Cultural sites with nearby military targets known to have been bombed
Al Fallujah Bombed: chemical weapons research complex producing feedstocks (including phosphorous).
Most important city in Iraq after Ctesiphon in 363. Ancient site of cuneiform tablets drawn by Pellugto. Ruins of pre-Islamic Anbar. Capital of Abbasid dynasty in 752.
Baghdad Bombed: command and communication centre, presidential palace, major airbases and laboratory specialising in biological warfare. Nuclear facility.
World famous National Museum of Antiquities, Abbasid Palace, Mustansiriya college (possibly oldest university in world), Martyr’s Mosque, archaeological sites of Jemdat Nasr and Abu Salabikh.
Baiji Bombed: centre for production of feedstocks for chemical weapons (phosphoric acid) l40 miles north of Baghdad.
Unexcavated archaeological remains.
Basra Bombed: Iraq’s second city, naval and air bases. Oil refinery, chemical weapons research complex and plant.
Al Qurna said to be site of Garden of Eden with Adam’s tree. Shrines dating back to early days of Islam.
Erbil Bombed: army base, air base, large oil refinery
Ancient Roman town of Arbela continuously inhabited for 5000 years or more.
Faylakah Island Bombed: strategic island with artillery batteries. Key foothold in amphibious assault.
Ancient Greek temple site excavated by Danes in l960s. Features in Epic of Gilgamesh. Undamaged during Iran/Iraq war. French dig.
Haditha Bombed: missile site, air base, chemical weapons complex and major new dam.
Near Ana with Babylonian inscriptions and Assyrian minaret.
Kerbala Bombed: chemical weapons plant and rocket and missile program and test range for missiles. Sixty miles south of Baghdad, forty-five miles from Najaf and thirty miles from Al Hillah.
Shi’a shrine to Imam Al-Hussein, most renowned of Iraq’s Islamic attractions.
Kirkuk Bombed: command centre, army base, air base, large oil refinery.
Supposedly site of Daniel’s burning furnace. Important Ottoman castle. Near Nuzi, major mid-2nd Mitannian Empire within firing distance of wells.
Mosul Bombed: army base, air base, Saad-l6 missile site, chemical weapons and nuclear centre.
Important museum containing Assyrian and Islamic items, Ommayade Mosque, Mujahidi Mosque, Mosque to Prophet Jonas, Mosque to Prophet Jerjis, Palace of Qara Sarai.
Najaf Bombed: chemical weapons facilities.
Most important Shi’a shrine to Ali Ibn Abi Talib. One of Islamic centre’s principal centres of instruction.
Salman Pak Bombed: production and research for biological weapons including anthrax, twenty-two miles south of Baghdad. Nuclear reactor and possible chemical weapons factory.
Arch of Ctesiphon, remarkable ll0 foot high arch at site of Persian Emperor’s winter capital. Selucia, capital of Kings who followed Alexander on other side of river.
Samarra Bombed: main Iraqi chemical research complex and production plant (Mustard, Sarin and Tabun gasses), seventy miles north of Baghdad. Major bridge and main north/south artery road,
Holy city and northern capital of Caliph Al-Mutasim, built 836. Ancient town extends along Tigris for twenty miles. Main road goes through site adjacent to bombed bridge. Great Mosque, Ma’shouq Palace, Caliph’s residence, Abu Duluf Mosque, Askari Tomb.
Tikrit Bombed: Saddam Hussein’s home town, air base, army base missile site.
Important old citadel and archaeological remains.
Ur Bombed: major airbase of Tallil and radar centre
Iraq’s most famous site, earliest evidence of urban civilisation in the world. Sumerian ziggarat used as platform for anti-aircraft battery and radar station.
