Donnie George Passes Away

Donnie George, the former director of the Iraq Museum, has passed away. See
http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2011/03/donny-george-youkhanna-rip.html
He was a somewhat controversial figure; hero to archaeologists, but he was also subject to criticism for his past service for Saddam Hussein's government and views on collectors. Sadly, although he lived long enough to see peace come to Iraq, the country was not safe enough for him to return to the land from which he was exiled, and, if anything, the fate of both his beloved Iraqi archaeology and Assyrian Christian community remain in doubt.

Interesting Blog on Fate of Zahi Hawass

I came across this interesting blog on Zahi Hawass that touches on comparisons between him and Donnie George:
http://itsallkickingoff.posterous.com/egyptian-bust

Donnie George Involved in Looting of Kuwait Museum?

Dr. Donnie George has become an icon to many in the archaeological community. Organizations like SAFE (and the AIA I believe) have honored him with awards.

That is why this recent comment from Dr. Dorothy King (PhDiva) on a blog I did some time back about the looting of the Kuwait Museum deserves greater exposure. See:
http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2010/06/kuwait-museums-missing-treasures.html

Apparently, Dr. George indicated to Dr. King that he was involved in rounding up artifacts from the Kuwait Museum and private collections after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait for transfer back to Bagdhad for "safekeeping."

I suppose Dr. George was "just following orders" from Saddam's henchmen, but ironies abound when one reads this from a SAFE story about the award he received from that organization:

Dr. George...has devoted a large part of his scholarly career to raising awareness of the problems of looted antiquities. He had a long, notable career as an archaeologist in Iraq before being appointed Director-General of Research and Studies at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in 2000. In 2003 he witnessed firsthand the catastrophic looting of the Museum, and has since become a voice for the effort to recapture the Museum’s stolen artifacts, and the restitution of cultural property in general.

See http://www.savingantiquities.org/event.php?eventID=83

Perhaps people in glass houses really shouldn't throw stones.

Addendum: Dr. George's side of the story has been placed on David Gill's like-minded, "Looting Matters" blog: See http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2010/08/donny-george-and-kuwait.html Despite Dr. George's protestations that all was done in accordance with international law, does anyone really believe that Saddam's Baathist regime intended to give everything back voluntarily after the end of hostilities had Iraq prevailed in the First Gulf War? Or is it more likely Saddam's government [which Dr. George willingly served at the time] intended to take the same path as past conquerors like Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, etc?

Addendum II: Dorothy King has offered additional comments on this story on her own "PhDiva" blog: http://phdiva.blogspot.com/2010/08/looting-of-kuwaiti-museums.html [One should take particular note of the difference between Dr. King's understandings about George's involvement with official looting of private collections in Kuwait and George's current statement that he was not involved in such activities.]

Here is the text of her comments:

Some sort of a tempest in a tea cup is going on about Donny George's role in the Iraqi looting of Kuwait, and David Gill has even felt the need to issue a press release. I'm a little surprised that this has become an issue again.

I interviewed Donny George way back in 2006, and asked him about it; he told me, in front of a British Museum employee and on tape, his own account of his role in the Iraqi looting of Kuwaiti Museums.

It was old news at the time, and many of us were aware of the fact that Dr George had helped pack up the collections (museum and private) in Kuwait in 1990. It wasn't news to me. It wasn't news to the British Museum employee. And when I wrote up the related conference going on in London for Minerva Magazine, it wasn't news to the editor, who didn't think it was worth including in the summary (available online here).

Yes, Donny George was very much involved in the Iraqi looting of Kuwaiti cultural property. No, Dr George's life is not whiter than white, but then again whose is? He's been working in the real world rather than an Ivory Tower, and so he has had to get his hands dirty over the years. Oh, and let's not forget that Saddam Hussein was in charge of Iraq at the time - so Dr George wouldn't really have been able to say 'no' ... Obviously I wish that the contents of the private collections had been as scrupulously returned as those of the Museum, but it was not to be. The man is not perfect, but he was just obeying orders, and sometimes that's the only option people feel they have.

Iraqi Government Officials Turn Over Artifacts

This curious report has turned up about Iraqi government officials turning over antiquities and coins in their possession to Iraqi cultural authorities:

Government officials surrender 531 artifacts to Iraq Museum, among them gold and silver coins

By Zainab Khudair Azzaman, March 9, 2009

The Iraq Museum has received 531 archeological pieces which were in the possession of senior government officials. The pieces were handed over to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Qahtan al-Jibouri who in turn gave them to the Iraq Museum, according to the ministry's spokesman Abdulzahara al-Talaqani.

Talaqani said the first batch comprising a magnificent collection of numismatic coins was returned to the museum by Minister of National Security Shirwan al-Waili.

This batch included 366 gold and silver coins of various colors, Talaqani said.

He said the second batch of 165 artifacts was kept by two members of parliament and included mainly statues and cylinder seals. Talaqani said Iraqi scientists who have examined both collections have said they were of astounding beauty and great value.

One magnificent piece, he said, was a pottery statue of a standing woman holding a beaker made of glass. It is the first time senior government officials are reported to have been in possession of so many artifacts.

The officials say the pieces were passed to them by ordinary people. Under a new law in Iraq holders of ancient relics whether stolen or dug up illegally cannot be prosecuted if they choose to hand them over to the authorities willingly.

In fact, the law makes it incumbent on the authorities to compensate and reward anyone returning antiquities by their free will. It is not clear whether the officials will get any compensation and Talaqani declined to say whether the pieces were among the thousands of missing artifacts or part of relics which are being dug up illegally by smugglers across the country."

