1 Looted, Stolen and Destroyed. The World Heritage of Mesopotamia in a historical perspective Gebhard J. SELZ Summary: Illegal excavation, the trafficking of important archaeological material and the looting of ancient cultural and religious sites, including that of artefacts from churches and museums, are taking place all over the world. 1 Scientific investigation, conservation, and public access to our common cultural heritage are increasingly endangered. The monetary value of the illicit trade in cultural assets must be calculated in billions of euros, matching the size of the illicit trade in arms and drugs. The damage to cultural property cannot even be imagined. The 1970 UNESCO “Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property”, probably one of the best instruments to halt the ongoing destruction of the cultural heritage, has not yet been ratified by some countries with an important art market, including Austria and Germany 2 . As this panel is devoted to assessing the status quo of the implementation of the 1970 UNESCO convention, the hypothesis put forward here is that in the long run a reconsideration of the application of the concept of property right towards the world’s cultural heritage is unavoidable. In the following I will argue from a historical perspective, stressing that there are more – and deeper – reasons behind the destruction of our common cultural heritage than just the enrichment or the greed of a few. “When cultural heritage is treated as consisting of material objects and material objects are understood as things that can be owned, it is an easy step to view heritage as a commodity like any other that can be bought and sold.” (S. POLLOCK, 2005: 89) 1. Specifically, this paper will apply a historical perspective to the role of looting in Mesopotamia. It sets out to demonstrate that history and memory are always connected to the political sphere and that it is from this fact that the changing reasons arise for this sort of continued barbarism. Cultural barbarism is, of course, merely a symptom of barbarism against humans and humanity. Therefore, any progress in the preservation of cultural heritage needs to be based on a humanistic core. The enemy to be fought here is not only the illegal and criminal behaviour of influential persons or groups. At stake is the whole concept of cultural property. The world-wide preservation of the cultural heritage must be based on a concept of a common World Heritage, denying and fighting any exclusive rights of individual, groups, and even nations. 1.1. As this 11 th International Congress on “Cultural Heritage & New Technologies” will continue the efforts to discuss issues concerning the endangered cultural World Heritage, we may be permitted to make some remarks concerning the background to this discussion. The events following the invasion of Iraq by the “allied forces” in March 2003 made more people than ever before aware of the threat to Iraq’s archaeological heritage. 3 True enough, even before this invasion the situation in Iraq was not without problems. When we visited Nineveh and Nimrod in 2000 4 the archaeologists in charge told us of the many difficulties they faced owing to the threat of robbery by armed gangs and to the lack of resources available for protecting the antiquities in a reasonable manner. Inhaltsverzeichnis Table of Contents