Spartans Look to Lend Hand to National Museum of Iraq (2nd Bde "Spartans," 1st Cav)

American Forces Press Service ^ | Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, USA

[SandRat]

BAGHDAD, Nov. 13, 2007 – When what was supposed to be simply a short meeting turned into a grand tour of the National Museum of Iraq, some 1st Cavalry Division soldiers got to see a part of early civilization that was beyond their imagination -- in some cases, artifacts that dated back to more than 5,000 years ago.

National Museum of Iraq director Dr. Amir gives Army Lt. Col. Kenneth Crawford, commander of 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, and the U.S. State Department culture heritage liaison officer, Diane Siebrandt, a tour of the museum’s exhibits, Oct. 31, 2007. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, USA  
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Army Lt. Col. Kenneth Crawford, commander of 2nd “Spartan” Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, and Diane Siebrandt, a U.S. State Department culture heritage liaison officer, set up the meeting with Dr. Amira, the museum’s newly appointed general director, Oct. 31.

“What we did was huge,” said Siebrandt, who works closely with Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities.

After a meeting with Amira and her other director generals, Crawford and a few lucky soldiers from his personal security detail received the first tour of the museum and its exhibits since the early part of the war. The doors were closed to visitors April 23, 2003.

“I was in awe of what I saw in there,” said Crawford, a San Antonio native. “You come here, and you’re in the cradle of society.”

During the Ottoman Empire, archeologists and fortune finders were granted digging permits and were able to keep any find. According to Siebrandt, it was during that time when most of the Mesopotamian artifacts left the country.

After World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it was a British traveler, Gertrude Bell, who started supervising many of the excavation sites and brought to light the importance of having a sense of cultural awareness. The museum, which was originally opened in the early 1900s by Bell, was known then as the Baghdad Archaeological Museum. Many of the exhibits contain artifacts once belonging to her private collection.

The museum was open to the general public until 2003, when looters and vandals stole many priceless items during the war, Siebrandt said. Since then, the museum and its staff have closed the doors to almost everyone. So, the meeting and subsequent tour of the exhibits currently under construction were a surprising treat for the few who were able to see it.

Since December 2006, the State Department and coalition forces have tried to start a dialog that might start the process of reopening the museum to the Iraqi people. “We just were never able to get dialog started,” Siebrandt said. “With Dr. Amira, I met with her and talked about Colonel Crawford (coming to the museum). It was all about getting the right person in.”

For Crawford, whose unit does a lot of civic projects throughout the Karkh Security District, getting to help the museum reopen to the public is important. “It’s an icon, … not just for Karkh or Baghdad, but for Iraq,” Crawford said. “This showed a big step toward joint relations. It was nice to just get our foot in the door to ID areas of the facility we can maybe help with -- the end state of getting the museum open to the public.”

(Army Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim is assigned to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Public Affairs.)

	Many exhibits in the National Museum of Iraq were either looted or vandalized during the early stages of the war. Renovations are being made throughout some of the museum’s larger exhibits inside the Baghdad museum. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, USA   Download screen-resolution    Download high-resolution
	Army Sgt. Cynthia White, a medic assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, looks at an ancient relief sculpture during a tour of exhibits inside the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad, Oct. 31, 2007. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, USA    Download screen-resolution    Download high-resolution
	Dr. Amira (right), general director of the Iraqi National Museum, gives Army Lt. Col. Kenneth Crawford, commander of the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, a tour of the museum exhibits in Baghdad, Oct. 31, 2007. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, USA   Download screen-resolution    Download high-resolution
	Many of the artifacts in the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad, Iraq go back to the Mesopotamian era. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Kap Kim, USA   Download screen-resolution    Download high-resolution

[SandRat]

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[Traveler59]

“I was in awe of what I saw in there,” said Crawford, a San Antonio native. “You come here, and you’re in the cradle of society.”

Sounds like a description of the first time I stood at the base of the Great Pyramid in Cairo, Egypt. Traveling and seeing the world on Uncle Sam's dime, not too shabby for a farm boy from Wisconsin.

-Traveler

[JoeFromSidney]

I know how those troops felt. I had a chance to go through the Archeological Museum in Ankara when I taught in Turkey. It was just incredible. All those artifacts I'd been reading about for years were THERE! It was one of the highlights of my life.

[ExcursionGuy84]

"Spartans, What is Your Profession?"