The question of damage to cultural sites entered the propaganda war nearly a month after the inception of hostilities. In Al Quadissiya, the newspaper published by the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, Mu’iad Said, Director of the Iraqi Department of Archaeology, and the country’s most eminent archaeologist, accuses the Allied airforces of having, “Obliterated treasures thousand of years old, which is a crime against civilisation and the history of mankind.” He says that the sites most damaged are the museum in Baghdad, the spiral minaret of the Great Mosque at Samarra, and Ctesiphon, the ancient capital of the Parthians. There is independent confirmation only of the reference to the National Museum of Antiquities (see story overleaf). However, given the very large number of cultural sites in the country, and the close proximity of military objectives to many of them (see also map in The Art Newspaper No.5, Feb, p. 1), there is very real cause for concern. This concern is deepened by the uncertainty as to how thoroughly the Allied Forces have been instructed about the whereabouts of these sites, and what priority has been given to avoiding them.
Bob Hall, the Pentagon’s top spokesman said, “They are targeting military objectives; they choose their approach according to the difficulties presented by the location. They are aware that there are historic sites, but I can’t tell you whether they are marked on their maps. If Saddam Hussein puts a military target on top of a temple, that becomes a military target”. David Foley, Defence Advisor to the BBC and former US military intelligence officer said, “Every American soldier is taught that they are required to protect historic and religious sites. If he attacks one intentionally he can be court-marshalled – that is unless his enemy is firing at him from out of a minaret”. Unfortunately, although, military spokesmen stress that the allies have given an undertaking that they will concentrate on military targets only and try to minimise “collateral damage”, the truth is, as Graham Hemond from the Ministry of Defence Press Office put it, the “the whole of Iraq is regarded as a battlefield, a legitimate target”.
In Britain, Ministry of Defence spokesmen do not know whether experts have been consulted. Air Commodore Barnes, speaking on behalf of the Air Force had no idea. Laurie Phillips, chief of Public Relations said:“I have not come across this before, but I doubt it. Their remit is clear: military targets only. However, there are enough constraints as it is and I don’t want to sound cavalier, but these men are fighting for their lives”.
During World War II, a commission for archaeology was set up under Lord Rennell of Rodd, and directed by the great archaeologist, Brigadier Mortimer Wheeler. Sir David Hunt, the former diplomat and President of the Classical Association, who having qualified as an archaeologist, served in the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, Crete, Sicily and Italy from l940 to l946, had this to say of the Commission: “Lord Rennell’s team took very important steps to defend monuments; troops were very well briefed. There were mistakes, but their record was exceptionally good”.
In today’s war there is no such archaeological commission. Neither the British Museum nor the British Council of Archaeology in Iraq has been approached. Before war broke out, a number of archaeologists in the US and in Britain who had worked in Iraq received a formal letter from some Iraqi scholars asking them to lobby the press in condemnation of potential offensives. Some of them, such as Nicholas Postgate, Reader in Mesopotamian Studies at Cambridge, and David Oates, retired Professor of Archaeology at London University and chairman of the British School of Archaeology, wrote back saying that they deplored armed intervention of any kind. Now that the war is on, these English scholars are anxious to help prevent a disaster, while determined not to play into the hands of the Iraqi propaganda machine.
What lies behind the lack of consultation with archaeologists? Robert O’Neil, Chichele Professor of History of War at Oxford University, suggests: “Since World War II Britain has not been involved in fighting where remains abound. All wars except the Korean have been very short and archaeology has not entered into it. I think if the southern area of Iraq was still referred to as Mesopotamia it would mean more to people”. Sir Edgar Williams, General Montgomery’s chief of intelligence and a former history don at Balliol, Oxford, said of World War II, “More attention was paid to safeguarding historic places because there had been lots of looting during World War I in places such as Syria and Palestine. There were also officers, particularly those working in intelligence and counter intelligence, not regular soldiers, but academics. Ellis Waterhouse is one example. Such people pulled weight. The forces in the gulf at the moment are streamlined and regular.”
Supposing that the scholars were consulted what would they propose? The British School of Archaeology in Iraq appreciates that the size of the country means that no one specialist could be wholly responsible for all of it. David Oates estimates that there are about 50,000 sites in Iraq, many no more than dormant mounds awaiting discovery. Nicholas Postgate would like to see collaboration between all those who have carried out work in Iraq over the past five years. All directors of excavations, for example. Postgate said “We should have a database and then the military could build up a picture. We would have to compile it here and it would be up to the military to decide if it was useful to help avoid heritage sites or in reaching military objectives”.
