Iraq's History

IRAQ: No trace found for thousands of manuscripts U.S. troops discovered in 2003

Thousands of manuscripts have disappeared among them priceless copies of the Holy Koran, an Iraqi librarian said.

The librarian, who wanted his name kept secret, said the manuscripts were "expropriated" by a U.S.-led force shortly after the 2003 invasion of Baghdad.

The former government had moved the manuscripts from the national library shelves to a cellar close to the Umm al-Teboul mosque in Baghdad for fear of damage or theft.

The librarian said the troops removed the manuscripts from the cellar but there is no trace of them.

He said there were about 50,000 manuscripts in the national library which were all moved to the cellar. The collection, he added, was "the largest and the most valuable in the whole Middle East."

Of the most valuable manuscripts that have gone missing is a copy of the Holy Koran hand-written by Imam Ali only a few years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.

"There was a Koran written on snake skin. The miniature copy was no more than a few centimeters wide," said the librarian.

Makes me cry when I think what has happened to Iraq's antiquities

The destruction and thieving and general philistine behavior. Bit by bit Iraq is losing its past and may never get it back.

I guess it suits the Bush Junta that Iraq would have no history, all the better for their delusions of creating 'democracy'. I would of thought it would of been one of the major priorities after the invasion to secure ancient artifacts and archaeological sites. This taps into their utter failure to create any form of security post invasion, spending too much time sitting in rooms dreaming up ways to privatize Iraq's industries or downloading traffic plans from the internet. The fact decisions were left to people who had no experience in this area, instead handing it over to lickspittles, toadies, flunkies, ideologically pure types, etc. and thus we are at the situation we have today in Iraq.