Archeological Exploration in Iraq Surges After Cease-Fire With Iran

Archeological exploration in Iraq has picked up since the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war, yielding rich finds from the era 2,000 years ago when the powerful Assyrian empire dominated the Middle East.

The upsurge comes as President Saddam Hussein’s government seeks to bolster Iraq’s self-image through excavation and rebuilding at sites such as Babylon that symbolize the nation’s historical greatness.

“By appealing to history, Saddam encourages Iraqis to view themselves as the heirs of a great civilization that flowered in ancient Iraq while the surrounding world was lingering in prehistory,” a Western diplomat said.

Iraq includes much of the “fertile crescent” of ancient Mesopotamia, where early rulers developed efficient armies and sophisticated city administrations that rivaled the Pharaohs’ Egypt.

Importance Illustrated

Ruined temples and palaces adorned with colossal stone sculptures, archives of inscribed clay tablets, delicate gold work and ivory carvings illustrate the importance of early Iraqi civilization.

To help build morale during the recent eight-year war with Persian Iran, the Iraqi government recalled Assyrian and Babylonian victories in the first millennium BC against the ancient Persians, portrayed as unscrupulous aggressors.

Although the war was halted last August by a United Nations-mediated cease-fire, history is still being promoted, underscoring Hussein’s drive to boost Iraq’s role in the Arab world.

In addition to the Iraqi teams, archeologists from the United States, Britain, Poland, West Germany, the Netherlands and Japan were digging in the country earlier this year. Most will resume work in the fall.

‘Spectacular’ Finds

Hussein also agreed in recent talks with American businessmen in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, that a selection of ancient Iraqi treasures will tour the United States.

“It’s clear there’s more than scholarship involved in all this promotion of archeology . . . but the recent finds have been spectacular,” said a Western archeologist, speaking on condition of anonymity.

New excavations at three sites in the Assyrian heartland of northern Iraq have unearthed a gold-filled royal tomb dating from the 8th Century BC, as well as imposing sculpture and architectural remains.

At Nimrud, the Assyrian military capital 250 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi archeologists found a stone chamber where two women were buried along with more than 55 pounds of gold jewelry.

Muzahem Mahmoud, the excavation director, said it was “the richest Assyrian burial known.”

An inscription on stone in the tomb in wedge-shaped cuneiform writing identified the women as Yabaya and Taliya, possibly the daughter and granddaughter of King Sargon, who ruled an empire that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.

The inscription also laid a curse on anyone who opened the burial chamber: “If anyone lays his hands on my tomb or opens my grave, I pray to the gods of the netherworld that his soul should roam in the scorching sun after death. . . . Let the ghost of insomnia take hold of him forever and ever.”

The gold jewelry included diadems, necklaces, belts, bracelets and anklets and 50 pairs of earrings, as well as a bronze mirror with an enamel handle encrusted in precious stones.

At Nineveh, the Assyrians’ administrative capital, another Iraqi team unearthed a stone door carved with four lions that was part of the city’s fortifications in its last days.

They also found arrowheads and skeletons of Assyrian warriors who may have died during a siege by the Babylonians and Medes. Nineveh fell in 612 BC after holding out for two months and was destroyed.

Outside the ruins, the archeologists found remnants of an irrigation system built by King Sennacherib a century earlier to increase vegetation around the city, as well as a stone terrace where he constructed what the tablets call “a palace without rival.”

Farther north near the border with Syria, British archeologists tentatively identified a 100-foot-high mound as the remains of ancient Tillule, another important military and religious center.

The team found the base of a ziggurat, a temple shaped like a stepped pyramid, that may have belonged to a shrine for the Assyrian weather god, Adad.

They also located sections of two roads believed to be part of highways linking Nineveh with Syria and Turkey.

“Everything here tells us that this is a major settlement,” said excavation director Warwick Ball of the British Museum. “It’s only a matter of time before we find the clues to tell us that Tel Al-Hawa is the modern name of Tillule.”

He said the Assyrians used Tillule as a center for massing troops before launching campaigns against Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

At Babylon, whose kings succeeded the Assyrians as rulers of Mesopotamia, a major project is under way to excavate and restore the whole nine-square-mile area of the ancient city.

The multimillion-dollar restoration will include the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar, the 6th-Century BC king who built the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The city quickly grew into Mesopotamia’s largest population center with about 1 million residents. But Babylonian supremacy lasted less than a century before the city was overrun by King Cyrus of Persia in 539 BC.

‘It’s clear there’s more than scholarship involved in all this promotion of archeology.’