Recovering the Past.

"Protecting of the archaeological sites in southern Iraq".

Iraq is one the richest countries in cultural heritage and archaeological sites. Iraq has been the first civilized cities in the world which dates back to the sixth millennium B.C. Indeed, Iraq is the cradle of civilizations.

After the chaos of the recent war in 2003, many of these archaeological sites have been targeted by looters and thieves in order to get artifacts and treasures. As I am the antiquities inspector of the southern part of Iraq, the region which contains most of the great Sumerian cities, including Ur, Eridu, Larsa, Lagash, Girsu, and Umma, it had been my responsibility to do what I could to protect and record the archaeological and historic record of this area. This area has been mentioned in the Bible as “Garden of Eden”, and the land between the twin rivers (Mesopotamia): Tigris and Euphrates.
When archaeologist work as a policeman!!!!!
At the time of the 2003 war, my headquarters was in the Nasariyah Museum. Like all local residents, I stayed home during the battle for Nasariyah , but when I returned to work I found that my museum had been taken over as the headquarters for the United States Marines stationed in Nasariyah. This gave me the opening to urge them to include archaeological site protection within their mission. The first few days were a little tense, but, after some time, they began to listen to me, and, in early May 2003, we first introduced them to the serious condition of the sites. Since then, joint patrols have been conducted to examine the state of the archaeological sites. As time went on, these patrols became more regular and led to the arrest of a large number of looters.

As time went by, we were able to make increasing numbers of regular patrols, especially after the Italian Carabinieri took over for the Marines in the summer of July 2003. In Italy, one of the tasks of the Carabinieri is to protect Italy’s rich archaeological past, so I was now working with a group who were already experienced in this work. In addition to regular patrols, they developed effective ways of rounding up large numbers of looters. After establishing a series of look-out points on the major sites, we also conducted raids. In our most successful sorties, we used multiple helicopters, so that the forces from one helicopter drove the looters into the hands of the others.
As the term for the presence of the coalition forces neared its end, the Department of Antiquities received funding to develop a new force, their own archaeological police. Since it was the Italian Carabinieri in Nasariyah who had arrived with training in the curbing of looting and who had developed effective tactics against the looting situation in Iraq, they were the people given the task of training this new force both in basic policing and in the tactics that had been successful in protecting archaeological sites.

Artifact Recovery

Preventing the looting of the archaeological sites has only been part of our work; we have also been successful in retrieving looted artifacts. Some of these were collected when we arrested the looters on the sites, but most of the objects came from raids on homes of the looters’ organizers, most of who live in the market centers. The materials recovered from these raids provide a clear indication of the types of artifacts that have been targeted by the market. The numbers of restored artifacts was almost 14,000. The items range from the quite simple, including many items of baked and unbaked clay. Since Iraq lacks stone, most of our ancestors owned figurines, usually of women or animals, plaques whose decoration ranged from simple figures to elaborate scenes, as well as model beds, chairs, chariots, boats, and the like. The materials of unbaked clay are cuneiform tablets, which might record accounts, letters, contracts, and such. Of special importance seems to have been items of stone dating to the late-third and early-second millennium B.C. These include many stone vessels, cylinder seals, many early coins, glass vessels, and pieces of jewelry.
The patrols led us to protect most of archaeological sites in southern Iraq. I do believe that protecting protecting and preserving Iraq heritage are global task,for it is the heritage of humankind.
The reason why I tell this story is to sharing with how it is important to save the cultural heritage of the nations.
Look forward to know your feedback about my post.
I am appreciating you and thanks your attention in advance


Fore more information please see the following websites:

Iraq : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq
Mesopotamia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia
Sumer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

Protecting archaeological sites in southern Iraq:

Save Antiquities For Every one (SAFE)
http://safecorner.savingantiquities.org/search/label/Abdulamir%20Hamdani
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/middleeast/26looting.html
Archaeology Magazine
http://www.archaeology.org/0407/abstracts/iraq.html
UNESCO
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=35523&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Iraq crises
http://iwa.univie.ac.at/iraqarchive25.html