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[Bart]

Saviour of Iraq's antiquities flees to Syria

? Violence and Sadrists drive away archaeologist
? Looting fear as funds run out to pay protection force

Michael Howard in Irbil
Saturday August 26, 2006
The Guardian

Iraq's most prominent archaeologist has resigned and fled the country, saying the dire security situation, an acute shortage of funds, and the interference of supporters of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had made his position intolerable.

Donny George, who was president of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, achieved international recognition for his efforts to track down and recover the priceless antiquities looted from Iraq's National Museum in the mayhem that followed the fall of Baghdad in 2003.


But this week he revealed that he had resigned and was in hiding with his family in the Syrian capital Damascus. In an interview with the Art Newspaper, Dr George said Baghdad was now so dangerous that the National Museum, which houses a trove of Sumerian and Babylonian artefacts, had been sealed off by concrete walls to protect it from insurgent attacks and further looting.
The museum, established by the British in the 1920s, is situated near to Baghdad's notorious Haifa Street, an area that sees regular outbreaks of violence. It lost some 15,000 pieces during the looting in 2003, but about half of them have been recovered. Museum officials say the collections have been walled off four times since the invasion, most recently after a mass kidnapping near the museum building.

"It was the only way to guarantee the museum's safety," said Dr George, who said he had taken the decision despite opposition from the culture ministry. An indefinite delay in the reopening of the museum had been ordered by the ministry.

Dr George painted a bleak picture for the future of Iraq's ancient treasures. He said that excavation and conservation projects in Iraq had stalled and that all the foreign archaeologists had left the country.

He said the 1,400 members of the special antiquities protection force would be going without pay, meaning there would be little to stop further looting at the country's 11,000 archaeological sites. "From September there is no more money for their salaries," said Dr George. "The coalition has to do something about this."

After the looting in 2003 US officials were criticised by archaeologists for not securing the museum. The US military has since been accused of damaging a number of ancient sites. Dr George said the work of the antiquities department had also been affected by the sectarian divide in Iraq, with key posts in the culture ministry being filled with loyalists of the militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, including Liwa Sumaysim, the minister of state for antiquities.

"The board has come under the increasing influence of al-Sadr," claimed Dr George. "I can no longer work with these people who have come in with the new ministry. They have no knowledge of archaeology, no knowledge of antiquities."

Dr George, a Christian, said he had battled to prevent an Islamist and anti-western agenda from taking over at the antiquities department. "A lot of people have been sent to our institutions. They are only interested in Islamic sites and not Iraq's earlier heritage. The Sadrists did not like me having any contact with anyone from outside," he said.

Since the war Dr George has travelled the world, highlighting the plight of his country's ancient heritage. He had forged close ties with foreign institutions, including the British Museum. Hannah Bolton, a spokeswoman for the museum, said the museum promised to continue cooperating with the Iraqi authorities, and also hoped to continue its close relationship with Dr George.

The culture ministry could not be reached for comment yesterday but a senior Sadrist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Dr George had served throughout the former regime and "had done nothing to stop Saddam carving his name into the walls of every brick" during the reconstruction of the ancient palace at Babylon.

Lost and found

Warka vase

The 5,000-year-old limestone vase from the Sumerian city of Uruk is carved with scenes of priests and animals. It is the oldest known carved ritual vase. It was returned, in pieces, in June 2003.

Statue of Entemena

The headless statue of the Mesopotamian king is made of black diorite and dates from 2430 BC. It was smuggled out to Syria and recovered in May, when Hicham Aboutaam, a Lebanese antiquities dealer, was offered it for sale in New York.

Sumerian free-standing

The stone statue of a male Sumerian priest bears an inscription about the goddess Nin-shu-pur and dates from 2500 BC, one of the earliest known examples.

Mask of Warka

Dating from 3100 BC, it is the oldest known sculpture of a natural human face and is nicknamed the Sumerian Mona Lisa. It was found buried at a farmhouse in al-Rabbia in 2003.

Bassetki statue

The copper sculpture, depicting the legs and lower torso of a seated male figure, bears an Akkadian inscription and is 4,300 years old. It was found in a cesspool in 2003.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1858880,00.html

[Solomon]

I do not know the man at the centre of this, though I do know something of what has been happening since the Allied invasion and occupation. This is, that key officials to do with antiquities have looted the place.

Syria is an odd choice for an academic who loves freedom. Syria is a 'state sponsoring terrorism'. Clearly there is more going on here than the report is telling us (no surprise there, then).

