Google to Create Digital Archive of Iraq’s National Museum

A detail from one of the exhibitsGoogle has announced it will create a digital record of the Baghdad museum’s collection, and will make the images available online by early next year.  As Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive announced last week, “The history of the beginning of – literally – civilization… is preserved in this museum.”  Over 14,000 images have been taken, allowing the Iraqi public, and the rest of the world to see the images. 

Rod Norland notes in an article for the New York Times that the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already digitized part of the collection, and created a website, the virtual Museum of Iraq.  So there is some duplication here.  A few things to take away from the announcement.

First, it seems like a good idea to digitize these objects, and make the images available to to public generally.  However many other museums are unlikely to take this step, at least in the short term.  We don’t know how expensive an undertaking this was, as the costs are born by the US State Department and Google.  But museums also will fear the loss of revenue from their own publications.  As many museums prohibit photography, often the only way to take home a photographic souvenir of the visit is to purchase the shiny museum publications.  Of course part of the impetus for this digitization project is to make these work accessible—at least in a digital way—to members of the public who are unable to visit the Baghdad museum.

Secondly, I wonder what procedures google followed with the project.  Are these high-resolution images which will be useful for scholars?  Will these images contain information on the history of the objects? When they were excavated? Where they were unearthed?  And finally, will these images be made available to the various stolen art databases.  If another tragedy were to befall this important museum, will these images be useful to help prevent the sale of artifacts? 

  1. Rod Nordland, Google Chief Announces Plan in Baghdad to Put Iraqi Artifacts Online, The New York Times, November 25, 2009.
  2. Google to digitise Iraq artefacts, BBC, November 24, 2009.
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German Court Orders Repatriation of Gold vessel to Iraq

Lucian Harris, for the Art Newspaper, reports on the claims by Iraq to a miniature gold vessel:

The case, which has focused attention on the sale of smuggled Iraqi artifacts in Germany, began late in 2004 when the slightly dented six-centimetre-high gold vessel was included in a sale at Munich auction house Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger, described as being of Mediterranean origin, possibly from Troy and dated to the Roman Iron-age period (1st century AD). However, the vessel was spotted by an unnamed expert who believed that it was in fact much older and of Sumerian origin.
 . . .
The case has been something of a personal mission on the part of Iraqi ambassador to Berlin Alaa Al-Hashimy, whose interest in cultural affairs stems from his background as an architect . In 2007 legislation was passed in Iraq requiring envoys in foreign countries to monitor the appearance of any Mesopotamian artifacts on the commercial market. Furthermore, this August a letter of understanding was signed between the two governments to ensure cooperation in cases where Iraqi artifacts appear on the German market. A recent report on Azzaman news agency claimed that since the court’s ruling Iraqi diplomats in Germany have stopped the sale of 28 Mesopotamian artifacts believed to have been smuggled out of Iraq in the past five years.
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Roger Atwood on the "Mass Pillage" in Iraq

Roger Atwood has an Op-Ed in yesterday’s New York Times arguing Iraq could learn from the approach of Peru and Mali in protecting their archaeological resources.  Both nations have used civilian patrols to protect sites, and apprehend looters:

This kind of grassroots organizing — where local officials, police officers and archaeologists join forces with local residents — is the best way to combat looting and protect sites from being swallowed up by the illicit antiquities trade. A similar strategy has proved effective in Mali, a country that has little in common with Peru besides a rich archaeological heritage. It would work in Iraq and elsewhere.

Surprisingly, though, relatively few governments have focused on getting rural people involved in protecting threatened sites. Most spend their energy pressing museums in the United States or Europe to repatriate looted artifacts, instead of focusing on safeguarding the archaeological riches still in the ground. Repatriation is a valuable goal, but an immense amount of historical information is lost whenever looting occurs and sites are damaged, even if the objects are later recovered. The government’s time would be better spent expanding the patrols to prevent looting in the first place.

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Recovered Picasso a Fake?

The work of art recovered by Iraqi forces last week may be a fake.  This label on the back of the work has some spelling mistakes, and indicates the Louvre sold the work to the Kuwait Museum.  However the Louvre has said it has never had a Picasso. 

From the AP:

The London-based Art Loss Registry said it has no record of any paintings missing from the Kuwait National Museum, and no record of this particular painting as missing at all.  The Picasso Museum in Paris and France’s national museum were searching their archives for signs of the painting, which Iraqi forces seized Tuesday during a raid on a house near Hillah, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Baghdad.  A local judge in Hillah, Aqeel al-Janabi, said Thursday the painting will be sent to Baghdad after an investigation but refused to provide details.  In a video released by the Hillah police, the man detained for trying to sell it, 33-year-old Maitham al-Issawi, said it belonged to his father, who gave it to him before his death. His father, al-Issawi, was an army officer who took part in the invasion of Kuwait, which led to the 1991 Gulf War.  In the video, officers hold up the canvas, which has fold marks on the front. Police have said the painting bears Picasso’s signature but would not comment further Thursday.

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Looted Picasso Recovered in Iraq

This work by Pablo Picasso, which was looted by an Iraqi soldier during the 1990 invasion of Kuwait has been recovered by Iraqi security forces.  The painting has clearly been folded, and is badly damaged. As usual, the trick isn’t stealing a work, it is trying to sell it—even in Iraq. 

From the Times:

The soldier had been trying to sell it, allegedly asking for $450,000 (£278,000). The market value is estimated to be $10 million.  The masterpiece, which is signed by Picasso, was seized this week during a raid on the house belonging to the suspect near the mainly Shia city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.  A security official said that the painting was tracked to the property, but officers feared that the suspect would burn the artwork if they attempted a raid, so they lured the man into the street where he was arrested.  The suspect claimed to be an electrician, but the official says that he is a former member of the security forces who has a relative from Mukhabarat (Saddam’s former security force) that entered Kuwait.