Archaeological sites, Postgate explained, can look like military emplacements from the air. For example, during the Iran/Iraq war, the Iranians bombed sites because they thought they were trenches. “A database might even help save cities, save civilians and save the military effort and expense”.
Gulf News
Fears for contents of Iraq’s Antiquities Museum
Baghdad. It has been confirmed by British reporters in Baghdad that the world famous National Museum of Antiquities has been hit by bombing. A wing has been partly destroyed. It is not yet known what is inside the damaged wing. Portable objects and the entire contents of the storerooms have been removed from the museum. Larger pieces, records and library contents are known to have been removed for safekeeping. But larger treasures such as the great Assyrian lions, from the palace of Sargon, the Uruk temple façades of 3200 and l400 BC, the human-headed bulls from Khorsabad and examples of great Islamic architecture were still in the museum when bombing started. Although the items are sandbagged they are vulnerable. The museum is in a highly strategic part of Baghdad. The domestic airport, presidential palace and telecommunications centre are all close by. Members of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, David Oates, Michael Roaf, Jeremy Black and Nicholas Postgate have urged that the museum be placed on a list of targets to be avoided by bombers. However, Postgate, Reader in Mesopotamian Studies at Cambridge said, “My main worry is that order will break down and the contents of the National Museum will be dispersed on the market.”
Ziggurats used as anti-artillery platforms
Iraq. The ancient sites of Ur, Eridu and the Tell Kuyunjik at Ninevah are being used by the Iraqi forces as platforms for anti-artillery batteries. Tell al-Muqayyar, the major airbase which includes the ancient Sumerian city of Ur has been bombed repeatedly since the outbreak of hostilities in the Gulf. It is known that other ziggurats and mounds, which stand out like watchtowers in the flat desert, are being so used. David Foley, Defence Adviser to the BBC and former US military intelligence, says that, although Tell al-Muqayyar has been a major target, it does not automatically follow that the ziggurat has been damaged. “The Iraqi have thousands of Triple A artillery so we can’t go after them singly. They are usually not individually targeted”.
Stolen Kuwaiti treasures catalogued by Iraqi scholar
The Gulf. Lamia al-Gailani, an Iraqi archaeologist who arrived from Baghdad on l3 January, reports that Dr Moayyed Damerji, Director General of Antiquities at the Iraq National Museum, catalogued and packed the collections from Kuwait City Museum, before they were taken to Baghdad after the invasion of Kuwait. The “loot” is thought to have been put into safekeeping with moveable objects from the Iraq Museum.
Sphinx put on terrorist alert
Cairo. Egypt’s three main historic sites Luxor, Abu Simbal and the Giza pyramids, were closed several days after the outbreak of war in the Gulf. The decision was taken as a security precaution although Egyptian officials deny that there have been terrorist threats. The sites will remain closed indefinitely.
Smithsonian begs government to save Iraqi culture
Washington D.C. An international group of nine specialists in Near Eastern art, history and culture, have petitioned the United States Government to “take every possible measure to protect” Iraq’s monuments and museums. The group is led by Robert Adams, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and an expert in ancient irrigation systems. They have delivered a letter to April Glaspie, United States Ambassador to Iraq. It reads: “As specialists in the antiquities and history of Mesopotamia, we share with scholars in many countries including Iraq a special responsibility for this crucial segment of our common cultural heritage”. The letter makes particular mention of the Arch of Ctesiphon, near the Iraqi nuclear plant, Salman Pak, Ur and several Iraqi museums containing Assyrian reliefs, royal tomb offerings and early cuneiform writings. The signatories to the letter were as follows: Robert Adams, Prudence Harper of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago, Mogens Trolle Larsen of Copenhagen University, Erle Leichty of the University of Pennsylvania, Hans Nissen of the Free University of Berlin, J. Nicholas Postgate of Cambridge University, David B. Stronach of the University of California at Berkeley and Irene Winter of Harvard University. At the time of writing they had had no response to their letter.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Who’s bothering about Iraq’s ancient sites?'