Looting Matters: Antiquities and the Invasion of Kuwait

Looting Matters: Antiquities and the Invasion of Kuwait

Comments on the removal of antiquities from the Kuwait National Museum.

Donny George and Kuwait

Professor Donny George, former Director-General of the National Museum in Baghdad, Iraq has asked me to clarify his role in the evacuation of antiquities from Kuwait.

Here is his text:

Dear All,

since the first gulf war of 1991 everybody has been accusing the Iraqis of stealing Kuwait's antiquities, and no one has asked the Iraqis for their opinion about it. I was reserving this to be included in a book I started writing, but let me explain this Kuwaiti mater in some details.

Prior to the first gulf war we had done the preparations to evacuate the antiquities from the Iraq museum, since the war was coming no matter what was said in the daily news inside Iraq, then we got the orders from the ministry of culture, to go and insure the evacuation of the Kuwait museum, exactly as we did for the Iraq museum, we had no orders to check the private collections, that was not our job, and before we did so the director general of Iraqi antiquities informed the UNESCO, that according to Hague convention of 1954, Iraq was going to do its duties to evacuate the official Kuwait museums, because they were in an area of expected armed conflict, and for that we started the evacuation, before that I myself made a video film for the two museums, the Kuwait national museum, and Dar al-Athar Al- Ilamia, later on we sent a copy of that film to the Kuwaiti authorities through the UN representative, then we started packing and transporting all what we could to Baghdad, then distributing the material in Iraq for safe keeping.

After the end of the war, and the UN resolutions to return everything back to Kuwait, we had the first meeting with representative of the UN security council, he officially presented a list of (2500) items demanded by the Kuwaiti side to be returned to Kuwait, we all, the Iraqi side were surprised for that small number of the demanded items, we said what we have is much more than that, and I handed the UN representative two volumes for over (25 000) twenty five thousands items that we had, because every thing was completely documented in a professional manner before any thing left the Kuwait museums. The representative was surprised after he saw the complete lists, and aske to end the meeting that day, so that he will go back to the security council in order to have a special resolution for the antiquities to be handed over according to the Iraqi lists and not according to the Kuwaiti ones, and this was what happened.

The Iraq museum at that time was not on display and was closed, and of course no Kuwaiti antiquities were displayed there for sure, but the Kuwaiti material was finally collected there for handing over.
When the handing over started, it took place in some of the Iraq museum galleries, no Kuwaiti people were there, but the representatives of the UN, the Kuwaiti side was represented by a British lady, Ms.Marsh, an American gentleman , and an Indian gentleman, every item was handed over from the Iraqi representatives to the UN people, registered in lists by computers, then handed over to the Kuwaiti side then they handed things to the packing company, all done in the Iraq museum, all with the protection of the museum guards.

After everything was taken from Iraq, for several times we had some questions about some missing items from the Kuwaiti side through the UN, and when we would go back to our copy of the handing over lists, we would find what they were asking for, so we would tell them that that item is listed in Number so and so in the list number so and so, then there were no claims in this regard.

Special Notes:
1. we knew nothing about private collections in Kuwait, therefore we were not involved with them, our concentration was only on the official museums.
2. When the handing over was finished, the head of the Kuwaiti side, Ms. Marsh, invited the Iraqi side representatives for a dinner reception in a fine Baghdad restaurant, Khan Marjan, I asked Ms. Marsh whether that was her idea, but she told me that she could not do such a thing without the Kuwaiti approval, and also mentioned, that there will come a time the Kuwaitis will thank you all personally for what you have done for these antiquities.
3. Everybody should know that only the Kuwait National museum contained Kuwaiti antiquities, the other museum was dedicated for Islamic art, and all its material was purchased from the markets all over the world, including material from the site of Samarra in Iraq.
4. after all that we see from time to time articles, especially in the Guardian, going back to the same subject, where such kinds of claims are mentioned, while I am sure the Kuwaitis themselves know that this is not the whole truth, but it is used for political matters only, including an article that was interviewing Ms. Marsh herself, and was given the title of, the lioness of Baghdad, and again in the Guardian, were she was describing her struggle with Iraqis, to extract every single item from them under the weapons of solders !!!! (the museum guards).
5. this is my information about this subject, and it is my responsibility to tell it to the world, the museum, archaeological community all over the world, and it is my responsibility in front of my God, that this is the whole truth, and whatever is said about this subject that does not include these facts, is all lies and false accusations, these people should be ashamed of themselves.
Donny George


Image
From SAFE

Looting in Iraq: Getting the Facts Straight

Yesterday Martin Bailey reported in the The Art Newspaper, "Archaeological sites in south Iraq have not been looted, say experts" (July 1, 2008).

An international team of archaeologists which made an unpublicised visit to southern Iraq last month found no evidence of recent looting—contrary to long-expressed claims about sustained illegal digging at major sites.

Larry Rothfield has now responded on Safe Corner ("No Recent Looting on 8 Sites in Southern Iraq: What does it show us? Not what the Art Newspaper thinks it does"; [mirror]). He points out that the archaeological team visited 8 out of some 10,000 registered sites (and there will be other unknown sites). Rothfield also includes comments from Donny George about why these 8 sites had not shown signs of looting.

These 8 locations do not form a representative selection of archaeological sites in Iraq.

Professor Elizabeth Stone, who was part of the visiting team, has been using satellite imaging to study the impact of looting elsewhere in Iraq. The findings were published in Antiquity earlier this year (Professor Elizabeth C. Stone, "Patterns of looting in southern Iraq", Antiquity, Vol. 82, No. 315, 2008, 125–38).

Rothfield rightly urges caution when it comes to announcing that the looting of archaeological sites is fiction. This has not stopped some cultural property observers starting to talk about "misinformation" that has been used to enforce restrictions on the import of antiquities. Indeed they overlooked the quote from Dr John Curtis of the British Museum:

It may not be typical of the country as a whole, and the situation could well be worse further north. [Emphasis mine]

Perhaps Martin Bailey and The Art Newspaper need to adopt a more responsible approach to reporting antiquities. A follow-up article is needed.

SAFE 2008 Beacon Awards: Congratulations

The SAFE 2008 Beacon Awards have been announced. Congratulations are in order:

On Saturday, January 5, SAFE will present the 2008 Beacon Award to Dr. Neil Brodie and Dr. Donny George Youkhanna, honoring them for their outstanding efforts at raising public awareness about the devastating effects of looting and the illicit antiquities trade.

On a personal note it is good to see the contribution of the now defunct Illicit Antiquities Research Centre in Cambridge acknowledged in this public way.