See: http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news/2009-03-09/kurd.htm

This fragmentary report raises some questions. First, it is unclear why the report indicates that the coins are "of various colors." In any event, I'm not exactly sure what the Iraq Museum intends to do with more coins. Bogdanos has reported that the Iraq Museum already holds about 100,000 or so in storage. See: http://web.mit.edu/ssp/seminars/wed_archives_04spring/bogdanos.htm

It would also be interesting to learn if these artifacts were in some one's collection or whether they were looted after the fall of Saddam's regime. Finally, it is interesting that Iraq has evidently enshrined into law an amnesty for those who turn over such artifacts along with the promise of some compensation.

Addendum: Larry Rothfield has more details about the Iraqi program courtesy of Dr. Donny George: http://larryrothfield.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-on-iraqs-amnestyrewards-program.html

Iraq Museum Reopens

The New York Times reports on the reopening of the Iraq Museum. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/world/middleeast/24museum.html?_r=1&hp

Unfortunately, politics as usual is at work. Under Saddam, the museum, its exhibits and its curatorial staff were used to butress the Saddam's claim to be the heir to Iraq's ancient kings. After the First Gulf War, the museum was closed to the public, but it became a backdrop for propaganda efforts which used Western archaeologists to try to weaken the UN sanctions. After the Second Gulf War, opponents of US Military action latched upon looting at the Museum to attack the Bush Administration's decision to go to war as well as the occupation of the country. Now, Prime Minister Maliki hopes opening the museum (over the objections of the Ministry of Culture) will help demonstrate to the World that his government has been successful in pacifying Baghdad. It remains unclear if the Museum will remain reopen for the enjoyment of the Iraqi public and when the museum will be brought up to international standards.

BBC Report on Exaggerated Looting of Iraq Museum

This showed up on list serves yesterday, though Donnie George and Patty Gerstenblith have indicated on the IraqCrisis List that this is recycled news.

In any event, the item does suggest that the story of the looting of the museum was exaggerated. Just recently (and as reported on this blog), the Art Newspaper also suggested that stories about looting of archaeological sites were also exaggerated. Does anyone see a pattern here?:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/207635.html

Priceless Treasures Saved From Looters of Baghdad Museum

It is known as one of the worst episodes of the war in Iraq: one of the world's greatest archaeological collections ransacked while American troops stood by, unable or unwilling to act. But now a different picture is emerging of the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad. Only a few dozen significant pieces, not thousands as originally reported, were stolen. And many, a new investigation has found, may have gone missing long before the Americans arrived in the Iraqi capital.

US officials revealed yesterday that several of the most important pieces that were thought to have been stolen have now turned up safe. The world-famous treasure of Nimrud, an extraordinary series of priceless 4,500-year-old gold artifacts, has been found in a flooded vault under the Iraqi National Bank. Other key parts of the museum's collection, including tens of thousands of Greek and Roman gold and silver coins, have been found in strongrooms in the Baghdad museum itself. Staff there now say that only 33 major items and around 2,000 minor works have gone.

'The treasure was never lost,' Salman Faleh, the governor of the central bank, said yesterday. 'We knew all along that they were there. It just took a bit of time to get at them because of the flooding.'

US customs agents who helped with the recovery of the treasure said that when they first entered the vaults they found bodies of looters killed in shoot-outs with rival gangs. But the seals on the crates of treasure proved to be intact.

The truth about what happened at the museum will be revealed in a documentary, to be broadcast tonight on BBC2, by Dan Cruickshank, the architectural historian. Cruickshank, who visited Iraq shortly before the war, returned in the aftermath of the conflict. 'It is simply not true that the people of Baghdad looted their own museum,' Cruickshank told The Observer last week. 'They have far too much respect for their own heritage to do that.'

Instead, Cruickshank said the only buildings ransacked were the administration offices of the museum. Most of the senior officials running the museum were, as throughout all of Saddam Hussein's system of government, members of the Baath Party, Saddam's political vehicle. The museum itself was seen by many locals as part of the structure of the regime and attacked as a result.

But though damage was done to files and research work, most of the museum's collection escaped unscathed, Cruickshank said. The empty shelves in the museum's galleries were thought by the first journalists on the scene to have been stripped by looters. In fact, the collection had been carefully stored according to a plan drawn up d uring the Iran-Iraq war. Thousands of pieces were hidden in five secure rooms around the museum, in vaults in the central bank and in bunkers around Baghdad.

There is evidence of possible collusion between museum officials and thieves in the run-up to the war. 'The museum staff all say they locked up the museum and fled on 8 April and all deny having the keys to the strongrooms around the building where much of the most precious stuff was being stored,' said Cruickshank. 'But it is clear that at least one of the five storerooms was unlocked at some stage. Of course, no one admits opening it.' There are also suspicions that some of the best artifacts that are missing had been stolen and sold several years ago. Senior figures in the Baath Party regime, such as Saddam's eldest son Uday, are known to have made millions from the international trade in antiquities. Some American and European specialists believe that most of the 33 missing items were taken in the first few hours of the collapse of Saddam's regime and were stolen 'to order'.

Professor McGuire Gibson, an Oriental specialist from Chicago University and a member of the Unesco team investigating the thefts, said he had received reports that the 'top five' items among the 33 had been smuggled to Tehran and Paris within days of their removal.

The misplaced focus on the supposed looting of the Baghdad museum has meant that problems in much of the rest of the country are being ignored. Cruickshank spent two weeks in Iraq and found US soldiers and officials are focusing on restoring law, order and basic utilities in Iraq and have little resources to spare to protect archaeological sites.

Dan Cruickshank and the Raiders of the Lost Art is on BBC2 this evening at 9pm
By Guardian Unlimited © Copyright Guardian Newspapers 2008Published: 7/11/2008