Preserving Iraq's Heritage Sites

3 April 2003 - 9:00am

Iraq is one huge world heritage site, a unique storehouse of art and archaeology. Will the war destroy the 'cradle of civilization'?

"It may have only a single official Unesco listing but, with 1,000 acknowledged archaeological sites, Iraq is one huge world heritage zone. And on to this in the past few days have poured 740 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 8,000 smart bombs and an unknown number of stupid ones... In museums and universities across the world, scholars and curators are fearful of another armageddon. One not perpetrated on the Iraqi people but on their history and monuments. Iraq, particularly the green heart of Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent of land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, is the cradle of civilisation, the land of Nineveh, Babylon, Nimrud and Uruk, the world's first city."

Source: The Guardian Unlimited, April 3, 2003
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Its very unsuitability for an urban center justifies its current usage as a suburban or ex-urban pattern.