Just got in from the Mesopotamian Archaeology section of this year’s American Schools for Oriental Research (ASOR) conference. All the news isn’t bad, I’m happy to report, when it comes to the area of study that has the most political significance: Iraqi archeology. I also got some notes on a panel discussing the state of Palestinian archaeology, which is actually more interesting than it may sound.

The bottom line: looting, which exploded right after the invasion, had dropped off in the last couple of years. But it’s on the rise again. Very simply, the reason for this can be placed squarely in Rummy’s lap. Iraqi looters (and their Western buyers) assumed that after the chaos of the invasion, security would improve. For a time after the invasion, a crazed flurry of activity by every local and his brother near a site took place. Slowly, looting dropped down to “manageable” levels. But in the aftermath of the occupation, and all the failures the lack of planning brought, it became clear to the desperate and those uncaring of preserving antiquities that the race for easy cash was back on. So much that one crucial site, Larsa, has been “bulldozed,” according the archaeologist most cognizant of what has happened.

The primary targets of the looting have been two classes of objects: cuneiform tablets and coins. It seems that these items are most desirable by collectors around the world, for the simple reason that they look nice in curio cabinets and are easiest to smuggle across the borders. Cuneiform tablets are a horrible thing to lose from an academic perspective; without them we don’t have the critical written detail to explain the larger or non-scripted material finds. Literally one tablet can change the understanding of whole periods or regions; it’s happened before and would’ve happened again, had the occupation been better managed.

Coins are a different matter, but no less important in their way. The point was raised that many dealers claim “no harm,” arguing that coins aren’t crucial to the understanding of any particular time period or location. However, indiscriminate looting for them means layers and layers of other important artifacts are destroyed, torn up so badly that archaeologists can never make sense of what remains. In both cases, blame must be squarely laid at the feet of people like me, both those still working in the field and those who are independent scholars, because without trained experts to evaluate these items, collectors and dealers would have no way of assigning price. I’m looking at you, Mr. X.

There was a great deal of discussion about this last point, as no one in the academic community wants to seem part of the problem. Consensus was not achieved; scholars could not agree if it is better to take the approach that “well, they’re on the market now, we may as well salvage what we can and buy/beg/ask to look at what is openly traded,” or “we must increase pressure on government and the academy to police collectors, academics, dealers and borders to stop the flow of items.” I admit I can see the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches. The point was made that for as little as a million dollars a year, effective policing could be achieved at the major sites; the Italians deserve great credit for doing what the larger American forces will not. Ironically, the presence of bases near certain sites, the construction of which ruins large swaths of geography for future study, dissuades looters from going to close by sites, for fear of being seen by American troops. Classic destroy-to-save behavior from our troops.

There was also an interesting discussion about collectors, and the market. Auction houses and dealers routinely swear that they are following newly enacted US and international law, and respect the list of items that are illegal to deal. Experience tells a different story, and several scholars recounted their own experiences with eBay and other grey markets, in which on any given day, one can locate illegal items for purchase, the sellers of which disappear quickly, whenever the authorities are informed. Not that there is much “authority” monitoring the situation, most scholars agreed that the US government takes Rumsfeld’s approach, “how many vases can there be?” Ignorance also plays a large role in the trade, too few security or military forces understand why certain unassuming items have such great value. It’s willful; the Bush administration is generally understood to be hostile to appeals by scholars of antiquity in this plight. I know it has to do with their fundamentalist bias about such material.

Speaking of fundamentalism, there was some minor disagreement about how Islamic fundamentalists are playing a role in this mess. One scholar claimed that fatwas had been issued, declaring that looting was acceptable so long as the items looted were not Islamic in nature, another scholar refuted this. Sistani has issued a lightly-worded fatwa against looting of all forms, but there is a clear bias in the parliamentary Iraqi government, where resources and security forces are not applied to the antiquities problem in order to appease the more rabidly anti-antiquitarian elements of Iraqi society.

On the whole, Iraqi archaeology has been completely reshaped, and will never again present the rich opportunity for study that it once did, no matter what is salvaged from this point forward. Disappointingly, there was no discussion among scholars about approaching the Democratic Congress for a change in the failed policies of Rummy and Bush; I guess I’ll have to do that myself. As always, my contempt for scholars when it comes to political aptitude remains justified. It’s well and good to have these conversations among ourselves, but leaving the salvation of the field to those three or four dedicated scholars willing to make it a priority and put their chosen careers on hold while the rest sit around and discuss the finer points of decades-old tablets on Middle Assyrian administrative texts…sorry, I get testy on this topic.

Brief notes on another panel that unfortunately was taking place at the same time from my Islamic archaeologist friend: mostly good news. Those discussing the potentially explosive topic of Palestinian archaeology were both Israeli and Palestinian, as well as Western. Happily, all could and did agree that the most pressing concern is keeping that field vibrant and funded, with modern ethnic and religious considerations to be understood as not relevant to scholarship. Surprisingly (or not, depending on who you know) there are many Israeli archaeologists who are working hard, sometimes to the detriment of their own careers, for greater funding and preservation of sites in Palestinian territories. We should always keep in mind that the Levant is filled with all sorts of people, and not all of them are so obsessed with modern political concerns that they can’t work with those who are different.

Again, the point was raised that it’s important to help modern people appreciate the value of sites within their control, and this was stressed for the Palestinian community. Obviously, Palestinians have a great deal to worry about right now, and the pursuit of the happy field of archaeology must take a back seat at times. But all panelists agreed that it’s an important project to raise awareness among both the Israeli and Palestinian communities, and emphasize the rich archaeological heritage of those areas. In Israel, it’s almost taken for granted by most of the population that the land they sit atop is archaeologically important, what needs to happen is similar consciousness raising in both Israel and Palestine, that the Palestinian territories are worth greater care. For Israelis, that means less of a willingness to indiscriminately bomb potentially valuable areas. For Palestinians, it means resisting fundamentalists who stress that only the Islamic history of the region is worth study and preservation.

Again, I’m struck by the value and power of history. In all cases discussed today, the forces aligned against the advance of knowledge can be described as fundamentalist. Bush’s Christianists, who hate being reminded that almost every fairy tale in their Bible has an Arab-world ancient antecedent. Islamic fundamentalists, who view the study and archeology of the ancient world un-Islamic and unworthy of preservation. Israeli fundamentalists, who are more than happy to justify possession of territories based on their interpretation of ancient events, even as they advocate for the destruction of sites of equal potential value, just because the peoples who live on top of them aren’t Judaic.

Fundamentalists will always be my enemy, and today I was reminded of how they are also the constant enemies of knowledge, and the freedom an understanding of our shared heritage brings.