Sol

[Diving Doc]

Solomon,
I am sure that a study of the IP's, though disguised, offering select artifacts to the privileged few would support your observation. What a loss of History.

Doc

[Bart]

Iraqi Museum Sealed Against Looters

Antiquities Chief Quits Post, Flees Country, Citing Lack of Safeguards for Historic Treasures
 
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 27, 2006; Page A14
BAGHDAD, Aug. 26 -- Before he quit as head of Iraq's antiquities board, Donny George made a final desperate attempt this summer to safeguard the relics of 5,000 years of history: He ordered the doors of the National Museum plugged with concrete against the near-unbridled looting of ancient artifacts.

The longtime guardian of Iraqi antiquities under Saddam Hussein and later under a government led by Shiite Muslim religious parties then left the country and sent notice of his resignation in early August, Culture Ministry officials confirmed Saturday.

George, who alerted the world to the looting of Iraq's irreplaceable ancient works of art and writings in the days after U.S. troops moved into Baghdad in 2003, told the Art Newspaper that he found "intolerable" the ongoing failure of Iraqi leaders and U.S. military forces to protect the sites. The London-based monthly reported George's departure on Saturday.

George, an Iraqi Christian, cited what he said was growing pressure by officials of Iraq's ruling Shiite parties to emphasize Iraq's Islamic heritage and ignore the earlier civilizations that stretched back to Babylon and beyond. "A lot of people have been sent to our institutions," the Art Newspaper quoted him as saying. "They are only interested in Islamic sites and not Iraq's earlier heritage."

He also complained of a lack of funding to protect archaeological sites around Iraq. Funding runs out in September for 1,400 specially trained patrolmen who guard the sites, he told the art publication, and no more money has been budgeted to protect places that date to the Sumerian civilization in 3000 B.C.

"I can tell you the situation regarding antiquities is horrible," McGuire Gibson, an authority on Mesopotamian archaeology at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, said by telephone from Chicago.

"There was a lot of attention paid to the looting of the museum the very same days the war started," Gibson said. "It hasn't stopped. There has been looting of sites on an industrial scale. Some of the greatest Sumerian sites have gone."

In the weeks before the U.S.-led invasion, Gibson worked to alert the U.S. military to the thousands of ancient sites across Iraq. The work helped save Iraq's heritage from U.S. bombs, but not from the looting -- unforeseen by U.S. military and civilian war planners -- that broke out after the collapse of Hussein's government.

Mobs ransacked government buildings down to the light switch plates and set fire to many of them during the ensuing days of anarchy in Baghdad and other cities. U.S. troops, with no orders to stop the looters, watched for several days before moving against the thieves.

At the time of the invasion, the National Museum contained at least 170,000 items, some of which were moved elsewhere for safekeeping before the outbreak of hostilities. At least 13,000 pieces from the museum were believed to be stolen in the days after U.S. troops entered Baghdad on April 9.

"It was the leading collection . . . of a continuous history of mankind," a desolate George said April 13, 2003, as he crunched through glass from shattered display cases and ransacked museum offices. "And it's gone, and it's lost."

The Culture Ministry ordered the museum closed and has not announced plans to reopen it. Surrounded by weeds, it now sits behind metal gates, piled sandbags and concertina wire. Wary guards holding pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles came to a front gate Saturday and confirmed that the museum's front entrance had been sealed.

George said he acted on his own when he ordered the doors sealed this summer, after government officials did not immediately respond to his request for permission. "It was the only way to guarantee the museum's safety," George told the Art Newspaper. Colleagues say he has moved with his family to Syria.

George did not immediately respond to an e-mail request late Saturday for comment. The culture minister, a Sunni Muslim, could not be reached for comment Saturday, which is not a government workday in Iraq.

Culture Ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they said they were not authorized to comment, confirmed that Haider Farhan, a member of a Shiite religious party, has become the acting head of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage since George's departure. George told the Art Newspaper that Farhan had no relevant experience for the job. A Culture Ministry official questioned that judgment, saying Harhan was a young official in the department with a master's degree in Islamic manuscripts.

"If they are now going to be projecting an Islamic line, let them do it," Gibson said from Chicago. "They shouldn't be damaging pre-Islamic ones in that effort."

"The destruction that's already gone on in looting since 2003 is irrevocable," he said. "We've lost whole sites. We've lost whole cities."

