Countering

Archaeological Site Looting in Syria and Iraq
to 23% in regime-controlled areas, 14% in ‘opposition’-held areas, and 9% in Kurdishheld
areas. Extreme looting at sites like Dura-Europos and Mari (see case studies below)
also appeared to have occurred after ISIS took control of the areas surrounding those
sites. The discrepancy suggests that while looting is more frequent in areas outside of
ISIS’s control, it is more intense in areas where ISIS does have control. Casana attributes
the frequency of looting to weak centralized authority in Kurdish and ‘opposition’-held
areas and suggests that the presence of moderate or severe looting, particularly in areas
under ISIS control or regime control, may be indicative of some form of tacit support or
formal consent from authorities.
Summary of looting in Iraq
During the 2003 Gulf War, the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad
briefly brought the plight of the country’s ancient artifacts into public awareness. Yet,
the longstanding and ongoing looting at archaeological sites throughout Iraq was
largely ignored outside of the cultural heritage community. The history of looting at
archaeological sites in Iraq is long, and was shaped by the many political and economic
issues that have faced Iraq since the late 19 th century. During the 1990s, Iraq’s economic
situation worsened with the imposition of UN sanctions and, in southern Iraq, the
impoverished population suffered from a severe lack of water, exacerbated by the
draining of the marshes. Very little protection was offered to archeological sites by the
central government (Gibson 1997; Stone 2015). Market demand for Iraqi antiquities
in the 1990s was noted by John Russell (1996), who observed that Assyrian sculptures
and reliefs began to appear on the market around that time. The proliferation of Iraqi
artifacts on the international art market mirrored a substantial increase in illegal digging
and smuggling. Nine out of 13 of Iraq’s regional museums were looted in addition
to archaeological sites throughout the country. In response, the Iraqi government
sponsored emergency excavations and guards for the archaeological sites. Both efforts
led to a decrease in looting by the late 1990s (Gibson 2003).
After 2003, several general overviews were published about archaeological site
looting (Emberling and Hanson 2008; Fisk 2008; Gibson 2008; Rothfield 2009; Stone
2015; Stone 2008; Stone and Bajjaly 2008). Initial ground observations showed that
looters favored previously excavated sites already known to have produced valuable
items. In the process, looters destroyed small, previously unknown archaeological sites
across southern Iraq (Gibson 2003). The severity and extent of looting has been difficult
to document from the ground due to periods of political instability and the limited
resources of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities have also been unable to keep pace with
the rate of destruction. Thus, as with Syria, reviews have relied on satellite imagery to
assess site damage (Global Heritage 2011; Hanson 2011; Hritz 2008; Russell 2008; Stone
2008; Stone 2015; Ur 2014).
To date, Elizabeth Stone’s (2008; 2015) overviews remain the comprehensive surveys
of looting in southern Iraq. These studies relied upon remote sensing technologies to
show patterns of looting at large and small archaeological sites in over 10,000 square
kilometres of southern Iraq (Stone 2008a). Although Stone’s assessments do not discuss
the status of specific sites in detail, they do provide an overview of the sheer scale of
site pillage. Stone concludes that, of the 1,465 surveyed archaeological sites included in
her study, the majority of site looting took place between February and August 2003,
and, 12 years later, 23% of the sites showed damage (Stone 2015). Stone suggests that it
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