Jun 11th, 2003, 03:33 PM
The above link is not functional, here is the article in its entirety:
All Along, Most Iraqi Relics Were 'Safe and Sound'
By William Booth and Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 9, 2003; Page A12
BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The world was appalled. One archaeologist described the looting of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities as "a rape of civilization." Iraqi scholars standing in the sacked galleries of the exhibit halls in April wept on camera as they stood on shards of cuneiform tablets dating back thousands of years.
In the first days after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, condemnation rained down on U.S. military commanders and officials in Washington for failing to stop the pillage of priceless art, while tanks stood guard at the Ministry of Oil. It was as if the coalition forces had won the war, but lost an important part of the peace and history.
Apparently, it was not that bad.
The museum was indeed heavily looted, but its Iraqi directors confirmed today that the losses at the institute did not number 170,000 artifacts as originally reported in news accounts.
Actually, about 33 priceless vases, statues and jewels were missing.
"I said there were 170,000 pieces in the entire museum collection," said Donny George as he stood with beads of sweat glistening on his forehead in his barren office at the museum. "Not 170,000 pieces stolen."
George, the director general of research and study of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and the source for the original number, said the theft of 170,000 pieces would have been almost impossible: "No, no, no. That would be every single object we have!"
On Saturday, a team of U.S. investigators from the Customs Service and State Department released a summary of a preliminary report that concluded that 3,000 pieces were missing. And more importantly, of the 8,000 or so exhibit-quality, world-class pieces of jewelry, statues and cuneiform clay tablets, only 47 were unaccounted for.
Today, Iraqi officials at the museum confirmed the U.S. numbers, with a slight adjustment.
"There are only 33 pieces from the main collections that are unaccounted for," George said. "Not 47. Some more pieces have been returned." Museum staff members had taken some of the more valuable items home and are now returning them.
George is a respected and internationally known archaeologist and administrator. He apologized for the confusion, which has caused anguish among Mesopotamia scholars and the general public alike, but essentially said it was not his fault.
George conceded that during the 48 hours when his museum was being looted, he was extremely upset with the Americans.
"I was very angry at the time, so much anger," George said. "But we should stop blaming each other. We're working together now."
The confusion arose, in part, because many of the museum's best pieces had been removed long before U.S. troops entered Baghdad, George said.
In 1990, before the Persian Gulf War, 179 boxes containing the Treasures of Nimrud were hidden in a vault beneath the Central Bank of Iraq, where the items -- gold and ivory pieces unearthed from four royal tombs in 1989 -- remained untouched for more than a decade. The collection was unearthed this week after the basement where the vault is located was drained of sewage water that had filled it.
George said a second "secret vault" was used to secure many of the other exhibition-quality statues, figurines, vases, cups and clay tablets inscribed with hymns and homage to kings and gods. That vault was filled during the weeks before U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq in March. "It is all safe and sound," George said.
Art historian John Russell, an Iraq expert at Boston's Massachusetts College of Art, was part of a UNESCO mission that visited the National Museum in mid-May to assess the damage from looting. He recalled walking through the galleries with curator Nawala Mutawali and pointing at empty pedestals and cornices where world-famous artifacts had once rested. "She'd kind of smile," Russell said about the curator. "She'd say, it's okay, it's fine."
Russell, too, had heard of the secret vaults. "They won't talk about it, but almost everything was saved," Russell said.
"You remember when everybody said the looting was an inside job," he added. "Well, there was an inside job, except the staff did exactly what they were supposed to do." Russell said that museum authorities also told him the archive was intact.
The looted items were carted away by mobs who hacked gold pieces from 3,000-year-old Assyrian urns and professional art thieves with glass cutters who knew exactly which Sumerian vases they were looking for.
Of the rarest pieces, George said, "I do not hold out much hope that they will be recovered anytime soon."
Even if the initial numbers were overblown, the museum still suffered serious losses.
Among the missing items is the 5,000-year-old Warka Vase, a three-foot alabaster relief sculpture depicting scenes of everyday life at the dawn of civilization. The vase had been bolted to a podium, Russell said, but looters breached the glass case and ripped the vase from its base.
Also missing is the Warka Face, which, at 3,000 years old, is perhaps the oldest naturalistic sculpture of a woman's face.
"It's gorgeous," Russell said. "Like the best of classical Greek sculpture."
The National Museum will open its doors for a glimpse of its hidden and recovered treasures in July. But now, George and the museum staff toil in dirty rooms filled with swept garbage. The staff is methodically going through the collection's catalogue -- index card by index card -- without benefit of computers, telephones or much outside help.
George said the storerooms "are still a mess; there's shards of artifacts still on the floor." In the main galleries, guards and visitors have stubbed out their cigarette butts on massive stone tablets covered in cuneiform. Broken egg-shaped vessels four feet tall lie in hallways, cracked and dusty.
"Thank God, we were saved from the worst," George said. "But look, these things can never be replaced. That is why they call them priceless."
Gugliotta reported from Washington.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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