The babylon disaster

13/05/2009

How the most significant site of the ancient world was looted and crushed during conflict in Iraq

by Khalid al-Ansary

For a site whose historical importance ranks with Egypt’s pyramids, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon has suffered some rough treatment. In recent times, US troops and allied armies have parked tanks and weapons on the site in southern Iraq and used earth containing ancient archaeological fragments to fill their sandbags.

Looters ransacked its treasures and before that Saddam Hussein “restored” parts of it using new bricks bearing his name and built a kitsch palace overlooking it. Now officials hope Babylon can be revived and made ready for a rich future of tourism, with help from experts at the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and the US embassy.

“The Future of Babylon” project launched last month seeks to map the current conditions of Babylon and develop a master plan for its
conservation, study and tourism.

“We don’t know how long it will take to reopen to tourists,” said Mariam Omran Musa, head of a government inspection team based at the site. “It depends on funds. I hope that Babylon can be reborn in a better image.”

Fabled home of the Hanging Gardens, one of the wonders of the ancient world, and lying in a region historians call the cradle of civilisation, Babylon was badly damaged during the 2003 US-led invasion to overthrow Saddam. Looters had been plundering the ancient site, about 85 miles south of Baghdad for centuries, but the pillage accelerated rapidly after the invasion, when thousands of other archaeological sites in Iraq were also targeted.

The ruins of the once mighty city are a far cry from the Babylon of popular imagination, with its magnificent golden gate and lush gardens cultivated by King Nebuchadnezzar for his wife. Its clay-brick walls are crumbling, a statue of the Lion of Babylon has all but lost its facial features and European imperial powers long ago looted its most prized possessions. The Ishtar Gate, for instance, has been in Berlin since German archaeologists seized it before World War I, despite calls for its return.

Officials say preserving Babylon – a relic of a time and place that gave birth to such milestones of civilisation as agriculture, writing, codified law and the wheel – is crucial.

“It’s extremely important. When people say this [region] is the cradle of civilisation, that’s certainly true of Babylon,” said Lisa Ackerman, WMF vice-president. “It’s a culture that had a profound impact on what we think of as modern civilisation.”

It may also help war-ravaged Iraq generate revenue in the future through tourism, as it seeks to rebuild after years of sectarian slaughter and attacks by insurgents. Religious tourism to Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim holy sites has boomed since the fall of Saddam, but the country still has a long way to go and security will have to be vastly improved before it can start to dream of luring Western tourists.

Babylon, and places such as the southern marshes believed to be the biblical Garden of Eden, could eventually be major attractions. The US military occupied Babylon as a base for five months before handing over to a Polish-led division that left in 2005. The British Museum said in a report that US and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements and their forces had used archaeological fragments to fill sandbags.

“They dug trenches for storing gas by the Babylon theatre,” said Maitham Hamza, who keeps the site’s two museums. “They also crushed walls by landing helicopters on them.” The US embassy in Baghdad is contributing $700,000 towards the site’s restoration.

Saddam Hussein’s insensitive reconstructions also pose a dilemma for efforts to restore Babylon. Apart from his palace, he also rebuilt Processional Way, a street of ancient stones – and he painted on it. A mural of King Nebuchadnezzar in blue and gold, with a suspiciously Saddam-like face, adorns one wall; a tacky cartoon lion, on another.

He built an artificial lake in what critics called the “Disneyfication” of Babylon. Ackerman said one of the first things the WMF would do was establish whether underground water was present and erect barriers to prevent it from seeping into the ruins and damaging the clay bricks.
But Saddam’s alterations might be best left alone.

“One approach is: people have been doing things to Babylon for centuries, if not millennia, so we can accept Saddam Hussein’s changes as part of the life of Babylon,” Ackerman explained.

Eventually, if security in Iraq continues to improve, officials hope tourists will return. “God willing, we could surpass Jordan and Egypt’s tourism,” said Qais Hussein Rasheed, acting head of Iraq’s Committee of Antiquities and Heritage.

If they do, there is a chance Babylon could be a great city once more.



Peter Stone, professor of heritage studies at Newcastle University, tells of his first-hand experience of the allies’ heavy-handed approach in the Gulf

"The looting and destruction which took place in Iraq during the Gulf War was entirely predictable, and military planners on both sides of the Atlantic had been briefed by archaeologists, myself included, months before the invasion. Yet no effective action had been taken; no troops were deployed to secure any museums or archaeological sites.

The real blame lies not with the military, who deployed with far fewer troops than requested, but rather with their political masters who capped troop numbers. Political indifference to the fate of archaeological and other heritage in Iraq was encapsulated by the then US secretary of state in his remark: “Stuff happens.” Looting and damage to archaeological sites in times of political instability, and in some instances the sites’ almost total destruction, is a global issue.

It has three manifestations: the targeted destruction of cultural heritage in an attempt to gain political advantage; “collateral” damage, where the cultural heritage is destroyed as an “innocent bystander” to conflict; destruction caused by the trade in illicit antiquities.

All three occur, or have recently occurred, in Iraq. Particular buildings, especially mosques, have been targeted by “professional terror groups” trying to gain control of different areas and cities, and the insensitive use of major archaeological sites by coalition forces has led to significant collateral damage.
I am one of those cultural heritage professionals working with the military to investigate how it can achieve both cultural heritage and military goals. This is not a role I cherish. The world would be a much better place without conflicts, but I am a realist and accept my professional responsibility to safeguard cultural heritage.

Theoretically, cultural heritage has been protected since 1954 by the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (the Hague Convention) and its two protocols of 1954 and 1999. It is a tiny crumb of comfort that the failure of coalition forces to adequately protect cultural heritage has prompted the UK Government to move to ratify the convention.

In January 2008, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport produced a draft bill designed to enable the UK Government to ratify the Hague Convention, but unfortunately this did not become part of the Queen’s Speech and at the moment it is unclear as to whether the bill will be scrutinised in parliament before the next general election. However, heritage agencies led by the UK National Commission for UNESCO haven’t given up and are pressing government to pass legislation before the general election.

Armed forces will have a legal responsibility to heed the Hague Convention and its protocols only after ratification. This will require better training and more serious consideration of cultural heritage issues when planning military operations; in principle, this means they would only deploy if enough troops were available to satisfy its requirements.

The bill was strongly supported by all those providing evidence to the DCMS committee reporting on the bill, which identified the fundamental issue: to establish whether the bill would constrain military operations unduly, noting that the MoD appeared confident that passage of the bill into law would not have that effect.

Coalition forces failed to protect the cultural heritage in Iraq. Much work is going on internationally to ensure that armed forces take protection of cultural heritage far more seriously.

While British troops handover responsibility to coalition partners in southern Iraq, the problem of protection of cultural heritage is also effectively handed over with respect to Iraq. However, the problem will continue wherever British forces are deployed until such legislation is enacted and all training and planning is developed.

The proposed legislation is another step to ensure that the UK does all in its power to protect cultural heritage in times of conflict. It must not fail."

Professor's Stone's article first appeared in British Archaeology