* C. Saint Louis, "What They Were Thinking. Lance Cpl. Troy Merrell, Echo Company, Second Battalion, 25th Marines, Shatrah, Iraq, June 22, 2003," in The New York Times, August 17, 2003: "'We were out a little north of Shatrah, and we saw some ruins in the desert. The place was pretty much looted, huge holes everywhere. I found a conical stone with inscriptions all around it and that tablet, which was partially buried. The translator told us later it was from around 2000 B.C. and it was part of a King's temple. ... It was kind of a big deal that we found these artifacts, but at the same time I was a little ticked off -- we were still in Iraq.'"


Photo: "Micah Garen"

Just think if we stoped war an started using the money into research of our ancestors an origins, imagine how much we would find.

http://www.albasrah.net/en_articles_2007/1...port_011207.htm

US forces pillage, destroy humanity’s most ancient artifacts in occupied Iraq; 140,000 ancient relics officially recorded as having been stolen or destroyed since US invasion in spring 2003.



In a dispatch posted at 9:54pm Baghdad time Saturday night, the Yaqen News Agency reported that US forces were continuing to destroy, rob, and smuggle ancient Sumerian and Babylonian artifacts despite opposition by UNESCO, Iraqi intellectuals, and even the attempts by the American-installed “Iraqi Ministry of Culture” to stop such practices.



Yaqen reported that in addition to the devastation inflicted on the Iraqi National Museum at the time of the American invasion in the spring of 2003, hundreds of archaeological sites in Baghdad, Babil, Samarra, Ur, Nineveh, and elsewhere in the country are still targeted by US troops for pillage and destruction.



UNESCO has reported that more than 170,000 Iraqi archaeological artifacts have been stolen since the American invasion of the country. Of those, despite intense efforts, only some 30,000 items have been recovered in Iraq, neighboring countries, and on markets in Europe.



The Chief of the puppet council for al-Qadisiyah Province, Ihsan at-Ta’i, has most recently disclosed that US troops based in their camp, which lies adjacent to an ancient Sumerian site, have been wrecking and pillaging the priceless relics there. The artifacts that US troops have been destroying and stealing, according to at-Ta’i include not only Sumerian items but relics from ancient Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, the Chaldaeans, and also from the Islamic period of Iraq’s history.



The al-Qadisiyah Province puppet Council recently discussed the dangers threatening the ancient heritage. US forces have randomly dug up, destroyed, and plundered the ancient relics which date to the most ancient civilizations in human history. The Council also warned of the threat that US forces could destroy the Sumerian ziggurat and the home of the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) in particular.



At-Ta’i called on international organizations, and UNESCO in particular, to intervene to try to protect Iraq’s ancient heritage from American depredations. UNESCO had, he said, promised him that the organization would in fact protect the artifacts. At-Ta’i also addressed a conference on the “Middle Eastern” antiquities market in Italy, telling attendees of the threat posed by random digging and destruction that US troops in Iraq are carrying out on ancient sites.

http://www.ancienttimes.net/cgi/ikonboard/...=2&start=84

Reformers in the Iranian government have sought to reassure foreigners that their projects will be given a high priority. In the current issue of Archaeology magazine, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America, Dr. Jhalil Golshan of the Iranian cultural organization was quoted as saying, "We are ready to collaborate."

Dr. Stein said in the interview that "the main concern of the Iranians is that the new relationship be a partnership of equals, rather than an asymmetrical kind" as in the past. This meant that Iran wanted its own researchers more involved in both excavations and the analysis of findings. A Chicago team, led by Dr. Abbas Alizadeh, is already surveying ancient irrigation in the Khuzestan region near the Iraq border. Dr. Holly Pittman, an archaeologist at Pennsylvania State University, is investigating Bronze Age remains in central Iran. A team from Dartmouth and the State University of New York at Binghamton is digging at a prehistoric site near Persepolis, the old Persian capital.




Work has also been started or planned by archaeologists from Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Japan. The Germans are excavating ancient copper production sites on the Iranian Plateau. The French are digging at a site associated with the Persian ruler Cyrus I.

The hardened clay tablets being repatriated date from the middle of the reign of Darius I, 509 B. C. to 494 B. C. Although the inscribed writing is cuneiform, a script developed more than 5,000 years ago by the Sumerians in what is now Iraq, the words are Elamite, an early language of what is now Iran. Dr. Matthew Stolper, a Chicago professor and specialist on ancient Iran, said that most of the tablets were no larger than a modern credit card, each one recording a single transaction. Dr. Stein and other Chicago officials are to fly to Tehran at the end of the week with their cargo in hand.

Curator ferried damaged relics from Baghdad

http://www.newsobserver.com/505/story/991316.html

RALEIGH - During her 10-month deployment to Baghdad in 2003, Army Reserve Maj. Cori Wegener helped repair the recently looted Iraq National Museum, clean artifacts fetched from cesspools and rescue Jewish-Iraqi archives soaked from flooded basements.

It was the challenge of preventing wet books from growing mold in 120- degree weather that has pushed her to provide more military training on protecting cultural artifacts. She addressed the topic Sunday before about 265 people at the N.C. Museum of Art.

John Coffey, curator of the museum's Judaica gallery, said he had originally planned on asking Wegener to speak about the Judaic collection she curates at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. But after talking with her, Coffey thought her Baghdad experiences would make a more interesting topic for the North Carolina museum's ninth annual Kanof lecture.

Wegener said Iraq has not been like previous wars. In World War II, a team of about 300 Americans and Europeans, trained as art historians, architects and archaeologists, mapped monuments to protect them from bombing and repatriated pieces Hitler's army had pillaged.

Wegener, who retired from the reserves in 2005, said she stayed with the military for 21 years because she provided skills the Army normally would not have. When she watched the looting of the Iraq National Museum on CNN in April 2003, Wegener was confident she was the only arts curator in the U.S. Army.