Iraqis are proud successors of a millennia-long, rich, diverse, and relevant culture, that fascinated and inspired humanity far beyond its borders. In early July, 2024, Iraq reportedly exhibited ancient artefacts stolen starting with the 2003 invasion and recently recovered, in a bid to reclaim its significant cultural heritage and the historical role it had played in human history.
This analysis will briefly highlight Iraq’s cultural heritage challenges starting with 2003, as well as the broader contemporary landscape of historical artefacts looting or destruction in war zones from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Iraq’s invasion and cultural heritage considerations
As of September 2024, the oldest known written text was from Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamian and subsequent cultures produced a rich heritage and many artefacts. Later, in the age of Muslim Caliphates and subsequently the Ottoman Empire, large scientific centres and libraries were present throughout nowadays Iraqi territory. The House of Wisdom founded by Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad is just one of the major endeavors that influenced regional but also later European scientific progress.
Before the Mongol invasion, Baghdad alone was hosting 36 large libraries, as part of a wider network of libraries throughout the Abbasid Empire (Ansarian, 2024). The 13th century Mongol invasion of this region is generally considered one of the most tragic events, perhaps the most tragic one. The 1258 destruction of Baghdad is considered the end of Islamic Golden Age: most of Baghdad’s population was killed and most of its libraries, along with important cultural objects, were destroyed.
After this massive destruction, Iraq remained a still very rich cultural space. The Ottoman rule did not appear to significantly damage Iraq’s cultural heritage, and the colonial era expatriation of artefacts appears to have paled in comparison to what happened after 2003. The extent of looting and destruction after 2003 invasion of Iraq was so significant, that it was even compared with the Mongol invasion (Al Jazeera, 2003).
In 2003, Iraq was invaded by the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and their allies based on, subsequently proven, false allegations of hosting Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) (Kelley, 2023). Literature explains that, prior to the war, representatives of the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP) met with defense and foreign policy officials, and attempted to convince the US government to “amend” the (American) Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act in order to ease the flow of antiquities from their origin towards “markets”, particularly the US (Vrdoljak, 2016).
The Iraqi journalist Ahmed al-Rubaie points out that Iraqi heritage sites were not attacked in 2003 for the first time. In 1991, the ancient ziggurat from Ur came under heavy American bombardment. In 2003, the Nasiriyah Museum “was turned into a military barracks, and the archaeological site of Kish was used as a training base” (al-Rubaie, 2023). He also explains that US forces opened bases at key archaeological sites like Babylon, Hatra and Nimrud, some of the 15,000 archeological sites across Iraq (Ditmars, 2022). Haider Farhan alleges that US forces were “directly and indirectly responsible for stealing the museum’s contents” when referring to Iraqi National Museum (al-Rubaie, 2023).
There are many estimates on the scale of looting in Iraq since 2003. The article cited above indicates that approximately 120,000 items were stolen and expatriated from Iraq between 2003 and 2017, from which only 23,000 were recovered (al-Rubaie, 2023).
As part of a larger publication from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago called “Catastrophe: The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past”, Gil Stein explains that “Eradication is not too strong a word”. He emphasized that an estimated 15’000 artefacts were stolen during the April 2003 looting of Iraq National Museum (Ed. Emberling & Ed. Hanson, 2008).
In 2005, British academics Dr. Neil Brodie and Professor Lord Colin Renfrew underlined that the response to world archaeological heritage looting was inadequate, while stressing that, despite the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, antiquities sold “without provenance” end up major European and North American museums (Brodie & Renfrew, 2005).
After the withdrawal of the coalition from Iraq in 2011, a new wave of Iraqi heritage destruction was appearing on the horizon. Pictures and videos with the so-called Islamic State (IS) destroying archaeological sites and artefacts circulated online (BBC, 2016), (CBC, 2024). It is the case of Nimrud site, Mosul multiple sites, Hatra, Nineveh, Khorsabad, Mar Behnam Monastery, Mosque of Prophet Yunus, Imam Dur Mausoleum (Curry, 2015). While the language that refers to the so-called IS is relatively diverse, the actions attributed to this group require a parenthesis.
The destruction of Iraq’s heritage was associated by Irina Bokova to “cultural cleansing” (Mendoza, 2015). The cited article explains that the so-called IS “militants” aimed to “…reform the region into a single, homogenous Muslim caliphate…” (Mendoza, 2015), enumerating, among others the destruction of Mosul Museum, Mosul Public Library, and the destruction of at least 8,000 old books. This assumption could theoretically be considered an unjustifiable justification, but it becomes questionable when the destruction of al-Nuri Mosque is considered (US Central Command, 2017). Not only was this mosque bombed in 2017, but June 2024 report claimed that five (older) bombs were found in the al-Nuri Mosque walls (Al Jazeera1, 2024). Al Arbaeen shrine from Tikrit was bombed (by the so-called IS) in 2014, Green Mosque from Mosul in 2015, Minaret of Anah from al-Anbar in 2016. Other mosques were bombed in the region, for example in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia throughout 2015. While the religious argument is presented as excuse, such crimes represent actually the destruction of local population’s historic heritage and legacy, be it religious or cultural. Likewise, imperial powers that left their mark in history did not focus on destroying cultural heritage of conquered populations, on the contrary, understood the wealth they represent and preserved them. It should not be necessary to underline the degree of utopia such ideas represent, but, given the sometimes-confusing language that presents this destruction, history demonstrated so far that significant powers did not rely on destruction and pillage in order to achieve a dominating role on the global scene.