Meanwhile Saturday, hundreds of Iraqi tribal leaders endorsed a national reconciliation plan that Iraqi and U.S. leaders hope will help restore stability and security after 3 1/2 years of war and growing sectarian and ethnic conflict.

"Realizing the gravity of the situation our country is undergoing, we pledge in front of God and the Iraqi people to be sincere and serious in preserving the unity of our country," declared the pact signed by the tribal chiefs and read aloud by one of them in a live television broadcast.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government is struggling to control sectarian violence that has become rampant in recent months and a Sunni Arab insurgency that has raged since the U.S.-led ouster of Hussein. According to an Associated Press tally, about 10,000 people have been killed since Maliki's government took office in May.

At least 26 people were killed in attacks Saturday, including three boys who died when a bomb planted on a soccer field exploded as they were playing. The bombing occurred in Balad Ruz, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Kidnappers on Saturday freed a female Sunni lawmaker, Tayseer al-Mashadani, who was abducted July 1. Maliki's spokesman, Ali Debagh, said she was released as a result of mediation by a third party, but he gave no other details.

In Basra, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire Saturday on two sisters working as translators for the British Consulate, killing one and seriously wounding the other, police told the Associated Press.

Special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and another Washington Post employee in Iraq contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/26/AR2006082600810.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/iraq

[Solomon]

Police seize 246 archaeology pieces
By Bassem Ali
Azzaman, September 4, 2006

A smuggler with 246 ancient treasures which he wanted to take out of the country was seized in the southern city of Amara.

The pieces were among some of the finest in the country, a police statement said.

Archaeologists examining the treasures believed the smuggling of the pieces would have constituted a great loss to the country?s Mesopotamian heritage, according to a police statement on the seizure.

It said the smuggler, who was not identified, had links with ?middlemen? inside the country and abroad.

?The haul includes pieces dating back to the Sumerian era. There are cylinder seals of different shapes and materials, stone and bronze statues, glazed pots as well as silver coins,? the statement said.

Iraqi archaeologists who examined the treasures said the seizure sends an alarming signal rather than a reassuring one.

The scientists, who asked for anonymity, said all the pieces were dug up via illegal smuggling in some of the best known Mesopotamian sites in the country.

?This is really threatening. It means illegal diggers are very active almost everywhere,? one archaeologist said.

There are nearly 300 major ancient sites in the Province of Missan of which Amara is the capital.

Most of these sites are left unprotected.

Iraq?s top archaeologist, Donny George, left his post for Syria last month, saying the Archaeology Department he led could no longer play its role in protecting Iraq?s ancient treasures.

He said there was no money to pay the guards assigned to protect ancient sites and that the department was under growing pressure from anti-Western Shiite groups.

George, who gained international fame for efforts to protect Iraqi ancient treasures, said conditions were so dangerous that he had to seal the National Museum by a concrete wall for protection.

[Diving Doc]

It is a wonder that there is no effective force to deal with this plunder which, I might add, in many cases is being offered over the internet. If we are to have laws that are not being enforced then there is no protection afforded History, rather sad.
Doc

[Solomon]

I find that one of the aspects which is most upsetting is that this looting is financed and made possible by well-known and respected names in London, New York and other great cities. These are the private museums with budgets so huge they don't know how to spend them responsibly, the dealers and, of course, auction houses. Without the high finance, false provenances and access to market, these looters would have little incentive.

Solomon

[Bart]

With all the early promises to protect the museum rsources, it appears that as soon as the cameras were turned off,  the promises followed suit, not surprisingly either. The blame lies at the feet of many.  You can't help those who won't help themselves, and while education would help immensely, as long as there is financial gain, it will always be a problem.  Education is generally not a focus or forte of  religious based political regimes over there. But people are people wherever you go.

Beyond an individuals choice to never participate in such matters, I see no long term solution to the problem.  it appears that Mr. George saw the big picture and concluded the near futility of continuing his desire to be part of the solution because of the risk. For that I cannot blame him. It is better to be part of the solution than part of the problem, yet I cannot see a solution here.  Suggestions anyone?

[Solomon]

First, cut the demand, Bart. Illegal activities within our nations create the demand and unlike other illicit trades, very largely this one flows through our institutions and normal commercial channels. It is within our power to stop it.

(On the wider issue of illegal imports, it would be easy to stop 99% of this in the UK: use the military to check every unit entering. Vast quantities enter under seal.)

