Your tax dollars at work: Fraud, Waste and Abuse at the Iraq Museum

Crusading Western archaeologists successfully lobbied for millions of dollars in US taxpayer money to be spent on Iraqi Archaeology. They further successfully lobbied for emergency import restrictions on Iraqi cultural artifacts based partly on the theory that the Iraq State was the best custodian for everything-- including common artifacts such as coins.

Was this money well spent? Should anything that looks remotely "Iraqi" be repatriated, including common artifacts like coins? Judge for yourself based upon this troubling report:


This is an interesting but distressing note about the coin [collection] in the Iraq Museum, from From Lamia al-Gailani Werr.

In the Museum they are slowly plodding through the inventory, which according to the current pace will take years. Only twenty thousands out of over two hundred thousands objects have been inventoried so far. The staff are facing many challenges, including a number of objects have lost their numbers, or metal objects that have crumbled as a the result of decades of negligence, and in particular the coins collection. Another difficulty is the lack of expertise amongst the staff to enable them to distinguish the fake from the genuine coinage.

In the Iraq Museum Library many of the old and rare archaeological books are crumbling. The Library have no expert staff to conserve the books. This can also be said for the photographic archive were conservation of the earlier photographs is lacking, and the scanning and digitising the photographic archive is not all that perfect. The staff are scanning with a resolution of 75 pixels only, because they have antiquated computers with very little memory and have no resources to purchase CDs / DVDs or USB sticks. The photographic archive rooms had a lucky escape when I was there, they got flooded one morning, the result of a test by the engineering section to check if repairs carried out to the roof had been done properly. They poured a whole tankard�s hold of water on to the roof for this purpose. The water cascaded down like a waterfall through the imperfect repairs and onto the metal cabinets in the stores and archive rooms. The staff rushed and covered everything with nylon sheets. Clearly the contracted builder�s repair was very poorly to say the least, despite a grant of three million US Dollars.

Of course, archaeological groups are again lobbying for additional millions in US taxpayer dollars being spent on Egyptian archaeology. And they have apparently already told the Egyptians that new emergency restrictions on Egyptian cultural artifacts will be imposed.

If anything, with our own budget deficits, now should be the time to scrutinze such requests far more closely.

Interesting Blog on Fate of Zahi Hawass

I came across this interesting blog on Zahi Hawass that touches on comparisons between him and Donnie George:
http://itsallkickingoff.posterous.com/egyptian-bust

Playing with Fire

There have been reports that a pro-Mubarak mob allegedly comprised of off-duty police has been hurling "Molotov Cocktails" (petrol bombs) at anti-Mubarak protesters near the famed Egyptian Museum. See
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/50500/

The museum remains undamaged by fire-- so far at least. Meanwhile, more suspicions have been raised that the police and museum workers were involved in earlier looting and vandalism that took place at the museum. See http://www.talkingpyramids.com/who-looted-the-egyptian-museum/ And even ardent supporters of repatriation of Egyptian artifacts are starting to doubt the official "party line" as stated by Egypt's new Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. See http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-declares-treasures-safe.html
and http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2011/02/looting-at-saqqara.html

Yet, the AIA and those archaeologists already clamoring for emergency restrictions on Egyptian cultural artifacts remain unwilling to openly criticize Hawass and the Murbarak government for its handling of the issue as well as the probable links between the security services and those who looted and vandalized the Museum.

This raises the question whether concerns about jeopardizing excavation permits has quieted archaeologists from raising the question who really should be held responsible for putting Egypt's unparallelled cultural treasures in jeopardy. This, of course, stands in stark contrast to the quick blame that was heaped on the US Military and the Bush Administration in the immediate aftermath of the looting of the Iraq Museum. Are double standards motivated by self-interest at work?