Yes I see the post is gone, I am seldom able to compute whether its allowed to reference a yahoo news post
I went to Reuters world news to get this one
.Sig
story.news.yahoo.com
Iraq Museum to Reopen Displaying Lost Treasure
Sun Jun 8, 8:29 AM ET
By Andrew Marshall
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad's famed antiquities museum, ransacked
by looters as Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule crumbled, will
reopen next month after many of the treasures feared lost forever were found
stashed in secret vaults around the city.
Museum research director Donny George said
Sunday that among the items on show would
be the Treasure of Nimrud, a priceless set of
gem-studded gold Assyrian jewelry that has
been displayed only once, briefly, in the last
3,000 years.
The treasure was recovered Thursday from
flooded vaults below the gutted shell of the
looted central bank.
Discovered between 1988 and 1990 in ancient
royal tombs below an Assyrian palace dating
from the ninth century BC, it was exhibited in
the Baghdad Museum before being hidden in
the central bank ahead of the 1991 Gulf War
(news - web sites).
The treasure will be on show from July 3, when
the museum's large Assyrian gallery will also
reopen.
Besides the Nimrud artifacts, U.S. investigators
also recovered thousands of items from the
museum's main exhibition collection last week
when employees led them to a secret vault
somewhere in Baghdad. The items had been
taken there for safekeeping ahead of the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites).
"It's a secret place where we still have the whole collection of the museum
that was displayed and it's safe," said George, standing among debris in the
wrecked museum.
Asked by Reuters where the secret vault was, he said: "If I tell you, it will
not be a secret."
GREAT LOSS FOR HUMANITY
George said museum staff had also returned items they took home during
the war. U.S. investigators say around 3,000 museum pieces are still
missing, most of which were not of exhibition quality. The number is far
lower than initially feared.
The failure of U.S. forces to prevent Baghdad Museum being plundered
sparked a storm of protest around the world in April. The U.S. military said
its men were initially too busy fighting in the streets around the museum to
halt the looting.
George said 33 items from the main collection were missing, probably
stolen by professional thieves. Among the lost treasures are the Vase of
Warka, a Sumerian votive bowl dating from 3200 BC, and the bronze statue
of Basitki from 2300 BC.
"I'm not so optimistic about them because I believe they were taken by
professionals," George said. "I believe they are out of the country now."
He said the loss of these artifacts was a tragedy.
"The Iraq museum was maybe the only museum in the world that had a
complete chain of human history starting half a million years ago to the
beginning of last century. These items were very important links in that
chain," he said.
"You could trace the development of art, you could trace the development of
philosophy in these things. Now they are missing and that is a great loss
not only for the museum, but for the whole of humanity." |
