Changing tally
Only the museum staff knows what was in the galleries when the war started. The claim that 170,000 items were destroyed or looted has long been abandoned, and reduced considerably. Also, many items have been recovered. Museum staff say that only 33 major items, and around 2,100 minor items, are missing, while 15 major items in the galleries were seriously damaged. These include the famous 4,500-year-old-harp from Ur, with its fabulous golden bull's head.
'...this is a theft that would have taken careful organisation and the provision of lifting gear and transport - and no witnesses to the thefts have come forward. '
Most of these missing 33 items had been left in the museum galleries, although some were quite small, as well as highly valuable, and should have been put in secure store. The exquisite, missing, 5,000-year-old marble head of the lady of Warka - arguably the earliest portrait of a living person - was easy to store but, according to some accounts, was one of the items left in the galleries. Other reports suggest that the head was placed in a secure store but - strangely - thieves were able to find her.
Two world-famous pieces - the 15,000-year-old vase from Warka, and the 4,250 year old bronze Basetki statue base - were large and so were definitely left in the galleries. There is physical evidence to support their recent removal, but this is a theft that would have taken careful organisation and the provision of lifting gear and transport - and no witnesses to the thefts have come forward.
The storerooms tell a different story again. For many weeks outside observers were kept from seeing them. Dr Jabir would only say they had been looted. Even Matthew Bogdanos, the New York District Attorney and US Marine colonel based at the museum, and heading an investigation into its looting, had trouble gaining access, as US policy was to co-operate with the Iraqi museum authorities, and not to behave in too heavy-handed a manner. Bogdanos operated with admirable restraint, considering the US Army was being increasingly held responsible for what had happened at the museum, but it was clearly in his interest to establish how much had been destroyed, who had conducted the thefts, and how to track down and recover stolen items.
Published: 2003-06-09