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Netherlands Returns Iraqi Objects

The BBC reports on the transfer of ownership of 69 objects from the Netherlands to Iraq which had been illegally removed from that country after the 2003 invasion.

The objects were taken from Dutch art dealers and will likely be displayed in the Dutch National Museum for Antiquities until they can be returned to Iraq.

Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch minister for education, culture and science, said the world should “cherish and honour” Iraq’s history as the cradle of civilisation. 
“These objects lose a lot of their value if they are stolen from their site,” he said. 
Mr Plasterk said the items were surrendered by Dutch art dealers once police informed them they had been stolen.
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Iraq Regains Control of Ur

AFP reports on the return of Ur to Iraqi control last week:

The US military on Wednesday handed control of ancient Ur, the biblical birthplace of Abraham, back to Iraqi authorities, who hope now to relaunch it as a major tourism site.

“We officially announce the taking over of Ziggurat of Ur from our friends the Americans,” Talib Kamil al-Hassan, governor of Dhi Qar province, said at a ceremony to mark the return of the site six years after the American invasion.

“We are pleased with this great success for the nation,” he added while the Iraqi flag was hoisted atop the temple.

“Abraham, peace be upon him, was born here, the father of prophets and religions,” he said.

The site is renowned for its well preserved stepped platform or ziggurat, which dates back to the third millennium BC.

It lies near the US air base of Talila, outside the southern city of Nasiriyah, and has been closed to the public since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

On a similar note, Larry Rothfield was interviewed by Chicago Public TV station WTTW which gives a slightly different view.  He describes many of the failures which led to the destruction of Iraqi heritage in recent years. 

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Iraq Troops Recover Antiquities

From Bloomberg:

Iraqi commandos smashed a smuggling ring, recovering 235 looted Babylonian and Sumerian artifacts that they turned over to the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry. 
The soldiers arrested a gang of seven thieves who were preparing to smuggle the objects outside of Iraq, according to a statement e-mailed today by the U.S. military in Baghdad. They were tipped off by residents in the southern Iraqi towns of Abu al-Kahsib, Bab al-Tawael and al-Amir. 
Among the artifacts presented to the ministry in a ceremony this week were gold jewelry, ceramics and stone figurines, the military said. They weren’t marked with museum serial numbers, suggesting they were illegally dug up from one of Iraq’s estimated 40,000 archeological sites. 
“The Iraqi Army is putting extraordinary pressure on smuggling gangs that steal Iraq’s history to finance terrorist operations,” Defense Minister Abd al-Qadir said in the statement. “The recovery of the artifacts was a joyous occasion because they could not be replaced with money and represented 5,000 years of Iraqi history.”
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"they forgot about culture"

David Glenn, who is doing some very good writing on the antiquities trade for the Chronichle of Higher Education has a Q & A with Larry Rothfield discussing the invasion of Iraq and the looting of sites and museums there ($) (cross-posted at Safe-Corner).  Here is an excerpt:

Q. Why did the United States do such a bad job of protecting the museum in 2003?
Before the war, nobody except archaeologists was worried about civilians looting the archaeological sites and the museum. And that includes the Iraqi exiles who were advising the State Department’s Future of Iraq Project, which was supposed to develop plans for the postwar period. They set up working groups on all sectors of society — but they forgot about culture.

Q. But would it have made a difference if the Future of Iraq Project had paid attention to culture?

No, it wouldn’t have made any difference at all, given that the military threw all of their plans in the garbage can anyway.

Now, the military itself was very interested in doing its job in terms of protecting cultural sites and museums. But under international law, its job is defined as not destroying or looting cultural sites itself — not as preventing civilians from destroying sites.

So before the war, they reached out to archaeologists, and they did a perfect job of identifying sites to put on a no-strike list. None of those sites was destroyed in active combat operations.

Unfortunately, they ignored warnings from the same archaeologists they were working with that the museums and sites might be looted by Iraqis. The Pentagon should have known about that issue. Nine museums were looted after the 1991 Gulf War. The military did not learn its lesson from that experience.

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Applying Lessons Learned in Afghanistan?

Last week National Geographic reported that 1,500 antiquities were returned by Great Britain to Afghanistan.  The objects had been confiscated over the last six years at Heathrow Airport. 

On February 17, a Red Cross freighter plane touched down at the Kabul Airport, carrying the looted treasure back to its homeland. The artifacts are now at the National Museum. Returning the enormous shipment took more than a year to organize, and involved the cooperation of participants from around the globe.

The Heathrow collection includes more than 1,500 objects spanning thousands of years of Afghan culture: a 3,000-year-old carved stone head from the Iron Age and hand-cast axe heads, cut rock crystal goblets, and delicate animal carvings from the Bactrian era, another thousand years earlier. The oldest artifacts in the collection include a marble figure of an animal showing similarities to artifacts dating to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, dating as far back as 8,000 years.

That would seem to be very good news, but  Larry Rothfield asks an important question, what is being done now?  This would seem particularly pressing with the reports that President Obama may escalate the conflict in Afghanistan, to protect Afghan sites.  Particularly compelling is his argument that: 

Afghanistan offers an opportunity for all those who did far too little to protect Iraq’s sites — the military, the State Department, UNESCO, cultural heritage NGOs, collectors, dealers, and the museum community — to develop a coherent, focused, and cost-effective set of initiatives. . . .   But surely a task force given modest resources could come up with some measures that could make a real difference. Is anyone working on this problem?
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