Cultural heritage destruction in the MENA region
The significant destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage, a very relevant one for human history, resembles an archaic violent story rather than a development at the beginning of 3rd millennium Current Era (CE). However, this represents only a part of the wider destruction landscape throughout the region, for which not even the anti-so-called IS alliances had an efficient response.
Images of attacks with bulldozers or bombings at Syria’s archaeological site Palmyra made the headlines in 2015. Other sites like Mar Elian Monastery, Apamea, Dura-Europos, Mari were reported as damaged or destroyed in the post-2011 Syria (Curry, 2015).
An Antiquities Coalition map that pinpoints Heritage Destruction sites as of May 2016 (Antiquities Coalition, 2024), designates areas from Libya, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Yemen particularly under relatively significant threat. Other destroyed or partially destroyed cultural heritage sites are indicated in Tunisia and Egypt.
As discussed for the case of Iraq, the presence of extremist groups, be they religious or not, appears to be automatically accompanied by destruction of highly significant heritage sites, looting and pillage. In other cases, like for example in Egypt, highly significant and valuable artefacts are being targeted and attempts to steel them may escalate into violent confrontations that sometimes can damage sites, museums or even the artefacts themselves. The destruction of cultural heritage throughout MENA region is an ongoing phenomenon, and despite efforts to curb it there is a “market”.
The “market”, and efforts to curb cultural heritage destruction and looting
The existence of a market for looted items may appear rather unusual for third parties. The size of this market is a matter of debate, with arguments for and against the claim that antiquities trafficking would represent the third largest illicit market in the world (Voon, 2023).
In a 2014 white paper, William Pearlstein, presents the opinion a UK-based client, who had stated: “United States is a mess. It’s a terrible place to do business. Collectors are worried, curators are frightened, and your government seems to have gone mad in pursuit of a vendetta against the antiquities trade” (Pearlstein, Esq., 2014). This comprehensive analysis of US relevant legislation, that discusses measures to improve international exchange of cultural property and details the pre-2003 discussions related to cultural heritage dangers associated to an invasion of Iraq. The paper concludes, among others, that the US government is biased “in favor of restitution” (Pearlstein, Esq., 2014).
Recent developments indicate that, while the destruction of cultural heritage from Iraq and the MENA region spiked and is ongoing, various actors are striving to limit, at least partially, the damage caused to home countries. This article will not provide a comprehensive list of such initiatives, only random examples will be mentioned briefly.
The 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property represented a milestone in cultural property protection. The US partially implemented this convention in 1983 through the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (Archaeological Institute of America, 2024).
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2347(2017) (UNSC, 2017) addressed cultural heritage destruction or pillage. This rare effort to preserve, ultimately, the universal heritage of humanity, requested United Nations Member States “to take appropriate steps to prevent and counter the illicit trade and trafficking in cultural property”, mentioning specifically the artefacts illegally removed from Iraq beginning with August 6th, 1990, and from Syria beginning with March 15th, 2011.
In an August 2016 report, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) mentioned that American government agencies and Smithsonian Institution carries out various projects beginning with 2011, in order to increase awareness, share information, enforce law, build capacity, and prevent destruction of Syrian and Iraqi cultural property (US GAO, 2016).
The Project Countering Looting of Antiquities from Syria and Iraq (CLASI) was funded by US State Department and took place between 2017 and 2019, in collaboration with George Mason University (George Mason University, 2024).
The Geneva-based Aliph Foundation is also one of the organizations that actively involves in protection of heritage from conflict zones (ALIPH, 2024). As of September 2024, Aliph was reporting 423 projects, among which 27 in Iraq, 10 in Syria and 10 in Yemen.
Conclusions
This article focused on the challenges Iraq faces in protecting and recovering its rich cultural heritage after 2003 invasion. These relate mainly to both destruction and pillage or looting. There were two main waves of the destruction in Iraq: the invasion itself from 2003 and subsequent period, and the period starting in 2014, when extremist organizations began to destroy or loot both religious and non-religious archaeological sites or museums.
The destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage is not an isolated case at the beginning of 3rd millennium CE. Within MENA region, Syria faces a large-scale destruction of invaluable heritage as well, and countries experiencing conflicts, like Yemen or Libya, have their heritage sites and artefacts at increased risk, while Lebanon is still bleeding after the two catastrophic explosions which occurred in the port area of Beirut in August 2020.
In an era of innovative fintech, an illicit market for looted artefacts appears to continue thriving. At the same time, the regulation of artefacts market, in the US for example, is assessed as either biased or not sufficiently regulated as to prevent cultural heritage destruction in countries like Iraq or Syria, depending on who analyses the situation.
Various organizations dedicated significant efforts to prevention of cultural destruction, recovery of artefacts, but the certain damage has been irreversible and much more is yet to be done in order to compensate for great loses for Iraq, other countries, and the entire humanity.
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About the author:
Prof. Ecaterina MATOI is Program Director at MEPEI.
