Sargon I, looted from the Baghdad Museum. Photo copyright Hirmer Verlag, Munich. Click image to enlarge.

Today, we are supposed to be above such things. After the first Gulf War, there were widespread reports of looting of museums, so the Pentagon created special units designed to protect cultural sites that happened to be inside a combat zone. Then came the war in Iraq.

As is now well known and documented, the Baghdad Museum, perhaps the single most important repository of material culture from the Cradle of Western Civilization, was sacked and looted. The cultural protection units who might have stopped this were not even deployed. No more than fifty men would have been enough to secure this treasure house, but it was left to the ravages of the mob. Then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld shrugged it off with his usual indifference to tragedy, and the world took a few steps closer to viewing the invasion of Iraq as the work of the forces of a militarist, imperial government ruled by a mad cowboy.

Since the plundering of the Baghdad Museum, many of the stolen artifacts have been recovered, thanks in large part to special efforts made by individuals among our troops who made it their mission to find and bring back these artifacts (See the link below). Since these artifacts were cataloged, this simplified the job somewhat—it always helps to know what is missing and what it looks like. This terrible cultural loss invokes special passion for me. I spent years studying these civilizations. I learned to read their languages, familiarized myself with their cities, their culture and history, their religions and their governments–what we know of them. I take what is happening to our common cultural heritage very seriously and personally.

The Warka Vase, one of the oldest (ca. 3,000 BCE) depictions of a ritual, stolen in April 2003 from the Baghdad Museum. the photo on the left shows its pre-war condition, the photo on the right the condition in which it was returned. Photo copyright Hirmer Verlag, Munich. Click image to enlarge.

Unfortunately, the recovery of much of the Baghdad Museum collection is just a small ray of light amidst a much larger, growing darkness for those who value our common history. For centuries, the great civilizations of Babylon and Assyria lay buried and forgotten, save for some references in biblical and classical literature. The earlier Sumerian civilization was lost completely to history, and only rediscovered within the last 150 years.

But in spite of tremendous progress during that time, thousands of archaeological sites remained unexcavated. Say what you will about the late President Hussein, he did value his country’s cultural heritage even if it was for his own self-serving ends. The point is that these sites were protected and viewed as a source of national pride. Now, a report by Robert Fisk in the British newspaper The Independent reveal that the chaos spawned by the war in Iraq has created conditions where entire cities are being raped by looters and wildcat diggers clear down to bedrock. Illegal antiquities are flooding the black markets. An artifact removed from its context without proper documentation becomes useless for archaeological purposes. The vast, unknown history of the origins of our civilization is being systematically destroyed before it can be read. It is being plundered both by opportunists, and by people who have no other means of support. Some of this may be recovered, but there will always be issues and problems we will never be able to solve because critical contextual information was lost.

The site of Isin, once a royal capital in southern Mesopotamia, destroyed by looters in May 2003 (photo by McGuire Gibson).

If you ask me why we should care about a bunch of artifacts of a dead civilization, I can only wonder how dead your soul must be. Years ago, french assyriologist Jean Bottero wrote an essay entitled “In Defense of a Useless Science”, as some may consider the study of such arcana. But to some extent, Bottero’s essay was useless; you either have the maturity, depth, knowledge, and wisdom to appreciate the value of our shared ancient material culture or you don’t.

War is a destroyer of cultures, but in this case the culture is that of the western world, along with a fair share of the east. I do not doubt that fairly or unfairly, future scholars and historians will mention the American invasion of Iraq in the same breath along with the Germans at Louvain, or the Romans or Muslims at Alexandria.

Further Reading:

Oriental Institute continues to support search for missing Iraqi artifacts a year after looting

It is the Death of History by Robert Fisk

THIEVES OF BAGHDAD: One Marine’s Passion for Ancient Civilizations and the Journey to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures