'The reality is really terrible'
Returning from Baghdad last week following his evaluation of the damage to Iraq's cultural heritage, UNESCO Assistant Director-General Mounir Bouchenaki gave an authoritative account of the condition of Iraq's cultural sites and institutions. David Tresilian reports from Paris
A career archaeologist and former director of the cultural heritage division at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, in Paris, Mounir Bouchenaki is well placed to appreciate the magnitude of the catastrophe suffered by Iraq's cultural heritage during and following the US- led war on Iraq.
On his return from Baghdad last week, where he had led a UNESCO mission to evaluate the damage caused to Iraq's cultural sites and institutions, Bouchenaki said that though some first reports of the damage had been exaggerated, the country had nevertheless experienced a cultural catastrophe and that in many parts of Iraq the destruction was continuing.
The UNESCO-sponsored mission, which included the Director of the British Museum in London Neil MacGregor as well as other European, Japanese and American experts, visited the Baghdad Museum, the Iraqi National Library and Archives, the Saddam Centre for Manuscripts, the Adhamya Mosque and tomb of Abu Hanifa and the Museum of Fine Art in the Iraqi capital, making further visits to Beit Al-Hikma cultural centre and the Centre for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage and meeting with Iraqi officials including Ms Selma Nawala Mutawalli, director of the Baghdad Museum and Gaber Khalil, director-general of the Iraqi Antiquities Department.
"After this visit, which concerned the Iraqi cultural institutions," Bouchenaki said, "I have to say that the scope of the damage has been under-represented. This is a real cultural disaster, and everything has to be rebuilt from scratch." Though initial estimates had exaggerated losses at the Baghdad Museum, it now seems that many objects had been removed from the Museum for safekeeping elsewhere including the treasure from Nimrud, other institutions whose fate had not been widely reported in the press had suffered catastrophic damage.
"The National Library is the real disaster. Founded in 1920, this contained two million books, and though the Iraqi authorities were able to secure some books -- we don't know how many since we don't have the figures -- we saw 20 or 30cm of ash on the floors of the building," which was burnt following the entry of US forces into Baghdad.
"Everything has been burnt and all the equipment destroyed, and the architect who was with us considered that the building is now unsafe. The library will have to be completely redone -- all its departments have been destroyed."
Just as worryingly, the looting and destruction of cultural sites is continuing across Iraq, Bouchenaki said, with the occupying forces seemingly powerless to stop it. Though the US occupying forces had refused the UNESCO mission permission to inspect cultural sites outside the Iraqi capital, reports from journalists and experts working in Iraq had indicated that "enormous looting" is still going on at archaeological sites across the country, Bouchenaki said, adding that UNESCO had appealed to the US to guard the country's cultural sites and institutions.
"Until 9 May, the site of Babylon was not guarded, and the two museums there were burnt and the reliefs at the site smashed. The sites of Nippur and Nineveh are currently being looted, since there is no security and I am told that objects from Iraq are now on sale on the e-market, with objects stolen from Nineveh being on sale in Mosul."
Bouchenaki said that one piece of good news to have emerged as a result of the mission had been the good state of conservation of the Saddam Centre for Manuscripts, which had escaped the looting suffered by other institutions. "Fortunately, the most valuable manuscripts [from the National Library] were at the Saddam Centre, and these manuscripts were saved since the Centre was not burnt. This is the only place where damage has not occurred."
Though recent reports have indicated that only some 35 to 40 objects had in fact been lost from the Baghdad Museum, far from the thousands originally reported, Bouchenaki said that this figure did not adequately represent the true extent of the loss.
"The reality [at the Museum] is really terrible," he said. "There is not a single door or cupboard that has not been opened or smashed, even the Museum safe that contained the salaries of the staff. Every single piece of equipment has disappeared, even chairs and computers... when you see this terrible situation you feel that people are still in shock."
"Now that we have seen the Museum," he said, "we know that some objects were taken from the galleries -- the famous 38. We also know that three of the Museum's five vaults were broken into and objects stolen, and we think the total is around two to three thousand objects lost. However, to give a real figure we need an inventory, and we think this will take around six months to complete."
"Well-known objects, such as the [ancient Sumerian] Warka Vase, have been stolen. What is less known are the seals and ivories from the stores. Some objects, such as the Golden Harp and Golden Mask from Ur, are in pieces on the floor, and we need to wait for proper conservators to arrive to salvage these objects."
Bouchenaki said that UNESCO had written to all the countries surrounding Iraq, asking them to check traffic coming out of the country for objects stolen from Iraq. The Jordanian authorities had already seized 150 Iraqi objects, he said, and UNESCO was working with other institutions including the British Museum and the Louvre to establish a database that could then be passed to Interpol in the hunt for stolen and looted objects.
At the Museum of Fine Arts in Baghdad, Bouchenaki said, 400 paintings had been saved and some 1,500 looted or destroyed, including the works of well-known modern Iraqi artists. UNESCO had also alerted customs authorities to the disappearance of these works, he said.
Asked to comment on what impressions he had come away with as a result of visiting the destruction in Baghdad, Bouchenaki commented that the city "contains very important places, such as the Beit Al-Hikma established during the Abbasid period by Caliph Haroun Al-Rashid which was where scholars from across the Islamic world met to publish books and translate books from Greek into Arabic and Latin into Arabic. It is also the place where Abu Hanifa is buried, a scholar from the second century of the Hegra who founded one of the schools of Islam that spread across the Ottoman region."
"The meaning of Baghdad is very high, since you can see where a very bright civilisation started and go into the Museum and see thousands of cuneiform tablets, some of which have been stolen, and feel that you are there at the root of the history of humanity. To walk on the ashes [in the National Library] and to see objects of great value in fragments was the most difficult moment for me, as was seeing the faces of my Iraqi colleagues, still in a state of shock at the destruction."
