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EXCLUSIVE
UPDATE: Photos and text by Tarek
Atia The world is beginning to take greater notice, not only of the human casualties proscribed by the invasion of Iraq, but of the cultural damage being delivered to that country at the same time. Increased interest in Iraqi antiquities -- more commonly known, perhaps, as Mesopotamian, Babylonian, or Assyrian collections in the world's greatest museums -- stems from the necessary linkage that seems to be taking place -- quite naturally -- between war's alarming simplicity (as portrayed by the administration and the media) and the actualities of a more complex story. Which is: humanity. The British Museum's Visitors' Services department "recorded a huge increase in the number of people visiting our "Mesopotamia" and Assyrian galleries recently, particularly since the war started," Dominique Collon, the assistant keeper at the museum's Department of Near East Antiquities, told Shrinking Globe.
These talks, like the one Collon gave a few days ago on "Sumer, Babylon and Assyria which highlights the artifacts coming specifically from Iraq", or the one given by Collon's colleague, entitled The Heritage of Iraq, are "part of a British Museum initiative to make people aware of what we owe to the culture of the Land of the Twin Rivers - al Rafidain," Collon said, using the Arabic word for Mesopotamia. Collon said last week's talks and lectures "reached about 800 people," a very encouraging sign, and one that means the series will go on. The assistant keeper was also impressed by the fact that "two of the people who had attended my lunchtime lecture had spent the next three and a half hours in our galleries, and were there until they closed." The Mesopotamia galleries have always been popular, of course, but it was also always unclear how many people visiting them are aware that these artifacts come from Iraq. According to Collon, the museum "tended to use the word Mesopotamia, a Greek word meaning Between the Rivers, traditionally used for the land watered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and their tributaries," to describe the collection, mainly because "the name Iraq first came into use in the last century, and we are dealing with ancient cultures." Collon admits, however, that "this does not mean that we are unaware that Iraq was the central part of the Fertile Crescent and the Cradle of Civilization." Because of this war, more people around the world will also be more aware that the country stands for more than just Saddam and WMDs. The antiquities world as a whole is on edge worrying about the damage that might be done to world heritage in Iraq, as a story in the Guardian makes clear. "John Curtis, the keeper of the department of the ancient near east at the British Museum, visited Ur last spring," the article says, "and has little doubt the Americans strafed the ziggurat - a great, stepped pyramid - with heavy machine-gun fire the last time they passed that way. 'Whether this was an accident, I couldn't say,' he says. A fair amount of what he drily calls 'bayonet archaeology' had also gone on, presumably by passing GIs." With the increased scope of this war, that looks like a best-case scenario today.
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For
that precise reason, Collon said, "the Director of the Museum decided
to respond immediately and organize our gallery talks and lectures."