Having cut the demand, then focus on cutting the supply. The problem is so bad in Iraq because we destroyed stable government there. Just like in its neighbour, Afghanistan, where the Taliban had stopped the export of heroin, now 'we' are in charge, this illegal trade is growing every year. This is due to a number of factors:

- We employ, appoint and arrange the election of corrupt people (because we need them corrupted).
- We don't hold the people of that nation, nor their heritage, in any regard.
- Our own people are corrupt.

We are in control of all three factors. That makes us very largely responsible for both the supply and demand, the two vital factors which makes this trade happen and grow. I'd start, however, in the institutions and check their stock. What's just happened with the Getty is just the tip of the proverbial.

Solomon

[Bart]

I agree, and am somewhat surprised to see it put thus and publicly here, pleasantly surprised btw.  But the difficulty lies in getting  a corrupt, uncaring govt.  to

1. Prosecute the laws already on the books;
2. Prosecute  more than the 'token' or 'example' case when they do;
3. And prevent them from taking over the illicit business themselves.

We have over eight million laws here in the US, and ignorance of them is, believe it or not, no excuse. Never mind the fact that 100 years of reading them for eight hours a day will not get you anywhere near the bottom of the stack. Greed and corruption are so blatant and rampant in nearly every aspect of society today, it seems an utterly formidable task to change it. While we may have the means to halt much of it, it doesn't appear that the necessary will or desire is present to any great degree. 

The Getty case isn't being prosecuted here in the US, though it could have and perhaps should have been. For one, the Getty and others will get artifacts on loan in exchange for returning certain items gotten illicitly. What kind of message does that send out? Nothing short of crime pays, as I see it.

[Sovereign]

Lawyers use a database these days. Far too many laws. And too many to remember.

Good to see that History Hunters tells it as it is. 

[Solomon]

Thanks. History Hunters is apolitical and we do our best to tell it straight.

Solomon

[moneypenny]

A follow up article concerning the new Iraqi govt. appointments to jobs in Antiquities was published yesterday in the Intl. Herald Tribune and NY Times.  It is very long, so I am putting a link to it here.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/11/features/antiq.php

moneypenny

[Sovereign]

That article is well worth reading. Thanks!

[Bart]

King Entemena Statue Returned to Iraq

As we go to press it has been announced that the large, headless, inscribed diorite statue of King Entemena of Lagash, c. 2400 BC, looted from the National Museum of Iraq in 2003, has been recovered in a sting operation in Europe and the United States by US federal officers. It was formally turned over to Iraqi officials in Washington on 25 July. Smuggled out via Syria, it is the first major piece to be retrieved outside of Iraq. For further details see the next issue of Minerva.

[Solomon]

From Interpol.

[Bart]

Perhaps this is why D. George left when he did.... - Bart

Fears for ancient treasures with Shia radical in charge
Ned Parker in Baghdad

IRAQ?S archaeological riches face a dangerous new threat following the appointment of a minister from a radical Islamic party to run the department responsible for antiquities.
Within months qualified staff have been purged from their posts, archaeologists have been threatened by gunmen and some of Mesopotamia?s ancient sites have been left open to looters. There are fears that Iraq may lose many of its Sumerian and Babylonian treasures forever. 
 
?We are really worried that Iraq?s history is going to be destroyed and vandalised because of a group of lunatics,? one former member of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage told The Times. He was referring to followers of the Shia Muslim militia leader Hojatoleslam Moqtadr al-Sadr, whose movement has secured a number of Cabinet posts in government, including the Ministry of Tourism, responsible for antiquities.

Liwa Sumaysim, the new Minister of Tourism, is a dentist whose wife is a member of parliament and a relative of al-Sadr. He has been accused of squeezing out experts and appointing religious fundamentalists to key posts. He denies these allegations.

But the former board member, who asked not to be named, said: ?The ministry and the board started to become just as it was under Saddam?s regime when we used to have Mukhabarat [secret police] officers observing our work.?

According to an American official, among the experts forced out was Abdul-Amir Hamdani, the director for antiquities in Dhiqar province. In April Mr Hamdani was arrested on charges of corruption, before being acquitted and released three months later.

The American diplomat lauded Mr Hamdani and criticised his replacement. ?His experience is almost nil. He cannot really do his job.?

The board was founded in 1923, three years before Gertrude Bell, the British colonial officer and Arabic scholar, established the National Museum of Iraq. Since then Iraqi archaeologists have been regarded widely as the foremost scholars in their field throughout the Middle East.

