On March 20, 2003, a U.S.-led coalition began its invasion of Iraq. Approximately one month later, on April 10, 2003, U.S. soldiers were on standby while looters broke into the National Museum of Iraq. For the next 36 hours, the museum was ransacked while American soldiers stood by and permitted looters to destroy and steal thousands of years’ worth of artifacts directly tied to Iraqi cultural heritage.
While the theft of artifacts in Iraq due to colonialism is by all means no new occurrence, the 2003 invasion opened the doors to a wide-scale market of looting like never before, which led to the trafficking of Iraqi antiques. According to “Lost Heritage: Antiquities Stolen from Iraq’s Regional Museums,” the amount looted from this specific museum alone is, “Something in the range of 16,000 to 19,000 items.” During the invasion, certain American officials saw this looting as a positive force that could provide a canvas for them to project their vision of what Iraqi society should be shaped into. There are various testimonies of which specific parties were directly responsible for this atrocity. However, the true root cause is undoubtedly the invasion of the country and all its perpetrators.
Looking further into the issue, we can see that the attack on this museum pales in comparison to the amount stolen by vandals who have been mass poaching archaeological sites all throughout the country. Iraq has about 10,000 documented archaeological sites. When considering the number of undocumented sites, which are estimated to be at 500,000, the number of artifacts stolen throughout the country is in the millions. Archeologist Elizabeth Stone estimates that the number of looted artifacts from the time frame of 2003 to 2005 alone is somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000 items.
Preserving a country’s cultural heritage is undoubtedly a multifaceted issue. Countries like my homeland of Iraq do not have even a fraction of the privileges or resources that we see in the Global North. Centuries of wars, occupation and imperialism do not exactly allow the country to prioritize archaeological digs or artifact restoration. Yet by willingly collaborating with imperialistic forces during the U.S. occupation, the Iraqi government has been complicit in neglecting its vital role in safeguarding and preserving the country’s rich cultural heritage.
While we know there are already millions of artifacts stolen every day, more and more continue to be looted from archaeological sites and trafficked abroad. For the 10,000 documented archaeological sites we know of, there are currently only 5,000 designated archaeological police in Iraq. The number of police provided for sites decreased at the time of the Gulf War due to budget cuts and has gone down greatly since then.
Looking at the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, we can clearly see the effects of these policies. During the Gulf War in 1991, looters were able to steal the tablet out of an Iraqi Museum and smuggle it across various regions of the Middle East. It was then smuggled into the U.S. in 2003, where the affluent American Corporation Hobby Lobby proceeded to illegally purchase and display the tablet in their museum in Washington, D.C. This particular museum, the Museum of the Bible, knowingly purchased thousands of illegally looted Iraqi artifacts. Yet the only retribution the multi-billion-dollar corporation faced for its crimes was a $3 million fine. To make matters worse, to be able to retrieve the artifacts back from Hobby Lobby to Iraq was a significant challenge and required prosecutors to eventually settle the case.
In a just world, events like these would not have been allowed to take place. American CEOs wouldn’t have had the ability to smuggle ancient artifacts integral to the Iraqi identity. U.S. occupation forces would not stand by and watch as the national museum of the country is destroyed. Lamassus, as ancient as the land itself, would not be split into pieces and separated across different continents. Yet we do not live in a just world. These events and many more all continue to take place. The lack of urgency that we have seen from the Iraqi government has deeply placed our culture and history at risk. Looting does not simply remove artifacts from their place of origin; it severs the collective memory of a land.
If there is any hope to end the mass destruction of our cultural heritage, the Iraqi government must provide adequate protection of archeological sites in the upcoming. Countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, that have historically been complicit and benefited from the looting of our sites and museums, must also actively partake in ensuring that Iraqi artifacts can be brought back to their rightful land. We, as a collective, must place pressure on these governments and demand that they work towards enacting policies that focus on preserving our long-neglected cultural heritage and, in turn, both the history and future of Iraq.
MiC Columnist Zainab Husein can be reached at zhusein@umich.edu.
