On June 18, Iraq's President Abdul Latif Rashid presided over a ceremony in Baghdad Palace to receive an Assyrian artifact from the 8th century BCE, which had been returned to Iraq by the Italian government. The cuneiform-inscribed tablet dates to the period of Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-823 BCE). The week prior, 6,000 antiquities "borrowed" by the British Museum some 100 years ago were returned to Iraq. Transported by the presidential aircraft, they were flown from London to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad for examination and cataloging before being displayed to the public.
While this was a cause for celebration, looting of antiquities, even under the guise of "archeological expeditions," "safeguarding," and "providing a venue for a worldwide audience" robs a nation of its heritage, and countries around the world are increasingly under pressure to return these items. Like the Elgin Marbles, whisked away from Greece and remaining to this day in the British Museum, the citizens of Iraq have no less of a claim on their heritage.
Also, most of the theft was hardly done for altruistic purposes. Among the most horrible eras was ISIS' (also known as Daesh) reign of terror in 2015, which included the destruction of Iraq's ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, which Iraq's first lady Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed recalls watching "with horror and despair."
"Daesh were working to destroy all the beauties of past civilizations, which form our history," she said in an interview at Salam Palace in Baghdad. "It touched a nerve among all Iraqis, and sometimes things like that bring people together by fueling a sense of shared humanity. When you see part of your history being destroyed, whether it is from Assyrian civilization or another, you don't think as an Arab, a Kurd, a Shia, a Sunni, or Christian."
Since taking office last October, the Iraqi president and the first lady have taken a personal interest in the repatriation of items looted from Iraq over the years, whether in the chaos of the 2003 war, the 1991 Gulf War, the Iran-Iraq War, or World War I. The theft of Iraq's artifacts has occurred over hundreds of years, said President Rashid, as borders shifted during the dissolution of empires and various invasions going as far back as the Mongols in the 13th century.
These pieces are not merely antiquities; they represent an era when Iraq was the center of art and education in the region. First lady Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, an avid art and antiques collector, shares her husband's passion for the restoration of Iraq's antiquities to their rightful home.
"People don't realize until they go to the museum, how advanced they were back then. When we criticize people, we often call them backward. But in Iraq, that is not the case. 'Backward' in Iraq corresponded to great times in terms of scientific advancement and enlightenment," she said.
Iraq's Historically Rich Past
President Rashid has pushed to revitalize a project that had recently fallen by the wayside due to other political and economic priorities, including a $2.5 billion corruption probe billed as the "heist of the century." In 2021, the U.S. returned 17,000 items to Iraq, including a 3,500-year-old Gilgamesh tablet, but there has been little traction on the antiquities file since then.
"This must be one of our highest priorities," said President Rashid, who has allocated a budget for the refurbishment and potential expansion of the Iraq Museum. "Some people feel pride when they win a war, some feel pride when their team wins a football match. Many Iraqis take pride in our history. But this is also an important step toward establishing normalization in Iraq and to give indications to all at home and abroad that peace and safety is restored."
During official trips abroad as well as during official delegation visits to Baghdad, Rashid has called on officials to speed up the return of Iraq's antiquities. Many items circulate in the black market, but work is under way to recover more than 40,000 artifacts still scattered across the world, including in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Jordan and the U.S.
While Germany returned 125 artifacts last July, Berlin still holds on to parts of the Ishtar Gate, smuggled out of Iraq in the early 20th century and put on display at the Pergamon Museum.
In February 2022, Iraqi authorities retrieved from Lebanon 337 ancient artifacts (including tablets dating back to the Akkadian Empire), which were looted after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Is the return of antiquities enough to heal decades of trauma in Iraq, and bridge divides between the various ethnic and religious groups competing for influence in Baghdad?
Ibrahim al-Marashi, an Iraqi historian and author of The Modern History of Iraq, described the efforts to retrieve Iraq's antiquities as "the few positive notes in a national narrative that's been marred by tragedy and trauma."
"Every Iraqi was traumatized by the looting of museums in 2003, all the way to Daesh, the destruction of the heritage in the north of Iraq and then their attempts to profit from looted antiquities. Those series of events reflect a collective trauma for Iraqis, so the repatriation of antiquities, these are matters of pride," he said.
Today's Iraq is still perceived as a society split along ethnic, religious, ideological, and a host of other fracture lines. There are few areas of common interest and shared belief, but one remains: the heritage of a land once called the cradle of civilization. Returning that inheritance to Iraq and its people is an obligation of those nations who speak loudly of unity, harmony, and peace, but retain with an iron grip the very foundations of its heritage.
Tanya Goudsouzian is a Canadian journalist based in Istanbul. She has covered Afghanistan and Iraq since 2000.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
