“In ancient Mesopotamia, in Hatr, Ashur, Nineveh, Kish, Ur, Nippur, Girsu, Eridu and Uruk, civilization flourished. In the Fertile Crescent there were pomegranates, figs, dates, olives, palaces, music, art, and writing.”—Maria Kalman
Mesopotamia, that vast expanse of delta between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is generally credited with being the place where life as we know it today began. Although other people throughout the world had been developing the groundwork for civilization for centuries, it was the Mesopotamians who refined and brought the parts of human culture together to form a civilization.
The people farmed and raised livestock. They developed the concept of international trade. They built cities, irrigation canals, palaces, and shrines for worship. They speculated on philosophy and religion. They created art and music. And, they produced the first book in recorded history.
But under the sand of that ancient civilization there was oil. And it came to pass that in order to insure control of that oil and to enable us to continue our present way of life, we have committed cultural genocide. In addition to undermining Iraq’s present day culture we have destroyed the records of ancient Mesopotamia where “civilization flourished.”
The destruction began as Baghdad fell. Thousands of antiquities were looted from the National Museum, long regarded as the richest of all such institutions in the Middle East. It was all gone in two days. At the National Library and Archives, looters stole hundreds of rare centuries-old documents and texts then torched the buildings. About a million books and ten million documents went up in flames. Books, letters, government documents, ancient Korans, and religious manuscripts stretching back centuries, vanished forever.
Although Pentagon officials had assured concerned scholars and museum directors that archaeological sites and museums would be protected, American forces stood by and watched as the invaluable inheritance of thousands of years was looted and destroyed. According to the Pentagon, this was collateral damage. There was, however, no “collateral damage” to the oil fields or to the Oil Ministry in Baghdad where not even one window was broken.
The destruction did not end when the fighting subsided. Military presence has caused irreparable damage to archaeological sites. One archaeologist reported seeing heavy machines and vehicles parked on the remains of a Greek theatre from the era of Alexander the Great and a 2,600-year-old brick road crushed by military vehicles. Babylon, the ancient city of Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi—where Daniel read the writings on the wall—was turned into a military camp. As trenches were dug, soil filled with fragments of a biblical-era civilization was contaminated with military rubble.
On the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, the military built an air base immediately adjacent to its sacred ziggurat. Although it has been largely discredited, one legend claims the ziggurat was the biblical Tower of Babel. The site, along with others throughout Iraq, is completely ruined for further archaeological research. But on the plus side, Ur finally got a Burger King and Pizza Hut.
All people contribute to the culture of the world. When cultural property belonging to any people is damaged, it means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind. The culture we have destroyed in Iraq is part of our own heritage.
Source: Crossville Chronicle
