The Istanbul Initiative was established in 2003 in response to concerns raised by the continuing episodes of cultural destruction that have accompanied armed conflicts in Cambodia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, and Iraq. The Initiative is comprised of Turkish academics, lawyers, and media professionals who aim to raise international awareness of the destruction of cultural heritage during wartime. Their first action was to organize the symposium A Future for Our Past in Istanbul from June 24 to 26 2004. The immediate impetus for the symposium was provided by the large-scale looting of museums, libraries, and archaeological sites that followed the Coalition invasion of Iraq in April 2003.

Serious looting in Iraq dates back to the 1991 Gulf War. Before that war, Iraq's archaeological heritage had remained largely free of theft and vandalism; but between 1991 and 1994, 11 regional museums were attacked and approximately 3000 artifacts and 484 manuscripts were stolen. Only 54 artifacts have ever been recovered. By the mid-1990s, the focus of destruction had shifted from museums to archaeological sites; and although there was some improvement toward the end of the 1990s when Saddam Hussein began to take a personal interest in Iraq's archaeology, the situation deteriorated even further after the Coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003. In April that year, many of Iraq's cultural institutions, including the Iraq National Library and Archives, the Iraq National Museum, the Museum of Fine Art, and the Saddam House of Manuscripts (now the Iraq House of Manuscripts) were ransacked and in some cases burned. Institutions in other Iraqi towns were also attacked, and since then archaeological sites throughout the country, but particularly in the south, have become targets for mobile and well-armed groups of bandits.

The symposium, A Future for Our Past, proved to be something of a landmark event: The organizers managed to gather an impressive array of international experts, including a strong Iraqi contingent that was forced to travel overland to the Turkish border. The symposium was divided into four themed sessions and concluded with a general discussion aimed at the formulation of a declaration.

The first day's sessions focused on the archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia, and provided a good opportunity for those unfamiliar with the archaeology and culture of Iraq to learn something new, but also broached broader issues concerning the nature of Iraq's cultural heritage and the rights and responsibilities of access. The geographical area encompassed by present-day Iraq is often referred to as the cradle of civilization because it was there that urban societies—of a type that endure today—first appeared in the third millennium bc. For that reason, it has attracted the attention of European and American scholars since at least the nineteenth century, and there is now a voluminous literature on the subject. However, the dominant or at least the popularized narrative of Western research sees civilization subsequently moving westward through Greece to Rome, and then to Renaissance Europe; so what went on in Iraq after the mid-first millennium bc is considered of little interest and not much importance. Yet, for example, the Abbasid Caliphate of the eighth and ninth centuries ad, which witnessed the foundation of Baghdad in 762 ad, that within 50 years grew to become the world's largest city, can hardly have been without consequence for world civilization; but it remains obscure or unknown in the popular imagination and often in scholarly discourse. With this in mind, Yasser Tabbaa (Oberlin College) maintained that Western archaeologists should lift their eyes from the cradle and do more to research and conserve the cultural heritage of more recent periods—it might foster a better understanding of Islamic culture and history and make the practice of archaeology more relevant to Iraqis themselves.

But just how recent is recent? In her talk, Zainab Bahrani (Columbia University, at the time of the symposium Cultural Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority) raised the question of Saddam heads—heads broken from statues of Saddam Hussein that had been torn down soon after his fall from power. Many people feel that the heads should be destroyed to obliterate his memory, while others think that as historical artifacts at least some heads should be preserved for posterity. At this point, a member of the audience raised the question of the Abu Ghraib prison, home to human rights abuses by both the Hussein regime and, sadly and more recently, the U.S. military. Again, should the prison become a memorial to those who suffered there and left as a bastion against any revisionist histories that might come to be written? Or is its continuing existence too painful a reminder for those who were unfortunate enough to have been incarcerated or to have lost friends and relatives there?

The first day's sessions also looked at the ongoing looting of archaeological sites. Nicholas Postgate's (Cambridge University) paper set the scene. Many if not most archaeological sites in southern Iraq are found on what is today barren land between the Tigris and Euphrates. This area is sparsely populated and the sites are not under threat from agriculture or rural development projects. They would be safe, if it were not for the fact that their isolation makes them easy targets for looters. In northern Iraq, there has been more continuity of occupation so that archaeological sites are less isolated, and thus more easily guarded, though the monumental palaces of the Neo-Assyrian period remain vulnerable.

