IRAQ: Iraq's priceless antiquities are being recovered and restored, writes Michael Jansen in Baghdad
Preparations are being made by the Iraqi Museum of Antiquities and Mr Pietro Cordone, the Italian envoy in charge of overseeing Iraq's cultural scene, to send some of the country's most precious antiquities on a tour of US museums.
Among the artifacts chosen for the roaming exhibition are the Nimrud treasure, a magnificent collection from the 8th century BC, and the Warka vase, a unique alabaster vessel dating back to 3200 BC.
The Nimrud collection, weighing 80 kg, was excavated in 1988- 89 from the tombs of six Assyrian queens. It comprises nearly 700 items, including earrings, bracelets, a delicate crown composed of daisy-like blossoms of the "Assyrian flower", chains, bowls and a necklace made of tiny gold squares so modern that it could have been fashioned yesterday.
The treasure, which was displayed at the museum in 1989-90, was put for safekeeping in Iraq's Central Bank in 1991 until the US military's recovery team opened its vaults in June.
The Warka vase, a votive Sumerian piece carved with figures of men, bulls and lotus plants, was found in 1940 near the southern town of Samawa. It was stolen along with 41 other major items from the museum during looting precipitated by the fall of Baghdad to US forces on April 9th.
The fragile vessel was brought back in pieces in mid-June by Iraqis given immunity from prosecution. Today the pieces of the Warka vase lie on sheets of foam in a box in a locked room where 2,000-plus returned items are stored.
Dr Ahmad Kamal Muhammad, the deputy director of the museum, says 32 of its most valuable gallery exhibits were still missing. "It is estimated that at least 10,000 pieces were stolen from the storage rooms. It will take three to five years to complete the inventory of the 200,000 items in the museum."
Each object must be examined and checked against cards bearing the museum identification number as well as lists in books and records of excavations.
Among the missing pieces is the largest collection of cylinder seals, some 4,800 pieces. So far 1,600 seals have been identified and logged into a database in Rome established by the Carabinieri's Team for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.
Lieut Giuseppe Marseglia sits every day in front of a computer in Dr Ahmad's office systematically entering stolen seals for e-mailing to Rome.
"This is the first step towards recovery," he says. "We send a description of each object, its size, the material it is made of and its provenance. Some collectors are ready to pay $100,000 for just one seal made of ivory or semi-precious stone. We need about six months to finish this part of the work," he says.
The lieutenant, who has degrees archaeology and literature and has specialist training in the conservation of cultural heritage, has been on the job for two months and expects to remain in Baghdad until December.
He hopes to have time to work on archaeological sites which are being systematically stripped by tomb robbers. The worst hit resemble honeycombs, he says.
The museum has been tidied up a great deal since I visited at the end of May. Rubble from smashed items has been swept up, the galleries cleaned, and broken windows replaced.
A young Iraqi archaeologist, Ms Luma Yas, points out the raw repairs of the statues fractured by looters, the broken heads of ceramic lions and a cracked pottery bird house from 700 BC.
The only hall, largely intact, holds the museum's famous massive stone Assyrian carvings of composite beasts with bearded human heads. "We hope to open this gallery to the public in October," she says. The rooms will be opened gradually, allowing museum staff to complete the inventory and prepare exhibits. It could take as long as two years to complete the process.
A glimpse of the three largest storerooms, built in 1945, reveals why it could take years to complete the inventory. They are vast warehouses on three levels containing hundreds of numbered shelves bearing tens of thousands of antiquities.
Looters swept items from the shelves, delved into tin trunks filled with smaller pieces, trashed records and carried off both valuable and worthless objects, including forgeries confiscated from crooked dealers.
No work can be done in these airless, insect-infested storerooms during Baghdad's hottest months so the headscarved women engaged in making the inventory are learning French until counting antiquities can resume.