Iraqi Archaeology and the Threat of War
An interview with Dr. Samuel M. Paley
The threat of war in Iraq has
caused the Archaeological Institute of America to issue a statement
urging that measures be taken to protect the archaeological
heritage of that country. The AIA expresses concern regarding
possible direct damage to sites, objects and institutions as
well as the potential for looting of sites and museums. These
concerns are shared by many archaeologists and others around
the world, especially in the aftermath of the looting that took
place in Iraq following the Gulf War.
To explore this topic and share with people everywhere an understanding
of the urgency of the matter, we asked Dr. Samuel M Paley of
the Department of Classics at the State University of New York
at Buffalo to provide his perspectives in a telephone interview,
which took place on February 21, 2003.
The Interview:
To hear the interview, click
on the bandwidth for your player below.
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About Dr. Paley:
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Dr. Samuel Paley.
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Samuel Michael Paley,
Ph.D. is Professor in the Department of Classics of The University
at Buffalo, State University of New York. Dr. Paley received
his graduate education from the Departments of Art History and
Archaeology and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Columbia
University. Specializing in the archaeology and culture of the
Ancient Middle East, he has excavated in Middle East for the
last 40 years. He has served as director of the University at
Buffalo's Emeq Hefer Project in Israel and has published the
results of the excavation in an annual series of reports in
Israel Exploration Journal and The Newsletter of the Israel
Antiquities Authority (most recently in 1992). Since 1993 he
has been the assistant director of the Alisar Regional Project
Turkey. His great interest is Iraq and all his major publications
have dealt with ancient Iraq's art and culture. His publications
include essays on a variety of archaeological sites in the Near
East, and books on the archaeology of Iraq--King of the World:
Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria (883-859 B.C.), The Brooklyn Museum,
1976; and with R. Sobolewski (Warsaw), The Reconstruction of
the Relief Representations and Their Positions in the Northwest
Palace of Kalhu (Nimrud), volumes II and II, Philipp von Zabern
(1987 and 1992). He is presently working on Virtual Reality
models of Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian capital (see links below).
He believes these models will help students in the West gain
a greater appreciation of an ancient culture whose homeland
is in the northeast of Iraq. The destruction of sites through
both natural and human causes can be partially preserved in
our memories through virtual reality technologies.
The Web links below
are selected websites for exploring this and related subjects.
These include sites that we regard as informative, informative and reliable.
1954
Hague Convention (International Council on Monuments and Sites)
AIA
Urges Protection of Iraq's Archaeological Heritage (Archaeological
Institute of America)
The
Fertile Crescent (Emuseum, Minnesota State University)
Mesopotamia (The British
Museum)
Nimrud:
Central Palace Area, 9th-8th centuries BCE (Dr. Paley)
Nimrud:
Northwest Palace of Ashur-nasir-pal II, 9th Century BCE (Dr.
Paley)
Stolen
Stones: The Modern Sack of Nineveh, by John Malcolm Russell (Archaeology
Magazine)
The
Tower of Babel: Dangerous Archaeology (University of Maryland)
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