'US-led troops damaging Babylon'
AP[ SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2005 04:45:28 AM ]
LONDON: The British Museum says US-led coalition forces in Babylon have crushed
part of the ancient Iraqi city's 2,600-year-old brick paved streets with their
tanks and used soil containing archaeological fragments to fill sand bags.
The museum is concerned that US-led troops, including US Marines and the
Polish-led force who have occupied the ancient Mesopotamian capital, had
inflicted widespread damage to the ancient center of civilization, according to
a report released on Saturday.
"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in
Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," wrote the report's author, John Curtis,
the curator of the museum's Near East department.
Images of dragons on the molded brick foundations of the famous Ishtar Gate
were marred by cracks and gaps where someone had tried to remove them, the
report said. Trenches had been dug into ancient deposits and there were
archaeological fragments scattered across the site, including broken bricks
stamped by King Nebuchadnezzar, Curtis said.
Curtis, who was invited by the Iraqis to study the site, also found that large
quantities of sand mixed with archaeological fragments have been taken from the
site to fill military sandbags and metal mesh baskets. Lt. Col. Artur Domanski,
a Polish military spokesman in Iraq, said multinational troops are cooperating
with Iraqi authorities in efforts to protect the site.
"We are still interested at aiding and supporting the Iraqi archeological
services," he said in a telephone interview. "I have asked our archeologists to
prepare a specific answer to the accusations, but I have to give them some
time."
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In an interview Saturday with APTN, Iraq's Minister of Culture Mufeed
al-Jazairee said coalition troops in Babylon had used "armored vehicles and
helicopters that land and take off freely. In addition to that, the forces also
set up other facilities and changes." "I expect that the archaeological city of
Babylon has sustained damage but I don't know exactly the size of such damage,"
he added.
The remains of Babylon, one of the world's most important archaeological sites,
have been occupied since the early days of the invasion by U.S. Marines and,
more recently, by the Polish-led contingent. Babylon is 80 kilometers (50
miles) south of Baghdad.
The city's main sites - the Ishtar Gate, the ruins of Babylon and the
Nebuchadnezzar Palace - are in a separate area on the camp's perimeter, run by
Iraqi officials as an archaeological park open to paying visitors.
The US military says all earth moving has been halted and it is considering
moving troops away to protect the ruins. Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a US military
spokesman in Baghdad, told the Guardian newspaper that all engineering works
were discussed with the head of the Babylon museum.
"An archaeologist examined every construction initiative for its impact on
historical ruins," he was quoted as saying. In the report, Curtis acknowledged
that at first the U.S. presence had helped to protect the site from looters.
But subsequent work - including the decision to cover large areas of the site
with gravel brought in from elsewhere to provide car parks and helipads - was
damaging, he said. Curtis added that he had found evidence of fuel leakage
around fuel containers to the northwest of the site's Greek theater.
For more than 1,000 years, Babylon was one of the world's premier cities, where
Nebuchadnezzar II built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven
Wonders of the World. The city declined and fell into ruin after it was
conquered by the Persians under Cyrus the Great around 538 B.C.
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