Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq [Hardcover]

Magnus T. Bernhardsson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 2006

The looting of the Iraqi National Museum in April of 2003 provoked a world outcry at the loss of artefacts regarded as part of humanity's shared cultural patrimony. But though the losses were unprecedented in scale, the museum looting was hardly the first time that Iraqi heirlooms had been plundered or put to political uses. From the beginning of archaeology as a modern science in the nineteenth century, Europeans excavated and appropriated Iraqi antiquities as relics of the birth of Western civilization. Since Iraq was created in 1921, the modern state has used archaeology to forge a connection to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and/or Islamic empires and so build a sense of nationhood among Iraqis of differing religious traditions and ethnicities.This book delves into the ways that archaeology and politics intertwined in Iraq during the British Mandate and the first years of nationhood before World War II. Magnus Bernhardsson begins with the work of British archaeologists who conducted extensive excavations in Iraq and sent their finds to the museums of Europe. He then traces how Iraqis' growing sense of nationhood led them to confront the British over antiquities law and the division of archaeological finds between Iraq and foreign excavators. He shows how Iraq's control over its archaeological patrimony was directly tied to the balance of political power and how it increased as power shifted to the Iraqi government. Finally he examines how Iraqi leaders, including Saddam Hussein, have used archaeology and history to legitimize the state and its political actions.

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About the Author

MAGNUS T. BERNHARDSSON is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern History at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 348 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press (January 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292709471
• ISBN-13: 978-0292709478
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A quantum leap forward in the study of archaeology and nationalism, October 1, 2007

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This review is from: Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq (Hardcover)

Alexander H. Joffe said that Archaeology is invariably politicized; in this revision of a Yale University dissertation, Bernhardsson shows that in Iraq the battle was primarily imperialist British military officers and diplomats versus nationalist Iraqi politicians and educators.

On the British side, many of the figures in this surprisingly conventional diplomatic and social history are familiar. Lord Curzon, and Winston Churchill, British Museum keeper Frederick Kenyon, and archaeologist H.R. Hall are shown deeply engaged in exchanging memos about the status of sites, collections, and excavation permits. The formidable romantic Gertrude Bell oversaw the new department of antiquities and interjected herself into all matters as part of her personal nation-building efforts.

On the Iraqi side, were those politicians and educators, not archaeologists, who exploited the past as it was being recovered during the golden age of Mesopotamian discovery (after World War I) to construct a variety of glorious pasts (primarily Assyrian, Babylonian, and Abbasid) that would stand as prelude to a precarious future. Archaeology served them as another means of creating a nation.

Iraqis correctly believed archaeology to be important to the British and saw it as another front to press for full political and cultural independence. Nationalists like Sati' al-Husri, director general of education (and later director of antiquities), newspaper editorialists, and politicians, including prime minister Rashid `Ali Gaylani, debated general policy and minutiae such as the end-of-season division of excavation finds. Their interpretations of archaeological finds and epochs followed larger trends, as pan-Arabism gave way to Iraqi particularism and then back to pan-Arabism, alternately privileging the equally artificial "Arab nation" or "Iraq."

Refreshingly, Edward Said and Orientalism barely appear in this well-researched volume. Although the introductory chapter is overlong and the discussion of Iraq ends somewhat abruptly in 1936, making the concluding chapter on the subsequent seventy years rather cursory, the volume takes a quantum leap forward in the study of archaeology and nationalism.