I heard that in the GWI or the first Gulf War, Saddam put some of his arsenal near the famed
Ziggurat of Ur, about the only one ever depicted, so that we wouldn’t bombard it, knowing the value of ancient relics of the past. Also, I heard he has been rebuilding Babylon. Are we going to be careful of these ruins is my first question and 2) is he? 3) What about Borsippa, which I think is where the largest ziggurat was built for the ancient Babylonian god Nabo, son of Marduk, and it was ruined later on and rebuilt by Nebuchadrezzar or -nezzar. Is anything left of it? 4)Has anyone ever found out what is inside ziggurats? I read in one place where the one at Ur has mud in it and wood beams, and another account said that ziggurats are stuffed with actual mud bricks but not baked, and the outside ones facing them were baked. Beyond this, 4 1/2) are the archaeologists sure that there are no elaborate tombs inside these things?
No one answered but this is interesting. I did see in the press brief this morning from Qatar that one ancient holy site had targets right next to it but it was marked on top withsomething you could see fromthe air. The target got wiped out anyway and the holy site (don’t know what it was) wasn’t touched.
IIRC, one of the first targets hit in Iraq was Saddam’s reconstruction of Babylon. My source for this was an anti-war publication, which was printed after the war began, so take it with a large grain of salt.
I saw that too. I don’t remember them hitting the target, but I could easily be wrong. However, I do believe they had some sort of marking on the top marking it as a world historical site, similar I guess to a red cross on top of a hospital or something.
Anyway, I would assume that they are. The US and allies are already getting enough trouble from people against the war to make hitting a historical site just make everything worse. Also, they have been pretty good about this in the past. The Allies refused as long as possible to go through Rome during WWII because of the history there. Of course, other places got the crap bombed out of them, but still…
Also don’t forget, almost nobody knows that Iraq = Mesopotamia =
Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria because of lack of education. In fact in WWII I heard they were going to bomb Kyoto with the atom bomb but some general happened to know that it had a lot of art in it so instead they bombed those other two cities that just had factories in them besides all the people. I think the military probably knows about the historic sites nowadays, but not our own general population.
I have been informed by Iraqi associates that many archaeological sites were damaged beyond repair in the last war. Doubtless ancient things could also suffer damage in this one.
From the article WAR & HERITAGE: IS ANCIENT IRAQ BEING PROTECTED?
“At a U.S. Central Command briefing on March 26, 2003, it was stated that Iraqi forces have placed military and communications equipment near the 2,000-year-old Ctesiphon arch located on the banks of the Tigris.” The article from also states that 4,000 artifacts were missing after the 1991 Gulf War; 20 had been returned by 1998.
“Officials at the Baghdad Museum have placed their stone sculptures in sandbags to protect them from ‘ground-shaking’ bombs. They have also painted “UNESCO” on the roof of their museum to mark its cultural significance and to avoid its being a target of an air strike.” The staff is reportedly living at the museum to prevent looting as well.
News stories about looting following the Gulf War here.