Mesopotamia Suffers Under Sanctions on Iraq : History: Artifacts are disintegrating for lack of chemicals barred by measures imposed after the Gulf War.

An idled brick factory and nylon sheets flapping in the wind above a Mesopotamian ruin are symbols of the collapse of Iraq’s efforts to save its ancient cultural heritage.

Hampered by a lack of cash and crippled by Gulf War sanctions, Iraqi scholars and conservation experts say they are losing the battle to save what is left of the Mesopotamian civilization of 6,000 years ago.

Every day a bit of history is lost as a fragment of a Sumerian tablet disintegrates, ancient mounds are inundated by artificial lakes and priceless artifacts erode.

Some scholars, worried that cuneiform mud tablets will turn into dust for lack of preservative chemicals barred under U.N. sanctions, have suggested that they be reburied to save them.

“We have to move quickly,” said Dr. Muayad Sa’eed, director general of Iraq’s Antiquities Department, which safeguards Mesopotamia’s most valuable monuments and excavates ancient sites.

His department has under its jurisdiction about 5,000 buildings and more than 1,500 protected ancient sites, some of world renown.

These range from the southern Mesopotamian sites of Babylon and Ur of 2500 BC to the imposing 10th-Century structures of the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad.

“Conservation work is continuous work,” Sa’eed said. “It’s like the medical checkups of an old man.”

But he says that for more than two years--ever since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait--the historic sites of Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, have not been getting the care they urgently need.

Visitors to Ashur, Assyria’s religious metropolis 180 miles north of Baghdad, now see only half-reconstructed, crumbling monuments covered with nylon sheets to protect them from rain and wind.

A brick factory, imported in the mid-1980s to produce 10 million bricks for the reconstruction of the Temple of Ishtar, is out of commission.

Sa’eed says the half-completed sanctuary will soon turn into ruins again.

He said Iraq had asked the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to send experts to determine the extent of damage as a result of the Gulf War and international sanctions, but so far UNESCO has not responded.

“We only want UNESCO to see the bitter experience we are undergoing in our efforts to preserve what we can of Mesopotamian heritage,” Sa’eed said.

Officials are also considering barring visitors from some of Iraq’s more recent treasures, including Mosul, popular among tourists for its leaning minarets and one of the Middle East’s best-preserved 13th-Century towns.

Visitors can no longer enter the shrine of Imam Yahya in Mosul because widening cracks in its ornate gypsum dome threaten the 25-yard-high structure with collapse.

Sa’eed said an Italian company had agreed to save the shrine, but his department no longer has the cash to pay and the Italians say the U.N. embargo makes it impossible to help.

Plans to save two ancient mausoleums, regarded by historians as gems of Islamic architecture, have had to be shelved, and sacred tombs are reported to be in imminent danger of collapse.

Also at risk, according to recent reports, are 300 ancient mounds, some dating back to 8,000 BC, situated in the basins of rivers on which the government has constructed huge dams.

“The artificial lakes are being filled up with water, and scores of mounds are being lost forever,” Sa’eed said.

“Some of the mounds belong to little-known periods, and their excavation would have thrown new light on Mesopotamia’s immensely long history,” Sa’eed said.

The Iraq Museum, one of the largest and richest in the world, is suffering along with the rest of the country.

Before the war, the museum’s 150,000 artifacts were transferred outside Baghdad for safety. More than two years later, its shelves are empty, its treasures still in trunks.

Dr. Sabah al Shukri, the museum’s director, said his laboratories are empty of essential substances used in the treatment and preservation of priceless Mesopotamian artifacts.

Most seriously affected, he said, are tens of thousands of undeciphered cuneiform tablets now kept in conditions that will let them decay unless steps are taken to preserve them.

“The writing in these ancient mud leaves amounts to more than 50 books, each with 250 pages. Their loss will be damaging to Mesopotamian and Near Eastern history,” he said.

Some Iraq Museum experts are considering reburying the tablets and many other endangered artifacts and leaving them underground until chemical substances used in their treatment are allowed into the country.

“Mesopotamian civilization belongs to the world at large. It’s part of the heritage of the human race,” he said.

“I just cannot understand why they meddle politics with culture and heritage.”