Reclaiming a Plundered Past

Abstract

“Stuff happens.” United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s laconic comment on the widespread looting triggered by Baghdad’s fall in early April 2003 arguably marks the lowest point in Iraqi archaeology, a field already stained and tarnished by the ugliness of international geopolitics. Priceless treasures were plundered by well-informed gangs of thieves who smashed or ignored replicas on display and went straight for the concealed originals, while the more opportunistic looters simply made off with whatever they could seize. Despite briefings by archaeologists before the war, the American government did not order its military to intervene, and thereby allowed the damage to Iraq’s cultural patrimony to accelerate beyond repair. In a fitting introduction, Magnus Bernhardsson uses this preventable disaster as a segue into the theme of his work: the largely unfortunate sublimation of the archaeological record to nationalism and nation building. As he aptly notes, “nationalism influences the kinds of questions archaeologists have been willing to ask and determines what sort of historical sites to ...