Our Lost Heritage
Comments: 19
There are several stories appearing over the last couple of days about the ransacking of Iraq’s National Museum. Estimates of the number of missing items run as high as 170,000, although it may be months before the exact toll is known.
This is catastrophic.
In no time at all Bush and Hussein will be minor footnotes in history — insiginificant men remembered (with a sense of mild amazement that they could ever have come to power) only for their failures and the destruction they wrought — and their victims will be completely forgotten.
But the looting of the museum has potentially destroyed vital links in the great chain of human civilisation running back several thousand years. This New York Times story is worth quoting from at length:
Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure
John F. Burns, New York TimesWhat was beyond contest today was that the 28 galleries of the museum and vaults with huge steel doors guarding storage chambers that descend floor after floor into darkness had been completely ransacked.
Officials with crumpled spirits fought back tears and anger at American troops, as they ran down an inventory of the most storied items that they said had been carried away by the thousands of looters who poured into the museum after daybreak on Thursday and remained until dusk on Friday, with only one intervention by American troops, lasting about half an hour, at lunchtime on Thursday.
Nothing remained, museum officials said, at least nothing of real value, from a museum that had been regarded by archaeologists and other specialists as perhaps the richest of all such institutions in the Middle East.
As examples of what was gone, the officials cited a solid gold harp from the Sumerian era, which began about 3360 B.C. and started to crumble about 2000 B.C. Another item on their list of looted antiquities was a sculptured head of a woman from Uruk, one of the great Sumerian cities, from about the same era, and a collection of gold necklaces, bracelets and earrings, also from the Sumerian dynasties and also at least 4,000 years old.
The invading army must have known the value of the collection, but apart from that 30-minute “intervention” nothing was done to protect it. The tragedy of lives lost and injustices committed by both sides will pass, but in at least one important sense humanity may be paying the cost of this war for the rest of its existence.
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2003.04.15 (Tue) • 10:59
Comments
Posted by Andy Baio 2003.04.15, 11:34
This is perhaps the saddest thing I’ve read related to the war. Shame to the looters for burning a modern Alexandria to the ground, and shame to the occupying forces for letting it happen. Tragic..
Posted by sam 2003.04.15, 11:42
Its vaguely reminicient of the Dresden firebombings during WWII that destroyed thousands of priceless historical and artistic artifacts. The casualties of war last much longer than a term of presidency, and longer than a lifetime. Baghdad won’t be the same for generations to come, and the loss of the artifacts won’t ever be made up.
Posted by Cal 2003.04.15, 12:06
Artifacts last generations, and ocassionally millenia. The lives of men and women vastly outway the importance of these artifacts. These artifacts are the gateway to a rich history, but the people currently living are the gateway to the future. If the war goes according to the stated plans of the American government, that will be a life of liberty.
Posted by niji 2003.04.15, 12:08
we stand in awe of usamericans and their battelfield victory. now we will see how quckly they slither from keeping a peace, of any kind. bush has said that he (actually) has been talked to by god. and bush was told that this war was right. and that his crusade against islam is good. there was a report on the bbc that said that the ONLY building in baghdad that the americans inititially occupied was the ministry of oil.
Posted by jc 2003.04.15, 12:19
Yeah, ok, that’s really terrible. I remember that the last time (Bush Sr.’s war) American news organizations made much of the oil well arsons. It’s interesting to note that this time around, such activities were not a wide-spread problem. Also note that the museum pillaging likely won’t be reported in mainstream [American] media beyond this notable story. Thoughtful and unbiased reporting is so lacking here in the U.S. that many of us are turning to BBC America (available to many cable subscribers) for a more accurate depiction of the war in Iraq.
Posted by Chas. Porter 2003.04.15, 15:07
This tragedy deserves more than “Yeah, OK, that’s really terrible”. It deserves perspective. In one hundred years you and I and the Liberated will be dead and gone and the United States of America, if it still exists, will be three hundred and twenty-seven years old.
What was smashed, trashed, looted and lost were 7,000 year old clues from the earliest human civilizations.
