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Historic sites damaged by Allied bombings
BAGHDAD, Feb 18 : Iraq's top archaeologist in an article published Saturday said allied air raids in Iraq have caused extensive damage to some of the world's most historic monuments and archaeological sites, reports AP.
Mu'aid Saeed, director-general of Iraq's Archaeology and Heritage Department, told the defence Ministry newspaper ATQadtsstya that the affected sites Included the Iraq National Museum in central Baghdad. The museum houses thousands of treasures from some of the world's earliest civilizations. Including pottery dating back to 5.000 B.C. and ancient clay writing tablets.
The museum building remains Intact, but allied warplanes have destroyed a communications centre across the street. Saeed, without giving details, said there had been serious damage to the museum's collection, although he said many Items had been taken to basement rooms for safe keeping before the war began.
Another historic site in Baghdad to suffer damage. Saeed said, was the Al-Mus-tansiriya school, built in the 13th century under the direction of scholars from the Ab-basid dynasty who helped make Baghdad one of the great learning centres of the time.
Also damaged, Saeed said, was the famous spiral minaret of the great mosque of Ak-Mutawakkil in Samarra, built in 850. and monuments at Ctesiphon. near Baghdad, the ancient capital of the Sassantan empire.
In the article, Saeed did not give details about the damage to most of the sites, although he said an ancient arch had collapsed because of bombing at the city of Hatra.
Saeed did not mention assertions by US officials in Washington that the Iraqi military had attempted to shield two Soviet-made warplanes by placing them at the door of an ancient pyramid.
Saeed described the air raids as "a crime committed by US President George Bush against civilisation and world history." He said he had written to UNESCO, asking the UN cultural organisation to intercede in an effort to spare the historic sites further damage.
A specialist in Babylonian architecture. Saeed was supervisor of an ambitious project to rebuild the ancient city of Babylon. The project was
about half completed when the war began.
Concern about the war's impact on historic sites in Iraq has been expressed by experts elsewhere, including two Americans interviewed in January by the Associated Press.
"It's one of the more unfortunate places in the world where this could happen." said Mike Shoemaker, Assistant Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, a Washington-based publication. McGuire Gibson, an archaeology Professor at the University of Chicago. said of Iraq: "It’s where we have the first writing, it's where we have the first cities, it's where we have the first monumental architecture. All of these things are the base of all mod-
j^rn civilisation."