Reclaiming a Plundered Past

“Stuff happens.” United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’slaconic comment on the widespread looting triggered by Baghdad’s fall inearly April 2003 arguably marks the lowest point in Iraqi archaeology, afield already stained and tarnished by the ugliness of international geopolitics.Priceless treasures were plundered by well-informed gangs of thieveswho smashed or ignored replicas on display and went straight for the concealedoriginals, while the more opportunistic looters simply made offwith whatever they could seize. Despite briefings by archaeologists beforethe war, the American government did not order its military to intervene, andthereby allowed the damage to Iraq’s cultural patrimony to accelerate beyondrepair.In a fitting introduction, Magnus Bernhardsson uses this preventable disasteras a segue into the theme of his work: the largely unfortunate sublimationof the archaeological record to nationalism and nation building. As heaptly notes, “nationalism influences the kinds of questions archaeologistshave been willing to ask and determines what sort of historical sites to ...