Scholars debate stolen artifacts

March 17, 2007

Tracy Idell Hamilton
Express-News

The looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad after the U.S. invasion in 2003 made headlines around the world.

Since then, the looting and destruction of Sumerian-era archaeological sites in Iraq has continued unabated, with little of 2003's attendant international uproar.

Now, as those stolen antiquities have begun to trickle onto the world market, academics face an ethical dilemma: Do they refuse to authenticate, catalog or publish information about the treasures, lest by doing so they encourage further looting and drive up the value of such pieces?

Or do they remain scholars first, studying and publishing information gleaned from such artifacts, regardless of their source?

This was the question put to a group of

scholars and members of the American Orientl Society, which is hosting its 217th meeting in San Antonio this weekend.

During the session, called, "Where have all the tablets gone? Preserving Iraq's cultural heritage in times of unrest," three scholars and a journalist wrestled with the question, which has split the academic community.

Archaeologists, who must work within the context of a historical site, have argued forcefully that all scholars should refuse to validate such works, said Jerrold S. Cooper of Johns Hopkins University, who was also to be voted vice president of the society today. Indeed, a statue or a vase, divorced from its historical context, can offer little to the scholarship of a place or period.

But for those who study cuneiform tablets, the clay slabs used in ancient Mesopotamia to record everything from simple transactions to the epic of Gilgamesh, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of tablets whose legal origins cannot be confirmed means ignoring huge swaths of historical data.

"Five years ago, I had a problem with illegal artifacts," Cooper said. But as ancient Sumerian, Assyrian and other archaeological sites in Iraq continue to be looted and plundered, he began to question the wisdom of his stance.

Thousands of cuneiform tablets are leaving Iraq every week, he noted, and there is no end in sight, given the ongoing unrest in the region.

And while looting has been a problem for more than a century, the current scale of destruction is unprecedented, said Steven Garfinkle of Western Washington University. Many sites have disappeared completely, he said, with most artifacts not yet on the world market, but "cooling off" in warehouses around the world.

Like Cooper, Garfinkle argued that cuneiform tablets are in a different class from many other artifacts and so ought to be studied, regardless of their source.

Micah Garen, a photojournalist who spent much of 2004 filming the ongoing looting of archaeological sites in southern Iraq for a documentary to be released next year, confirmed the scholars' assertion that the destruction of historical sites continues apace.

He showed a clip of looters working at Umma, one of the more historically important cities of the third dynasty of ancient Ur. The looters work in the dead of night, he said, not for fear of getting caught, but because it's cooler. His camera's light illuminated just one small band, but pull it back, he said, and hundreds of similar groups could be seen, digging small holes, pulling out clay tablets.

While the bulk of his documentary will focus on the destruction of ancient sites and the inaction of the United States and other countries to offer protection, Garen also injected a slice of hope into the session. Just $2 million a year, he suggested, could pay for guards and supplies to protect sites that have not yet been ravaged.

While the question of whether stolen cuneiform tablets ought to be studied remained an open one, the audience of scholars seized on this possibility, even suggesting the society draft a resolution in support.