Why is this old stuff important? Because we can never know the future, our best hope of answering the question “why are we here” comes from understanding where we’ve been. The loss of these treasures effects our ability to speculate on our origins and wonder about the meaning of our existence.
Posted by Michael 2003.04.15, 21:18
To Niji: Can you did up the sources on that statement? I’m not antagonizing you, I would just love to read that and shove it in the faces of www.realpolitik.us ;)
Posted by Mean Dean 2003.04.15, 23:13
Adding to your points, I think what also bothers me is that the curators of the museum didn’t think enough to case things up.
I mean, as soon as the Coalition forces crossed the Kuwaiti border, it would have been obvious to me that the museum would be closed for business. During that first or second week, I would have worked furiously to crate-up and protect any artifacts of antiquity.
Moreover, while there should have been more military protection, I also think some of the blame needs to be put on the shoulders of the citizens who think so little of their own heritage as to plunder it.
IN other words, there is quite a bit of blame for this all the way around — but regardless of fault, it is indeed a tragedy.
Posted by jh 2003.04.16, 00:58
[Niji] bush has said that he (actually) has been talked to by god. and bush was told that this war was right. and that his crusade against islam is good.
Curious about that myself!
jc —- Japanese coverage of the war has been astoundingly good. They’ve been picking up on the MIA status of the American media in some very trenchant ways.
Chas —- Well said.
[Mean Dean] I mean, as soon as the Coalition forces crossed the Kuwaiti border, it would have been obvious to me that the museum would be closed for business.
They were closed for business I believe.
[MD] I also think some of the blame needs to be put on the shoulders of the citizens who think so little of their own heritage
Absolutely, yes. But in a way, this is the longer heritage in action: millions of years of evolution screaming everyone for themselves. That collection represented cash, and cash feeds the family.
But you’re right. Blame all around, as far as I can see.
Posted by Bjorn 2003.04.16, 02:13
I can understand why everyone is going haywire about this, but here’s some food for thought.
In 10 minutes most of the commenters, including me, will have forgotten reading this blog and go about their lives. I can absolutely guarantee you that there are families in Iraq, the US and the UK who will remember this war the rest of their lives.
Yes indeed a tragedy that artifacts were lost, but they were things. Important things, but things none the less.
Somebody claiming these things were more important than the lives of people should consider if they would lay down their own defending them. Its a tragedy of the worst sort that they were stolen. But get some perspective, people (yes, yes “It is you who should get some perspective” flames expected now).
Posted by case 2003.04.16, 03:48
Well, at least the Iraqi people and civilisation as whole can thank the coalition forces for defending the Oil Ministry in Baghdad. No looting there, and round the clock armed protection of course. I’m sure when all the oil has been used up and petrol driven transportation has been banned we will still be thanking Bush and Blair and their contributions to civilisation. If we can still call it that.
Posted by lil 2003.04.16, 10:02
As someone who has trained in museum studies and art curatorship, words just can’t do justice to the enormity of horror and disbelief that I feel about this plundering of Iraq’s material culture. For me, this image speaks volumes for the indescribable loss that Iraq’s cultural heritage has suffered, and will continue to feel for centuries to come.
Posted by Averagebacon 2003.04.16, 14:51
Sad, yes. But remember, life marches relentlessly on. One great civilization falls before the armies of another, or before the earth herself, and is buried and forgotten. Another rises in its place, built on the very foundations and crumbling walls of the former.
What I mean is, yes, these objects were items of beauty. Yes, they were studied. No, they’re not going to help us discover a cure for cancer or an answer to conflict besides war or the true (non)existance of a higher power. Yes, these people are animals for destroying these items (And yes, that is what will happen. Very few of those items will end up in the hands of collectors, private or otherwise. Melting down a solid gold harp will feed the family tonight and tomorrow and so on and so forth.) and yes we’re animals for not stopping them from behaving in such a manner. But in the end, biased as it might be, the most important things - the things that teach us most about life and its lessons aren’t stored in museums - they’re passed on from generation to generation in the form of the spoken and written word.
