Babylon, Iraq -- If many Western anti-war protesters
believe America's real motive for invading Iraq is its oil, many Iraqis
point to another treasure they are convinced lies behind U.S. war aims:
Babylon.
This ancient city was the cradle of world civilization thousands of
years ago and hit its golden era during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II in
the sixth century B.C. Now, it is a repository of the Iraqi regime's
ambition and fears.
"We are sure that the Americans, like they were in the Gulf War, are
intent on occupying Iraq for religious purposes," said Muayad Damerji, who
was in charge of Babylon as director of Iraq's Antiquities Department from
1977 to 1998 and is now an adviser to the minister of culture.
Many Iraqis, from high officialdom down to average folk, seem obsessed
with the idea that the Americans want to invade Iraq to stop the rise of
Babylon as an Islamic counterpart to Jewish Jerusalem. And archaeologists,
from Baghdad to the United States, are worried that a U.S. invasion could
put many of Iraq's ancient treasures at risk.
In his speeches, President Saddam Hussein constantly refers to Iraq's
ancient glory, as if to drum into average citizens the fact that their
country deserves an exalted spot on the world stage, and he has long
envisioned a grand reconstruction of the ancient city of Babylon.
By the 1970s, little remained of the storied site. Centuries of sand
and wind had eroded the walls and buildings of mud brick. No trace remains
of the Hanging Gardens -- one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World --
nor of the Tower of Babel.
But since he took power in 1981, Hussein has rebuilt large sections of
the ruins, leaving his fingerprints everywhere. Every rebuilt wall in the
central temple has a brick at the center with a message stating, "This was
built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq."
Reconstruction work was halted due to lack of funds after the Gulf War,
but hovering over the Babylon site is a monstrous presidential palace,
built on a man-made 100-foot- high hill during the past decade, as if to
show who is the new emperor.
As the likelihood of U.S. invasion has grown stronger, American
archaeologists have raised loud warnings that Iraq's historical treasures
-- as politicized as they may be -- could be in danger from bombs,
fighting and subsequent rioting.
UR DAMAGED IN FIRST GULF WAR
By all accounts, protecting this country's archaeological treasures
will not prove easy. During the Gulf War, heavy damage was done at Ur, in
southern Iraq, which was occupied by U.S. troops for several weeks.
American bombing raids left 400 holes in one side of the pyramid, or
ziggurat, which dates from 2142 B.C. And at the nearby unexcavated site of
Tell al-Lahm, U.S. soldiers dug trenches in what they thought were hills
but were actually ancient mounds containing ruins.
During the Gulf War, U.S. officials accused the Iraqis of deliberately
moving military equipment close to archaeological sites in an attempt to
make the Americans shy away from targeting the war materiel. In fact, the
Iraqis seem somewhat reckless in choosing sites of military bases. At Ur,
for example,
a major military base is only a mile way, and at Nineveh in northern
Iraq, the seventh century B.C. palace is adjacent to a radar tower guarded
by the Iraqi military.
But far more severe than bomb damage was the postwar looting by anti-
Hussein mobs. Nine regional museums were ransacked, Damerji says, and
4,000 artifacts were stolen -- including antiquities from the Iraqi
National Museum in Baghdad, which had come under heavy bombing as U.S.
warplanes targeted a telecommunications facility across the street.
SANCTIONS TAKE A TOLL
John Russell, an archaeologist at the Massachusetts College of Art, and
other U.S. experts praise and defend their Iraqi counterparts, saying the
Iraqi researchers' inability to prevent deterioration in the country's
cultural heritage is a result of the economic crisis brought on by U.N.
sanctions.
"The absolutely, positively stupidest thing I can think of that the
United States could do for archaeology in a . . . postwar scenario would
be to try to take over the operation of the antiquities department or to
change Iraq's state-of-the-art antiquities policies," Russell said. "The
smartest thing would be to ask the department what it needs and then make
sure they get it."
In a recent petition to the Pentagon, dozens of prominent American
archaeologists and museum curators appealed to U.S. war planners to
prevent damage to Iraq's historical treasures.
The Defense Department requested further information, and the
petitioners supplied a list of the locations of over 5,000 known sites.
The State Department has indicated that it would establish a working group
on antiquities and heritage as part of its "Future of Iraq" project.
"These are good omens for the preservation of archaeology in a possible
war, " said Russell, who has excavated at Nineveh and is one of the
petitioners, "but the follow-through will be crucial."
Many Iraqi museums have taken their treasures off display and have
crated them in secure basements to protect them from bombing and looting.
In addition,
the roofs of museums have been painted with the logo of UNESCO, the
U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
"We just hope the American pilots know what the logo is," said Damerji.
"But then again, they'll probably be firing their missiles from 50
kilometers away, so it might not help anyway."
SEAT OF CIVILIZATION, HOME TO INVENTOR OF LAW
Iraq's illustrious
history is treasured by Iraqis and cited often as proof of their destiny.
Around 3500 B.C., the Sumerians developed the world's first great
civilization in the area that is now Iraq, and cuneiform writing on clay
tablets was developed 300 years later. Empires rose and fell in ancient
Mesopotamia, from the Akkadians to the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans,
Parthians and Romans.
Abraham, the patriarch of the Torah and Old Testament, came from the
southern Mesopotamian city of Ur. Hammurabi, who virtually invented the
concept of law, ruled in Babylon, as did Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror of
Jerusalem, and Alexander the Great.
Baghdad became the richest city in the world under the Abbasid Caliphs
for 500 years. Arabic numbers, the decimal system and algebra were
invented there, and important advances were made in medicine. But
everything was destroyed in A.D. 1258, when the Mongols conquered and
destroyed Baghdad -- an event frequently alluded to by Saddam Hussein, who
compares the United States under President Bush to the Mongol hordes.
E-mail Robert Collier at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
