ELDER COLLEGE DISCUSSION: THE BAGHDAD MUSEUM

The Purpose Of This Web-Page

I have put together this resource page for two purposes:

1)  To provide a topic for brief group discussion at the end of the February 19, 2011 NIC Elder College Lecture Series presentation on the Fertile Crescent.

2)  To point out some possible resources for those who would like to pursue some further independent learning on Ancient Mesopotamia.

I certainly do not expect you to look at all the sources listed below.  I have deliberately provided quite an extensive list.  If you do have the chance to spend at least several minutes reading a small sampling of these items, that should better prepare you both for the talk and for our discussion.

The more general resources are listed at the bottom of this web-page.

I look forward to meeting you on the 19th.  Thanks,

                                                            --Dan

Introduction

"Stuff happens and it's untidy," declared U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on 11 April 2003 in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Baghdad.  "And freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things."  Some others, however, explained the apparent chaos that followed the convincing defeat of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces with reference not only to a profound lack of planning but to deep American cultural arrogance as well.

For such critics, there was no better symbol of the ravages of war than the shattered facade of the Iraqi National Museum.  Early press reports suggested that the holes opened up within the collection itself were even that much more gaping than those at the building's entrance.  "What is [happening] is nothing less than the eradication of the material record of the world's first urban, literate civilization," mourned Gil Stern, director of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute.

The scale of the damage was not as extensive as initially feared.  Many of the museum's objects had been hidden away on the eve of the invasion by employees.  Other artifacts have been recovered through the efforts of a number of different legal investigators, including the charismatic U.S. Marine colonel and former New York District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, a classicist and former prosecutor of the rap musician Puff Daddy.

Nonetheless, the Baghdad Museum, founded in 1926 by the traveler and diplomat Gertrude Bell in an era associated with an earlier Western occupation, remains a war casualty of sorts.  If the number of artifacts stolen from the museum was probably just less than 14,000 rather than the initially-reported 170,000, this still represents the largest museum heist in history.

Some Questions

Possible Starting Places

Baghdad Museum And Iraqi Antiquities In The News

Web-Sites

Articles

Audio And Video Sources

Some Recommended Resources For Learning About Ancient Mesopotamia

Bibliography

 

I have yet to read an introduction to Mesopotamian history that would push into my elite tier of truly exciting works.  The following, however, are some of the books that I would recommend as possible starting places:

 

 

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