100-Year Old Scientific Work Destroyed in Iraqi National Museum

Scientific research made in the past 100 years was completely destroyed in the Iraqi National Museum, Head of the Iraqi State Department of Historical Monuments and Heritage Dony George said on Wednesday.

During the preliminary examination the museum staff found professional glass cutters left by marauders, he reported. Therefore, they made a conclusion that the museum had not been robbed by an ordinary crowd, but people who knew what they wanted. "All plaster copies are safe and sound. The marauders carried away only objects of historical value," George stressed.

On Wednesday, US tanks of the 164th tank battalion established control of the National Museum in Baghdad which was robbed a few days ago.

"You have come too late. We asked to protect the museum before the marauding attack. US tanks were standing opposite the building, when a crowd of marauders was inside. But they refused to come to rescue and let the marauders penetrate the museum," the director of the museum told Security Chief, Captain of the US army, Mr Conroy.

"As a result, we've lost the hertitage of the whole mankind, priceless masterpieces of art, dating back to 5,000 years ago," Dony George stated.

He believes that the US troops "should have protected the National Museum, not the Oil Ministry, for the museum displays the history and culture of the mankind." The Iraqi archaeologist said that among the most valuable and world famous exhibits stolen from the Baghdad museum was the ritual vase from Varka dated back to the fourth millennium B.C. The Iraqi National Museum had included a total of 170 exhibits.

Compared with foreign museums containing separate objects of the Mesopotamian history, the Iraqi National Museum is the world's only museum having evidence of this country's whole history in the past 500,000 years. It has collections of the prehistoric Sumerian, Babylonian and Islamic times.