[The Nimrud destruction came a week after Islamic State
militants videotaped themselves marauding through
Mosul’s museum, using sledgehammers and torches to destroy statues,
artifacts and books.]
By Rick Gladstone and Somini Sengupta
 |
| A relief of a lamassu, a mythological creature with the body of a lion, wings and a bearded human head, in the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II in Nimrud, Iraq. |
News that Islamic State fighters had bulldozed and vandalized
the ancient city of Nimrud in northern Iraq provoked
outrage on Friday, as archaeologists despaired that the militant group was
systematically destroying priceless antiquities in a birthplace of
civilization.
Islamic religious scholars joined common cause with
governments, museums and other international preservationists to denounce what they
described as an odious affront.
Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s leading authority, based in Cairo,
called the destruction “a major crime against the entire world.”
The top cultural official at the United Nations called the
destruction a war crime that should be taken up by the International Criminal
Court, and she vowed to do “whatever is needed” to stop the plundering by the
Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
“This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people,
reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing underway in the
country,” said the official, Irina Bokova, who is director general of Unesco, the United Nations organization for
education, science and culture.
“It targets human
lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity’s
ancient heritage,” Ms. Bokova said in a statement on
the Unesco website.
Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquitiesconfirmed on
Thursday that Islamic State militants had used bulldozers and
other heavy vehicles to vandalize an important archaeological site at Nimrud,
about 18 miles southeast of Mosul, the northern Iraqi city seized by the group
in June.
Nimrud was founded more than 3,300 years ago as a central
city of the Assyrian empire, and today is considered one of the most important
archaeological sites in the world. Its remaining statues, frescos and other
works are widely revered.
“Every person on the planet should pause after yesterday’s
violent attack on humanity’s heritage and understand ISIS’ intent not only to
control the future of humankind but also to erase and rewrite our past,” said
Deborah M. Lehr, chairwoman and co-founder of the Antiquities Coalition, a
Washington-based archaeological advocacy group.
“We must unite with global intention to preserve our common
heritage and resist ISIS’ effort to steal not only our future freedom but also
our history, the very roots of our civilization,” she said in a statement on
its website.
The Nimrud destruction came a week after Islamic State
militants videotaped themselves marauding through
Mosul’s museum, using sledgehammers and torches to destroy statues,
artifacts and books.
“They’re taking us back to the dark ages, those people,”
said Mohamed Alhakim, Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations. “They are
thugs.”
Ms. Bokova, who was visiting the United Nations headquarters
in New York on Friday to attend a Security Council meeting over the plundering
of artifacts in northern Iraq, said in an interview that “protecting cultural
heritage is not a luxury, it’s an imperative.”
Asserting that she had not been taken seriously over worries
about cultural looting and destruction at the start of the Syrian conflict four
years ago, Ms. Bokova expressed hope that governments around the world, spurred
by a Security
Council resolution passed nearly four months ago, would now
strengthen customs officers and courts to crack down on pilfered antiquities.
Ms. Bokova said Unesco had been working with auction houses,
Interpol, and officials from several countries to track the trade in stolen
objects.
Islamic State leaders have sought to justify the cultural
destruction by asserting that statues and other artifacts violate Islamic
prohibitions on idol worship. But religious authorities have called all such
destruction barbaric and anti-Islamic.
Archaeologists and antiquities experts have also accused the
Islamic State of selling or otherwise profiting from many plundered
antiquities. Some have said the looters take small objects that they can sell,
and destroy the objects that are too bulky and heavy to be easily smuggled.
Abdulamir al-Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist who specializes
in Mesopotamia at the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New
York at Stony Brook, said in a telephone interview that Mosul residents had
seen Islamic State fighters removing artifacts in order to sell them.
He expressed alarm that the next target could be the ruins
of Hatra, about 68 miles southwest of Mosul, which is also within the area
controlled by the Islamic State.
Hatra, thought to have been founded in the third or second
century B.C., became an important religious center that was ruled by a
succession of Arabian princes, and is one of several Unesco World Heritage sites in the region.
“I’m really worried about Hatra now,” Mr. Hamdani said.
“ISIS has a plan to destroy them one by one.”
Susan Ackerman, a religion professor at Dartmouth College,
where the Hood Museum of Art is home to a number of Assyrian artifacts, said
she feared that Khorsabad, another ancient Assyrian city north of Mosul, also
was imperiled.
Asked why Islamic State fighters would loot some artifacts
and destroy others, she said, “I don’t have much of an answer except to tell
you they’re hypocrites.”
“They’re willing to be self-righteous and ideological about
the things that are too big to move, and ruthlessly opportunistic about the
small things they can smuggle on the black market,” Ms. Ackerman said.
Ms. Bokova said her agency did not have any specific
information about who was trading in looted artifacts, except that previous
incidents, namely in Mali, suggested that they were part of the networks that
raise money for militant extremists by trading in oil, drugs and guns.
“They’re the same criminal groups,” she said. “They’re not,
how to put it, admirers of art.”