One thing was made plain: Archaeological looting is now on a much larger scale than it was in the mid-1990s. Margarete van Ess (German Archaeological Institute in Berlin) tried to quantify the damage caused at one site, Isin, where she reported the presence of robber pits 4 m deep that are joined by interconnecting tunnels. She explained how, in a single year's two-month field season, a quality excavation of a 900 m² area carried down to a depth of 2 to 3 m will remove approximately 2500 m³ of soil and cost €60,000. She estimated that in the past year, looters have removed roughly 450,000 m³, or 180 years' worth of scientific research, €10 million worth of criminal damage. She also pointed out that for every museum-quality artifact discovered during an excavation, there are usually approximately 2000 potsherds and 1000 small finds, which are of archaeological interest but mostly discarded by looters.

The archaeological argument against studying looted objects is that once they are divest of contextual relations, their information content is seriously diminished, and even compromised, when their provenance cannot be verified through the reliable documentation of findspot. It follows that the acquisition of such objects cannot be justified on scholarly grounds and should be avoided so as not to stimulate the market. Not all researchers agree with this view. Some students of textual sources, which in Iraq usually means clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform Akkadian, argue that the absence of archaeological context does not invalidate them as historical documents. The information they contain about ancient Mesopotamian society and economy remains valid. Thus, study of the tablets is worthwhile, and their acquisition can be justified as rescuing irreplaceable documentary evidence and making it available for future research.

The logic of the latter argument cannot be denied, but there is a question of balance. Cuneiform tablets appearing for sale on the market, and probably looted, contain reliable historical information, but information has also been lost through the destructive circumstances of their recovery. It was made clear that archives or groups of tablets found together are often broken up for sale. Worse still perhaps, most cuneiform tablets are found as fragments, and for each complete tablet that reaches the market today hundreds or thousands have been left to rot on the surface. Benjamin Foster (Yale University) made the simple observation, or perhaps it was an appeal, that what is needed today is not more tablets to study but more people to study the tablets that have already been recovered. And what of the large numbers of tablets that have been recently unearthed and offered for sale? They could be acquired by museums as gifts, and returned to Iraq when the situation there has stabilized.

Day two of the symposium was dedicated to the accounts of eyewitnesses, and provided a chance for Iraqi archaeologists and museum curators to express their views about what happened in April 2003. Inevitably, much of the discussion centered on the ransack of the National Museum. The basic sequence of events is reasonably clear, thanks largely to the work of Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, who led the official U.S. government investigation into the theft, and who published his final report in 2005.¹

Staff evacuated the National Museum on April 8 as Iraqi troops took up positions in the museum compound. The Iraqis soon became engaged in heavy fighting with advancing U.S. troops, during which time the museum was left unprotected. The first break-in occurred on Thursday, April 10, and looters had the run of the museum until returning staff chased them off on April 12. Museum staff repeatedly asked U.S. forces on the ground for protection, but it was not until April 16 that four tanks finally arrived. By that time, at least 13,515 objects had been stolen.

It is unclear why military protection took so long in coming. At a meeting with U.S. State Department officials in January 2003, McGuire Gibson (Chicago University) had emphasized the vulnerability of the museum, and by March 2003 it was second place behind the Central Bank on a Pentagon list of places to be secured by U.S. forces to prevent looting. But U.S. troops failed to materialize. Donny George (Iraq Museums) and John Curtis (British Museum) revealed at least one version of events. On April 12 Donny George, who was then director of research at the museum, visited the U.S. Marines headquarters and was promised help, but none arrived. The first journalists and television crews had already arrived at the museum on April 11, and on Tuesday, April 15, five days after the looting had started and three days after his fruitless visit to Marine headquarters, George said he was able to speak to Curtis using a television company's satellite phone. In turn, Curtis spoke to the British Museum's Director Ian MacGregor, who informed Prime Minister Tony Blair's office of the situation. Blair's office then contacted the United States, and tanks arrived the next day. Whether or not Blair's intervention was instrumental in securing the dispatch of tanks is unknown; though in his report, Bogdanos clearly explains the military realities that prevented U.S. troops from reaching the Museum before April 11, and suggests that it was poor planning and the inevitable fog of war that further delayed their arrival.²

Donny George also announced at the seminar that at least 4000 objects had been returned to the museum and at least 2000 more had been seized abroad and were awaiting return. This latter figure included 1054 pieces in Jordan and more than 600 pieces in the United States.

