On 10 April 2003, as war closed in, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad was broken into and its offices and collections were looted. The ransack continued until 12 April, when returning museum staff managed to drive the looters away.
A museum looted during wartime is nothing new: it has happened before in Afghanistan, Somalia and Congo, and it has happened too in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war. But this time the outrage that erupted into the world's media, and, more importantly perhaps, political consciousness, was unprecedented.
At first, the situation in the museum was confused. Material was missing, but just how much was anybody's guess. The museum itself was a shambles, and some of its collections had been moved into safe storage before the war began.
Unsurprisingly, wildly exaggerated estimates of the losses began to circulate, followed by equally sensational and inaccurate counter-estimates. Some sense was injected into the situation on 10 September when Colonel Matthew Bogdanos of the US Marines, who was heading the official US investigation into the looting, released his interim report.
This revealed that at least 13,515 objects had been stolen, of which 3,500 had been recovered. He emphasised that the figure was a minimum, as the inventory was still on-going, and that the number of objects known to be missing would probably increase. (By January 2005, it was 13,864, and it may yet rise further.)
In the UK, the attack on the Baghdad museum had an electrifying effect on government policy. In May 2003, the government announced its support for a private member's bill aimed at criminalising the trade of illegally obtained cultural material.
This became law as the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act. In June 2003, it implemented United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483, which requires that states take appropriate steps to stop the trade in all cultural objects illegally taken from Iraq since August 1990, and to return any that have been removed since that date.
Finally, in May 2004, the government announced its belated intention to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols.
Ironically, the sack of the Iraq Museum did more to push forward British legislation in this area than decades of lobbying by the archaeological and museum communities.
The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, shows why there were such widespread repercussions. The book is edited by Milbry Polk, a photojournalist specialising in the Middle East, and Angela Schuster, an archaeological editor and writer.
There are contributions from a multinational team of scholars including a foreword from Donny George, the museum's present director. The main body of the book provides a well-illustrated account of the history of the museum and its collections, from its foundation in 1923 to the present day, together with a cultural history of Iraq from the end of the Middle Palaeolithic up to the Ottoman period.
There are also details of the destruction that befell the museum during the recent fighting. There are illuminating chapters on Islamic Iraq and Islamic Baghdad, by Alastair Northedge and Vincenzo Strika respectively. Lamia Al-Gailani Werr provides an interesting perspective on the important role of women in Iraqi archaeology.
The main text is interspersed with short essays by Diana McDonald, describing particularly important pieces, including the Warka Vase.
This dates from about 3300-3100 BC and was discovered in the city of Uruk, with a narrative iconography that depicts the economy and cosmology of early Meso-potamian society, a work of history in itself. The vase was stolen in April 2003, but returned under amnesty two months later.
The book would have benefited from a greater consistency of style across its chapters. A personal account of the discovery of the Shanidar Neanderthals is in marked contrast to the general overview of the Dawn of Civilisation that follows, for example.
But a more evenly paced book would have taken many years to produce, and would have arrived too late. This is meant to have a contemporary relevance and a portion of the royalties will be donated to the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. From conception to print, the book must have taken 18 months to produce. The editors are to be congratulated.
A common response of a museum when faced by an example of extreme cultural destruction is to mount an exhibition extolling the achievements of the culture in question. But several times now it has been observed that large exhibitions actually stimulate the market and lead to further destruction.
This book offers a way forward. It manages to situate an object-centred account - in fact, a provenanced-object-centred account - of Iraq's culture and history within the contemporary context of market-led destruction. This promotes Iraq's cultural heritage, while highlighting the dangers of unprincipled collecting.
The least satisfying aspects of the book are those that deal with the actual looting. In his introduction, William Polk wrongly states that its massive steel doors were blasted apart, and no reference is made to the findings of the official US-led investigation.
There is not much either about the equally destructive attacks on libraries and archives that occurred at the same time, with more than a million books destroyed. In fact, the book is not so much about the looting of the Iraq Museum as about the museum itself, and its collections.
Still, it is a bargain for anyone wanting to learn more about the history and cultural heritage of Iraq, and to contribute to the protection of that heritage.
