{"id":3877,"date":"2015-05-20T19:07:57","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T23:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/?p=3877"},"modified":"2024-12-21T12:08:24","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T17:08:24","slug":"militants-leave-trail-of-destruction-at-iraqi-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewlawler.com\/content\/militants-leave-trail-of-destruction-at-iraqi-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Militants leave trail of destruction at Iraqi sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hatraimage-1000\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

The Islamic State group strikes one valuable archaeological site after another, destroying priceless ruins and artifacts.<\/h2>\n

T<\/span>he ancient city of Hatra fended off two\u00a0Roman emperors and repulsed a ruler\u00a0of Persia\u2019s powerful Sassanid dynasty.\u00a0But late last week, local people near\u00a0the ornate ruins about 110 kilometers\u00a0southwest of the Iraqi city of Mosul\u00a0heard massive explosions that likely marked\u00a0the demise of the 2000-year-old city and its\u00a0spectacular, well-preserved sculptures and\u00a0stone architecture.<\/p>\n

\"destruction-at-Iraqi-sites\"<\/a>While inflicting misery on the people of\u00a0northern Iraq, supporters of the Islamic\u00a0State group have also attacked one ancient\u00a0site after another in the past 2 weeks, systematically\u00a0taking sledgehammers and drills\u00a0to artifacts. Other reports say that the forces\u00a0of the group, increasingly known by its Arabic\u00a0acronym Daesh, are using bulldozers to\u00a0demolish ancient buildings. By last week\u00a0the toll included the statues in the Mosul\u00a0Museum, the classical site of Hatra, and the\u00a0ancient Assyrian capitals of Nineveh, Nimrud,\u00a0and Khorsabad, famed for their massive\u00a0protective deities in the form of humanheaded\u00a0winged bulls. Assur, a 4500-year-old\u00a0temple-studded Assyrian city where kings\u00a0and queens were laid to rest for centuries,\u00a0is likely the next target, say archaeologists,\u00a0who are desperately trying to piece together\u00a0the extent of the damage.<\/p>\n

The unprecedented wave of destruction\u00a0has prompted a small protest march in\u00a0Washington, D.C., as well as statements of\u00a0outrage from archaeologists and museum\u00a0curators around the world. U.N. officials\u00a0have said that the events constituted a war\u00a0crime. \u201cThose barbaric, criminal terrorists\u00a0are trying to destroy the heritage of mankind\u00a0and Iraq\u2019s civilization,\u201d said Iraqi Prime\u00a0Minister Haider al-Abadi. He spoke during a\u00a0ceremony on 28 February in which his government\u00a0reopened Baghdad\u2019s long-shuttered\u00a0Iraq Museum as a way of reaffirming the importance\u00a0of the country\u2019s heritage.<\/p>\n

Outside experts feel the losses keenly, because\u00a0northern Iraqi sites have been largely\u00a0off-limits to study since the start of the first\u00a0Gulf War a quarter-century ago. \u201cAssyria was\u00a0the first true empire in world history,\u201d says\u00a0Yale University Assyriologist Eckart Frahm.\u00a0Its \u201cscholarly exploration is far from complete.\u201d\u00a0For example, many of the inscriptions\u00a0at Nimrud have yet to be properly documented,\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n

Representatives and publications from\u00a0the Islamic State group have said that statues\u00a0and reliefs of animals and humans are\u00a0anathema to their brand of Sunni Islam. \u201cWe\u00a0were ordered by our prophet to take down\u00a0idols and destroy them,\u201d explained an unidentified\u00a0Daesh representative in a video\u00a0widely distributed earlier this month, which\u00a0showed men pushing intricately carved statues\u00a0off their plinths and smashing the remains\u00a0with sledgehammers. Another video\u00a0image showed a man using an electric drill\u00a0to destroy the human face of a huge winged\u00a0bull standing at a gate at Nineveh.<\/p>\n

Independent Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani, based in London, identified the location\u00a0of the destroyed statues as the Mosul\u00a0Museum and said that 26 of the 30 statues\u00a0in the museum\u2019s Hatra hall were originals,\u00a0made during Hatra\u2019s heyday at the start of\u00a0the common era. She adds that 21 of 24 Assyrian\u00a0reliefs and statues from Nineveh and\u00a0Nimrud in the museum were also originals.<\/p>\n