There was also criticism of irresponsible reporting by the Western media. Dan Cruickshank's name in particular was heard again and again. Cruickshank is a British architectural historian who fronted a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) programme screened in June 2003 that portrayed Iraqi staff as being actively or at least passively complicit in the museum break-in.³

Yet, it is clear from what was said at the symposium and from the reports of U.S. government-sponsored investigations that in the main Iraqi staff acted professionally in what were clearly difficult and dangerous circumstances, and their actions were directly responsible for safeguarding large quantities of material. Approximately 8000 movable objects on display at the National Museum were moved to a secret underground storage facility just before war broke out, and are safe. Although figures relating to library losses are not completely reliable,⁴ it is thought that about 200,000 items from the National Library were removed to a local mosque for protection and have since been returned intact. Another 40,000 books and documents that had been taken to the basement of the State Board of Tourism also survived the looting but were then inundated in August 2003 when the basement was flooded. They were recovered in October 2003 and placed in a freezer, and were still frozen in June 2004 waiting for mobilization of the resources and expertise necessary to thaw and conserve them. The collection of the Saddam House of Manuscripts was also removed to a bunker before war broke out and is also safe; about 50,000 manuscripts were defended by local residents, who repeatedly chased off looters. Five thousand manuscripts from the Awqaf Library were also saved.

Donny George made an important point when he suggested that museums should be proof against disasters. Museums are usually built with an architectural presence that is designed to impress and with an open plan that facilitates visitor access. This is all well and good in normal times, but are times ever really normal? George suggested that museums should be built to a different design specification, which emphasizes security and structural strength over architectural grandiloquence. It is perhaps no coincidence that, three weeks earlier, Jerry Podany of the J. Paul Getty Museum had argued something similar at a conference in New York.⁵

Although much of the second day's discussion centered on Iraq's National Museum, there was time for reports by Nabil al-Tikriti (Mary Washington College) on the condition of Iraq's libraries and archives,⁶

and Muhammed Ghani, a sculptor based in Baghdad, on the damage caused to modern art collections. Outside Baghdad, Halid Zalim (Mosul University) reported that there had been a break-in at Mosul Museum on April 11, but only 20 pieces were taken. 1250 manuscripts were stolen from Mosul University. Ottoman period documents that had been moved from Mosul to Basra in 2003 for safekeeping have also been destroyed by fire.

There was general agreement that the looting of archaeological sites and cultural institutions has two root causes. The first is poverty. Iraq's population is suffering from the catastrophic effects of nearly 30 years of war and more than 10 years of United Nations trade sanctions. The economy has collapsed and the sale of artifacts offers one possible source of income. Journalist Joanne Farchakh reported that looters are paid roughly $7 to $10 apiece for cuneiform tablets, which compares well to a site guard's monthly pay of $60, and that local dealers are prepared to give loans up front. She also emphasized that for protective measures to be effective outside the main towns and cities, it is imperative to work with the local sheikhs. The second cause of looting is the international antiquities market, which was never far away from discussions. More than one participant mentioned the small groups of unprincipled collectors, dealers, museum curators, and academics who constitute the trade, and who hide their actions beneath a mantle of respectability.

The final day's presentations contended with legal remedies. The 1970 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict have both obviously failed to offer any protection to the cultural heritage of Iraq. One reason is that neither the United States nor the United Kingdom has ratified the Hague Convention or its First and Second Protocols (although in July 2003 the United Kingdom announced its intention to ratify). Patty Gerstenblith (DePaul University) pointed to the importance of Article 9 of the UNESCO Convention,⁷

and doubted the effectiveness—and indeed suggested that UNESCO should question the validity—of implementations that exclude it. She also suggested that the Istanbul Initiative might consider sponsoring regional workshops to help Islamic countries prepare requests for agreements with United States and Switzerland under their respective implementations of Article 9. Larry Kaye (Herrick, Feinstein) stressed that foreign patrimony laws are recognized by U.S. courts, but that they have to be clear, and that it would help to have officially approved translations into English.

Most of the final afternoon was spent discussing and then preparing a resolution, but a final draft had not been prepared by the time the symposium broke up. This shortfall was disappointing at the time, but in retrospect it was probably a measure of the symposium's success. The organizers had assembled a range of participants from different backgrounds and with different agendas, and perhaps it would have been too much to expect a general consensus. But the symposium surely engendered a better understanding among all those present of the problems that beset Iraq's cultural heritage and those who are charged with its protection.