Sadly, imagine a world a thousand years from now, post-apocalyptic or not. Where will the men and women of that age turn to learn about us? As more and more of the information we discover becomes electronic, and as our gift to remember such information for ourselves and pass it on to future generations for safe-keeping disappears, what record of us will remain?
God, is that an off-topic rant or what?
Posted by jh 2003.04.16, 16:27
Bjorn —- You won’t be receiving any “get some perspective” flames from me: what you said bears serious consideration. This dislocation of perspective makes the situation difficult to think about. In the midst of real and immediate suffering and death, we have to consider another tragedy that operates on a completely different scale.
It’s a well-worn irony that an archaeological perspective can’t admit our sympathy for the millions of individuals that actually were the culture being studied (how could it?), and yet the whole point of this perspective is to help us understand how we came to be who we are now.
I didn’t mean to sound callous when I said “their victims will be completely forgotten” —- just trying to find a way to talk between the huge gaps in scale that we somehow have to bridge.
About these artefacts being “just things,” I can understand your point but ultimately I have to disagree. The true importance of those objects is that they are vessels for ideas. They’ve carried ideas and thought patterns and likes and dislikes and fashions and political clues and information about class differences and materials science and artistic abilities and capital and labour across centuries and millenia.
Yes, they’re just things —- but it’s their payload of information, the resonance of human thought, that we treasure.
Case —- What are you suggesting? That this is about … oil!? No, no! It’s about liberation and freedom and bringing back that long-discredited domino theory thing.
lil —- There are several photographs from this war that have brought tears to my eyes. We can add that one.
Averagebacon —- “what record of us will remain?”
This is the elephant in the living room of our electronic culture. I’m on the verge of losing data myself (casts a glance at the several boxes of floppy disks and Zip disks that contain most of what I did during the 1990s). While I still have functioning drives for these formats that I can dig out a connect to one of the older machines, I have to copy all of that over to a new format. This is something I’ll have to do every 10 years or so.
Posted by Averagebacon 2003.04.17, 02:00
jh - Yes, and when you’re dead, who’s going to copy the files from your ultra-high density data cubes into the next format? Answer: no-one. And 1000 years from now, some archaeologist is going to dig up that data cube and look at it and wonder what the hell it is, and won’t it be funny when they decide it was used to even out a table with un-even legs. The point is (I’m agreeing with you, just emphasizing the point) a printed book can last for thousands of years and can still be interfaced without any other equipment. What’s the likelihood that a future archaeologist is going to find your data cube, the reader for it, and a computer to hook the reader to that are all in working condition?
And with regards to items of the past, yes, they hold information. But how much of that information is actually useful to anyone but an intellectual? Probably not much. I’m not bashing intellectuals or the study of the past, I’m just saying that what is lost, while saddening and sickening, isn’t going to affect humanity in the slightest.
Posted by Kolio 2003.04.25, 03:03
The problem of this world that there are too few intellectuals and too many barbarians. Those living in Baghdad have an excuse for being barbarians - they had few opportunity to civilize themselves. But not those who conquered them, nor those who post here, I believe.
jh, a future archeologist will be lost in the ABUNDANCE of information of little value…
There are 2 ways of thinking clashing here: live pleasantly, eat, watch TV, make money, eat, make children, make money, shit, talk about your freedom, eat, sleep
or work to leave something after you - beside your children and beside your shit. something to add to the treasure millions before you have given their entire lives for…
I as an intellectual belong to the latter category. :) An artefact which is a product of the most seeking minds of some human culture, past or present - is more important than the lives or happiness of any number of individuals of the remaining part.
Posted by eliot 2003.05.03, 10:15
Note that lgf has just posted a link to an article that suggests that the looting is not as drastic as it originally seems.
Posted by Angryed 2003.05.04, 21:22
Yes, it’s all about oil. Sad but true. It’s the bushist plan. The oil ministry was saved. Bless us
Posted by eliot 2003.06.09, 12:43
L.T. Smash is linking an article from Reuters which says that “almost all of the antiquities that were missing from the Baghdad Museum have been located in a secret vault.”
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