Babylon has suffered serious damage since the arrival of American troops, according to British Museum specialist John Curtis. He visited the site in December, and was the only international expert present at a meeting called by the Iraqi authorities. Unesco had been invited to send a representative, but declined on security grounds.
Dr Curtis, the British Museum’s keeper of the Ancient Near East, flew with the Royal Air Force from Kuwait to Baghdad and then on by US military helicopter to Babylon, 100 kilometres south of the Iraqi capital. His report, as an independent observer, was released on 15 January—the day that coalition forces withdrew from the Babylon military base and handed over responsibility to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture.
A regular visitor to Babylon since the 1970s, Dr Curtis categorises the recent damage as “substantial”. He comments: “It is regrettable that a military camp of this size should have been established on one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid or Stonehenge.” Babylon, meaning “Gate of the Gods”, was the capital of a kingdom that flourished between 1792 and 539 BC.
American forces established Camp Alpha at Babylon in April 2003, within days of the coalition invasion. It was sited primarily for strategic reasons, but the presence of troops did at least ensure that there has been very little looting. The camp encompassed 150 hectares of the 900 hectare site, centred around the north-east central area within the ancient inner walls. Originally the camp housed 2,000 soldiers, although the number later fell to 400. Command of the camp was officially handed over from American to Polish forces in September 2003.
Much of the archaeological damage was caused by infrastructural work to set up the base, which was mainly the responsibility of a private contractor. This was Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), owned by the US Halliburton Company, which was run until 2000 by American vice president Dick Cheney.
Findings
When specialists assembled at Babylon in December, they were presented with a detailed report which had been prepared by three Polish archaeologists attached to their coalition forces. Dr Curtis’s report is based partly on the Polish study, but supplemented with information from Iraqi colleagues and his own observations.
Dr Curtis records damage to 20 areas of the site, although he makes the disturbing proviso that his findings “should not be seen as exhaustive, but are indicative of the type of damage”. Some areas could not be inspected because of landmines and Dr Curtis’s time was limited. The report lists five areas of particularly serious damage:
Ishtar Gate The 6th century BC gate built by Nebuchadnezzar II is one of the most famous monuments from antiquity. Although the upper part, with its glazed brick decoration with dragons, bulls and lions, is now at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, the foundations made of moulded bricks depicting animals are still on the site. Damage was discovered to 10 different dragons, presumably caused by looters trying to remove the decorated bricks—although fortunately they had failed. In nine cases this damage was not present when Dr Curtis photographed the foundations in June 2003.
Ziggurat Three trenches were discovered in the area of the foundations of the stepped pyramid Ziggurat tower, the site of the Tower of Babel. These had been dug as anti-tank precautions. One of the trenches measured 170 metres long and two metres deep—and “much pottery and many fragments of brick with cuneiform inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar were observed in the bank of spoil.”
Helipad The area between the Processional Street and the lake, and close to the Ninmah temple, was formerly an asphalted car park, but the space has been tripled to create a landing zone for helicopters. The ground was flattened, covered with compacted gravel, and treated with a petroleum product to prevent dust. A further large area was flattened and gravelled to create another parking lot. Nearby is a dirt track with “deep ruts from the wheels of heavy vehicles”.
Fuel farm To the north-west of the Greek theatre there are six places where fuel containers were positioned until very recently. “There is evidence of environmental contamination here in the form of fuel leakage”. Nearby are road tankers from which vehicles are being fuelled, and again there are signs of “further serious fuel seepage”. This is likely to have “a deleterious effect on archaeological deposits beneath.”
Processional way The brick pavement in the south part of the 6th-century route has been badly broken in two areas by heavy vehicles. It is likely that bricks still covered by earth are similarly damaged.
Disturbance
Widespread damage has been caused throughout the Babylon site where areas had recently been covered with gravel, sometimes compacted and chemically treated, for vehicle parks, accommodation and storage. It is estimated that 300,000 square metres has been treated. “All the gravel has been brought in from elsewhere, and will of course work its way into the archaeological deposits. This is extremely unfortunate from an archaeological point of view, as previously undisturbed deposits on the site will now be contaminated.”
Altogether a dozen large trenches and another dozen smaller cuttings were made into existing tips or mounds, some clearly into undisturbed archaeological deposits.
Around the Babylon site are thousands of sandbags and large fabric bags in wire-mesh containers, for defensive purposes. Originally these were filled with earth scooped up from the area, and the presence of sherds and bones is testimony to the archaeological content of the deposits. Last November it was therefore decided to use only sand and earth from outside Babylon, but this substituted one problem for another. By bringing in material from elsewhere, some of which may include archaeological deposits, Babylon “will be irrevocably contaminated”.
In many parts of the site there are wheel marks from the movement of heavy vehicles. “These ruts and depressions are themselves a source of damage, but more worrying is the extent to which heavy vehicle movements on the surface will have damaged fragile archaeological remains below.”
Although Babylon was rediscovered in the 19th century, it has still not been fully explored—and beneath the sand may well lie the ruins of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. It would be a tragedy if these remains have been damaged by coalition forces. “We knew by last summer that there had been extensive damage, but as an archaeologist, it is still shocking when you are actually confronted by it,” Dr Curtis told The Art Newspaper.
Investigation
Last June a spokesman for the US forces admitted: “We did have some construction activities in the vicinity of Babylon. The archaeologists determined that that might be too close to the actual location, so as prudence would dictate, we halted all construction activities.” Critics believe that too little action was taken, too late.
Polish troops finally withdrew from Camp Alpha on 15 January. The site is now being guarded by the official Iraq Facility Protection Service.