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| Iraq |
| 17,000 archeological artifacts returned to Iraq |
| 2021-08-09 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Tarasov [Regnum] The United States returned to Iraq 17,000 archaeological artifacts stolen from museums after the invasion of the American army in 2003. The treasures were flown to Baghdad on the plane of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazimi, who met in Washington with US President Joe Biden. Iraqi Culture Minister Hassan Nazim called such restitution "unprecedented." According to him, this largest return of antiquities "was the result of many months of efforts by the Iraqi authorities." This is the second action undertaken by the United States to return the illegally exported artifacts to Iraq. The first took place in 2006, when a statue of the Sumerian king Entemena from the National Museum of Iraq was returned to Baghdad. The statistics are as follows: out of 15,000 exhibits of the National Museum in Baghdad, only about 4,000 were returned. Some of the artifacts returned to Iraq were seized by customs authorities, others were acquired by various universities and museums. According to the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, in 2003-2004, after the American invasion of the country, more than 130,000 cultural and historical values ​​were removed from it. Experts consider the plundering of Iraqi museums (Baghdad, Mosul, etc.) to be the biggest cultural catastrophe of the century. They featured collections from the prehistoric, Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Islamic periods. After the American invasion in 2003, about 200,000 objects of art and culture were stolen from museums and libraries of Iraq, most of which are of global value, including masterpieces of the most ancient civilizations of Ur, Sumer, Babylon, Assyria and other states. Moreover, many of them have already been destroyed and cannot be restored. At the same time, the evidence collected by the volunteers of the Middle East office of the Stringers Bureau of International Investigation shows that the massive looting of Iraqi historical museums was systematic and planned. Most of the artifacts removed from Iraq migrated to the black market, where there is a great demand for historical values ​​from the Middle East. Even the largest auction houses are not shy about putting up valuables stolen in Iraq for sale. So, in 2008, unique gold earrings from treasures found during excavations of the Assyrian capital of Nimrud in northern Iraq were removed from the Christie's auction in New York only at the last moment. Now the fact is that in Iraq, almost all the monuments of the ancient civilizations of Sumer and Babylon have been damaged or destroyed, and the country's largest historical museums have been thoroughly cleaned out. Recall how a scandal erupted in the fall of 2012 when the testimony of a translator who personally watched the loading of boxes with the archives of Iraqi Jews onto American transport planes became known. Most of the most valuable documents from the collection of the Jewish community of Iraq, according to the representative of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities Ali Abdul Hasan, date from the period of the Babylonian captivity (VI century BC). And to save Babylon, even a special commission of UNESCO had to be created. Iraq has demanded and is demanding that the United States return the stolen artifacts. A fierce war is going on in this field. In March 2011, the media got around the message: Dr. Doni George, an Assyrian scientist, died of a sudden heart attack at the airport of the Canadian city of Toronto. He was in a hurry to speak to the Canadian audience with a lecture on the search for treasures stolen from Iraqi museums. Since 2003, George's main concern has been the struggle to return to his homeland valuables stolen by Americans from museums and stolen from archaeological sites in Iraq. George never concealed that the US government was complicit in the planned theft of Iraqi art treasures. But be that as it may, Iraqi archaeologists are happy to touch again the treasures, which they already considered lost. According to the director of the Iraqi Institute for the Preservation of Antiquities and Heritage Abdullah Khorshid Qader, the country has begun to restore museums and archaeological sites that were damaged during the war. He expressed the hope that other countries, not only the United States, will help return the stolen historical treasures to their homeland. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 Be it here or there, the 'Anti-Statue' folks operate the same Dron. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2021-08-09 10:28 |
| #1 How nice. Until... |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2021-08-09 02:47 |