The Impact of Coalition Military Operations on Archaeological Sites in Iraq

Abstract

The creation of cities is only one example in a long list of cultural evolutions invented in Iraq. Ancient cities that flourished across Mesopotamia from 3500 BCE onwards were left largely abandoned and untouched for millennia until European explorers began excavations in the early nineteenth century. International excavations between Western and Iraqi archaeologists were eventually sponsored by Western organisations and the Iraqi antiquities authorities through the years. However, the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s caused the cessation of most joint excavations. The 2003 Iraq War further compounded problems by making it almost impossible for Western cultural heritage experts to engage one on one with their Iraqi counterparts. This chapter focuses on the use of fragile archaeological sites such as the ancient city of Babylon as major US military bases. It not only documents the damage done at such sites but also argues that when such sites were converted into military bases, the United States effectively turned once-popular public spaces into zones of exclusion, thereby contravening the basic human right of Iraqis to access their own heritage.