Babylon to restore ruins by US-led war

Tue Jan 4, 2011

Archaeologists have begun restoring parts of Iraq's ancient city-state of Babylon following trails of destructions caused by the US-led invasion of the country.

The conservation undertaking is a joint effort by the World Monuments Fund and Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage to stop any further deterioration of Babylon's mud-brick ruins, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The efforts are meant to prepare the monumental site and other ruins for visits by scientists, scholars and tourists and thereby contribute to Iraq's economic revival.

“This is one of the great projects we have, and it is the first,” said Qais Hussein Rashid, the director of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, quoted by the US daily. “We want to have it as a model for all the other sites.”

The city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day city of Al Hillah from the Babil Province south of Baghdad, was seriously damaged during the US-led invasion of Iraq, which did not even spare other archeological sites in the country.

In 2005, it was reported that the coalition forces had caused irreparable damage to Babylon and that the 2,600-year-old paving stones of the Processional Way of Babylon had been crushed by tanks.

Issued in 2009, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said the foreign forces had extensively damaged Babylon and carried out “a grave encroachment on this internationally known archaeological site.”

The report added that the military forces and the contractors they hired had “directly caused major damage to the city by digging, cutting, scraping, and leveling….”

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158543.html.