Neil Brodie is the coordinator of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge
A museum looted during wartime is nothing new: it has happened before in Afghanistan, Somalia and Congo, and it has happened too in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war. But this time the outrage that erupted into the world's media, and, more importantly perhaps, political consciousness, was unprecedented.
At first, the situation in the museum was confused. Material was missing, but just how much was anybody's guess. The museum itself was a shambles, and some of its collections had been moved into safe storage before the war began.
Unsurprisingly, wildly exaggerated estimates of the losses began to circulate, followed by equally sensational and inaccurate counter-estimates. Some sense was injected into the situation on 10 September when Colonel Matthew Bogdanos of the US Marines, who was heading the official US investigation into the looting, released his interim report.
This revealed that at least 13,515 objects had been stolen, of which 3,500 had been recovered. He emphasised that the figure was a minimum, as the inventory was still on-going, and that the number of objects known to be missing would probably increase. (By January 2005, it was 13,864, and it may yet rise further.)
In the UK, the attack on the Baghdad museum had an electrifying effect on government policy. In May 2003, the government announced its support for a private member's bill aimed at criminalising the trade of illegally obtained cultural material.
This became law as the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act. In June 2003, it implemented United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483, which requires that states take appropriate steps to stop the trade in all cultural objects illegally taken from Iraq since August 1990, and to return any that have been removed since that date.
Finally, in May 2004, the government announced its belated intention to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols.
Ironically, the sack of the Iraq Museum did more to push forward British legislation in this area than decades of lobbying by the archaeological and museum communities.
The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, shows why there were such widespread repercussions. The book is edited by Milbry Polk, a photojournalist specialising in the Middle East, and Angela Schuster, an archaeological editor and writer.
There are contributions from a multinational team of scholars including a foreword from Donny George, the museum's present director. The main body of the book provides a well-illustrated account of the history of the museum and its collections, from its foundation in 1923 to the present day, together with a cultural history of Iraq from the end of the Middle Palaeolithic up to the Ottoman period.
There are also details of the destruction that befell the museum during the recent fighting. There are illuminating chapters on Islamic Iraq and Islamic Baghdad, by Alastair Northedge and Vincenzo Strika respectively. Lamia Al-Gailani Werr provides an interesting perspective on the important role of women in Iraqi archaeology.
The main text is interspersed with short essays by Diana McDonald, describing particularly important pieces, including the Warka Vase.
This dates from about 3300-3100 BC and was discovered in the city of Uruk, with a narrative iconography that depicts the economy and cosmology of early Meso-potamian society, a work of history in itself. The vase was stolen in April 2003, but returned under amnesty two months later.
The book would have benefited from a greater consistency of style across its chapters. A personal account of the discovery of the Shanidar Neanderthals is in marked contrast to the general overview of the Dawn of Civilisation that follows, for example.
But a more evenly paced book would have taken many years to produce, and would have arrived too late. This is meant to have a contemporary relevance and a portion of the royalties will be donated to the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. From conception to print, the book must have taken 18 months to produce. The editors are to be congratulated.
A common response of a museum when faced by an example of extreme cultural destruction is to mount an exhibition extolling the achievements of the culture in question. But several times now it has been observed that large exhibitions actually stimulate the market and lead to further destruction.
This book offers a way forward. It manages to situate an object-centred account - in fact, a provenanced-object-centred account - of Iraq's culture and history within the contemporary context of market-led destruction. This promotes Iraq's cultural heritage, while highlighting the dangers of unprincipled collecting.
The least satisfying aspects of the book are those that deal with the actual looting. In his introduction, William Polk wrongly states that its massive steel doors were blasted apart, and no reference is made to the findings of the official US-led investigation.
There is not much either about the equally destructive attacks on libraries and archives that occurred at the same time, with more than a million books destroyed. In fact, the book is not so much about the looting of the Iraq Museum as about the museum itself, and its collections.
Still, it is a bargain for anyone wanting to learn more about the history and cultural heritage of Iraq, and to contribute to the protection of that heritage.
Neil Brodie is the coordinator of the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge
Edited by Milbry Polk and Angela Schuster
Harry N Abrams, £20
ISBN: 0 8109 5872 4
Harry N Abrams, £20
ISBN: 0 8109 5872 4
