Report details damage to historical site of Babylon in Iraq

[sabra]

Source: UNESCO

A report detailing damage to the renowned archaeological site of Babylon, located in Iraq, is the starting-point for its restoration and conservation.

That announcement came on Thursday from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Coalition forces used the archaeological site as a base from April 2003 to December 2004, which a British Museum report characterized as "tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain."

The ‘Final Report on Damage Assessment in Babylon' describes deterioration which occurred both before and after this period. It lists recommendations for the future protection, restoration and management of the site, with a view to nominating it for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Read more: http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/77966.html

[JonLP24]

1. Al-Hilla

CSC Scania is near there but I never been. I believe it was the Marines that used the site as a base. I remember reading about this very fact a few years ago.

[Wizard777]

2. That is tragic and atrocious.

[jwirr]

3. They opened the museums to plunder the day they moved in so

I guess we should not be surprised about other historic destruction.

[No Elephants]

4. Not to mention that we allowed the Iraq National Museum to be looted of things 7000 years

old.

"It houses items from ancient Babylon and Nineveh, Sumerian statues, Assyrian reliefs and 5,000-year-old tablets bearing some of the earliest known writing.

There are also gold and silver items from the Ur cemetery. ..(Ur, birthplace of Abraham)

Iraq is a cradle of civilisation, with thousands of archaeological sites spanning more than 10,000 years.

It is the birthplace of agriculture, empires were in Iraq and the origins of writing have been traced to the region.

Certain organisations, including the British Museum, had called for historical sites to be protected before the current conflict started. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2942449.stm



The Gulf War of 1991 damaged sites, too.

IIRC, tablet with the Code of Hammurabi are among the losses from the Museum.

And whatever happened to the stuff and money our troops found in Saddam's safes and around his palaces?

Then again, our own national treasury has been looted many times.

[Inuca]

5. I will never forget

I was driving and listening to an interview on NPR with a history professor and (I think) archeologist. He was describing the plunder of the museum and towards the end he was almost crying, you could literally hear the tears in his voice. Brouight tears to my eyes as well. The distruction of what cannot be replaced is a crime against humanity.

[jasi2006]

6. Destroy a civilization to re-make your own history.

It always happened with empire-building.

[Solly Mack]

7. K&R

All that history.... :(

[mopinko]

8. catalogue of baghdad museum treasures

>In the days following the conquest of Baghdad by U.S. troops in April 2003, the Iraq Museum waslooted; many pieces were stolen, others damaged or destroyed. Thanks to the foresight of the museum staff, the losses were less severe than than initially reported in the media, when a total loss of this collection was predicted. Even two years, however, a full damage assessment is still missing. A complete list of all losses can only be drawn up after a complete inventory of all remaining items has been complied, a lengthy and laborious procedure that obstructed by the fact that the museum's archive had been devastated during the looting. Some 15,000 items are now confirmed to be have been stolen. Several famous pieces, such as the Warka Vase and the Warka Head, were retrieved or returned to the museum, but many other important pieces, including the museum's collection of 4,800 cylinder seals, remains missing. Irrespective of numbers, these losses are tremendous not only to the world of archaeology but to mankind in general. <



http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/Iraqdatabasehome.htm

[Posteritatis]

9. (string of incoherent obscenities). (nt)

[roguevalley]

10. this makes me ill