May 15, 2006

Although the theft of artifacts from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad has grabbed the most headlines, the destruction of archaeological sites throughout Iraq, mostly from widespread looting, has upset scholars even more. University of Michigan archaeologist Henry Wright has compared the damage to tearing pages from mankind's history book.

Bavian, the site of a gigantic rock relief overlooking the Gomel River that depicts the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, is in serious jeopardy because of local tourism. Courtesy: Assyrian Academic Society

But tourism, not looting, has driven one site to the top of antiquities scholars' concerns lately. Near Mosul in Northern Iraq, about 30 miles northeast of the ancient Assyrian capitol of Nineveh, is Bavian, the site of a gigantic rock relief overlooking the Gomel River that depicts the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, praying to the gods Ashur and Enlil. Sennacherib was a major bad guy in the Old Testament, besieging Jerusalem around 701 B.C. He also had captured Israelites and deported other captives to his empire to work on massive irrigation works near his capital. Bavian was where this massive effort began, a 50-mile-long, and 40- to 65-foot wide aqueduct built with an estimated 2 million stone blocks. Stone markers, or stelae, depicting kings, bulls and other inscriptions celebrate Sennacherib and the aqueduct.

An April expedition by the Chicago-based Assyrian Academic Society, reported last week on an archaeological e-mail list run by the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, reports the site "is in serious jeopardy of being destroyed." A local mayor has hired a construction firm to dynamite caves out of the rock hillside holding the fragile relief, the society reports, so that visitors to the park there can enjoy some shade.

"Dynamiting anywhere near the reliefs could do damage to them," says University of Chicago Assyriologist McGuire Gibson, by email. He calls the Sennacherib carving one of the most significant standing monuments of ancient Assyria. "These reliefs are almost 2700 years old, and natural processes and some old human actions have damaged them. But they are still in remarkable condition. The threat of damage to create a place where people can picnic out of the sun, without the consent or oversight of the State Board of Antiquities, would be a very bad idea."

In addition, the society reports that visitors are crawling over the relief and chipping away pieces as souvenirs.

Gibson and other scholars have contacted Iraqi antiquities officials, who have started an investigation. They hope that local enthusiasm for protecting potential tourism sites, and news stories like this one, will halt the dynamite.

Each week, USA TODAY's Dan Vergano combs scholarly journals to present the Science Snapshot, a brief summary of some of the latest findings in scientific research. For past articles, visit this index page.