By Butan Amedi
11/12/2009
On November 25th, 2009, KurdishMedia.com reported a story from the newspaper Hawlati that Sidad Barzani, the brother of Masoud Barzani, is holding an ancient statue found by a local person in the region of Barzan. The same report stated that Sidad Barzani has paid the finder for the statue. The involvement of Sidad Barzani in the case perhaps established a story for the independent press to cover. Otherwise, if the statue had remained with the original finder, the story was unlikely to be published.
Given the long list of shortcomings and challenges facing Iraq in general, archeological matters are of relatively little interest to the majority of people, political parties and government. But archeology shouldn’t be ignored because it provides valuable information about the past. Archeological education can help Baghdad and Erbil reform their laws to serve this field better.
The treatment of antiquities in different countries is guided by their economic system. For example, the United States is a capitalist nation. The majority of the archeological museums are owned and funded by the private sector. The state only regulates their functions and provides tax breaks. The privatization of archeological museums allows private ownership of archeological antiquities. By contrast, Iraq is a semi-socialist country. The state owns, regulates and runs museums. People are obliged by law to turn over newly found antiquities to the authorities within 24 hours. In other words, private ownership of such materials is prohibited.
But the two different economic systems make it possible for looters to abuse archeological finds. The fact that Iraqi laws oblige people to turn antiquities over to the government renders people less enthusiastic to follow them, especially when they weigh the low compensation they receive from government against the price they would get in the black market. The finders are likely to secretly loot the artifact from the site and smuggle it abroad to sell it. This looting leads to the destruction of archaeological sites, as a recent exhibit at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago showed (http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oimp/oimp28.html). In the United States, the private economy demonstrates a better example. The finders have a legitimate advantage to sell the antiquity to a museum, establishing a win-win situation for both people and archeologists, although this arrangement is not immune from problems.
Every archeological antiquity has an underground context. The former Director of the Iraqi National Museum Dr. George Youkhana said, “When an Iraqi citizen handed over to the authorities an archeological statue, we would send a team of scientists to dig the site to study the archeological context of the statue.” The details of the context are part of human history. So, the site in which the statue was found in Barzan region must be properly studied by archeological scientists. Otherwise, the piece represents lost knowledge, sitting in a house or a museum outside of Kurdistan.
Attaching less importance to archeology in Kurdistan within the challenges facing the nation is understandable. In fact, the major KRG parties have yet to establish a sustainable government above the ground, let alone attaching importance to underground. However, archeological sites and artifacts are national treasuries and heritage. The Salih Administration of KRG must do what it can to protect them.