The militants spare some artifacts because\u00a0sales serve as an important source of\u00a0revenue, according to organizations tracking\u00a0the illicit antiquities trade. Irina Bokova, the\u00a0head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific\u00a0and Cultural Organization, said that\u00a0officials are examining images that showed\u00a0looted material from Nimrud, about 30\u00a0kilo meters southeast of Mosul, \u201cput on big\u00a0trucks\u201d and transported, possibly for sale.<\/p>\n

\"sites-under-attack\"After looting Nimrud, the capital of the\u00a0sprawling Assyrian Empire in the 8th century\u00a0B.C.E., Islamic State forces reduced some or\u00a0all of it to rubble. Abdul Amir Hamdani, an\u00a0Iraqi archaeologist at Stony Brook University\u00a0in New York, spoke with a colleague in Mosul\u00a0familiar with the situation and reports that\u00a0Islamic State forces occupied Nimrud for several\u00a0days before bulldozing it from noon to\u00a0late evening on 5 March.<\/p>\n

The next day, explosions were heard at\u00a0Hatra, though the extent of damage at the\u00a0statue-filled site remains uncertain. Then\u00a0on 8 March, the Iraqi government said\u00a0that Islamic State supporters demolished\u00a0Khorsabad, another ancient Assyrian capital\u00a0about 15 kilometers northeast of Mosul.\u00a0Hamdani and other archeologists fear\u00a0that Assur, nearly 100 kilometers south of\u00a0Mosul, is next, although that site lacks the\u00a0large sculptures that have previously drawn\u00a0Daesh\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

In an 8 March press conference in Baghdad,\u00a0Adel Fahad al-Shershab, Iraq\u2019s minister\u00a0of tourism and antiquities, lamented the\u00a0lack of international action. \u201cWe request aerial\u00a0support\u201d from the United States, he said.\u00a0American bombers carried out a dozen airstrikes\u00a0in the region this past weekend, but\u00a0it was not clear if protecting the sites was\u00a0part of the mission. American bombers are\u00a0striking Islamic State forces involved in the\u00a0destruction and looting, including machinery\u00a0like bulldozers and earth excavators, said\u00a0U.S. Defense Department spokesperson Kim\u00a0Michelsen. \u201cBut we don\u2019t have troops on the\u00a0ground to protect the sites\u2014and that might\u00a0make them even more of a target,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

U.S. spy satellites, however, could provide\u00a0important data on the exact extent of\u00a0damage. The U.S. State Department made\u00a0a \u201chigh-priority request for new satellite\u00a0imagery,\u201d according to a source there. Realtime\u00a0imaging could conceivably be used to\u00a0follow the trucks that left Nimrud, and so\u00a0track looted material. But such requests will\u00a0likely take a back seat to ongoing military\u00a0operations, including a battle now unfolding\u00a0around Tikrit. Meanwhile, Sunni Islam\u2019s\u00a0leading institution, al-Azhar in Cairo, put\u00a0out a statement declaring that the destruction\u00a0\u201cis forbidden in Islam and rejected in\u00a0total \u2026 [and is] a major crime against the\u00a0whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Near Eastern archaeologists,\u00a0the news\u00a0provoked both outrage\u00a0and a sense of helplessness.\u00a0Many say they are\u00a0at a loss about what they\u00a0could do to reverse\u2014or\u00a0even assess\u2014the damage.\u00a0The University of\u00a0Chicago, long a center\u00a0of research in the field,\u00a0said in a statement that\u00a0the events add \u201cto the\u00a0growing spiral of despair\u00a0from both Iraq\u00a0and Syria.\u201d Hamdani\u00a0expressed his anger\u00a0by helping organize a\u00a0small 10 March protest\u00a0near the White House.\u00a0\u201cThousands of years\u00a0of history are being\u00a0smashed by the hammers\u00a0of ignorance,\u201d he\u00a0says. \u201cWith each destroyed\u00a0statue, a story\u00a0is forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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