But the expertise is vanishing. Donny George, the former president of the board, resigned this summer and fled to Syria, where he has raised the alarm. Before he left, Dr George said that he had sealed the National Museum with thick concrete walls to protect the exhibits from the anarchy in Baghdad.

?I can no longer work with these people who have come in with the new ministry. They have no knowledge of archaeology, no knowledge of antiquities, nothing,? he said.

?They are only interested in Islamic sites and not Iraq?s earlier heritage,? added Dr George, a Christian. He accused the Sadrists of pressuring the board to cut its ties with museums and cultural institutions around the world, as well as to sever its links with the coalition forces ? relations deemed essential to help to protect sites and prevent troops from going to areas where they could destroy artefacts.

Elizabeth Stone, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University, New York, who trained Iraqi archaeologists in 2004, said that the Ministry of Tourism was not doing enough to protect sites in the south from looters. ?What is striking is that the Islamic parts are left alone, whereas the immediate preIslamic sites are not,? she said.

Dr Stone said there were rumours that Islamic militant groups were smuggling artefacts to fund their activities.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2359024,00.html

[Administration]

Gertrude Bell


Bell in front of her tent during excavations in Iraq in 1909

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell (July 14, 1868 ? July 12, 1926) was a British writer, traveler, political analyst, and administrator in Arabia. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Bell and T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) are recognized as almost wholly responsible for creating the Hashimite dynasty and the modern state of Iraq. During her life, she was an unrecognised force behind the Arab revolt in World War I and, at the conclusion of the war, drew up borders within Mesopotamia to include the three vilayets which later became Iraq.



Bell was born in Washington Hall, County Durham, England to a family of great affluence. She was a granddaughter of industrialist Isaac Lowthian Bell. At the age of 16, she went to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she gained a first class honours degree in history in only two years.

Traveller and author

Bell's uncle Sir Frank Lascelles was British minister in the city of Tehran. In May 1892, after leaving Oxford, Bell travelled to Iran to visit him. She described this journey in her book Persian Pictures. She spent much of the next decade traveling around the world, mountaineering in Switzerland, and learning archaeology and languages ? Arabic, French, German, Italian, Persian and Turkish.

In 1899, Bell again embarked to the Middle East. She visited Palestine and Syria in that year and in 1900 traveled to Jerusalem dressed as a male Bedouin to look for the Druzes. She reached Jebel Druze and befriended the Druze king Yahya Beg. In 1905, Bell was again in the Middle East and traveled widely, studying local ruins and staying with both the Druzes and Beni Sakhr and meeting many Arab chieftains, emirs and sheiks. She published her observations in the book The Desert and the Sown. Bell's vivid descriptions opened up the Arabian deserts to the western world. In March 1907, Bell journeyed to Turkey and began to work with the archaeologist and New Testament scholar Sir William M. Ramsey. Their excavations were chronicled in A Thousand and One Churches.

In January 1909, she left for Mesopotamia. She visited the Hittite city of Carchemish, found the ruin of Ukhaidir and finally went to Babylon and Najac. Back in Carchemish, she worked closely with the two archaeologists on site. One of them was T. E. Lawrence. Her 1913 Arabian journey was generally difficult. She was the second woman after Lady Anne Blunt to visit Ha'il. Although she was not favourably received by the Ibn Rashid dynasty, she later favoured them in the struggle against the Ibn Sa'ud dynasty.



Anti-Suffrage League

Bell also became honorary secretary of the British Women's Anti-Suffrage League. Her stated reason for her anti-suffrage stand was that as long as women felt that the kitchen and the bedroom were their domain and that they were not worthy of being included in political debate, they were truly unfit to take part in deciding how the nation should be ruled.

War and political career

At the outbreak of World War I, Bell's request for a Middle East posting was initially denied. She instead volunteered with the Red Cross in France.

Work in the Middle East

Gertrude Bell is silhouetted against the striking backdrop of Lebanon?s Quebbed Duris monument during her first foray into the desert in 1900.

However, in November 1915, she was summoned to Cairo to the Arab Bureau under General Gilbert Clayton. She also met Lawrence again. At first she did not receive an official position but set out to organize Lawrence's knowledge about the location and disposition of Arabic forces that could be encouraged to join the British against the Turks. Lawrence and the British used the information in their dealings with the Arabs.

On March 3, 1916, Bell arrived in Basra, which British forces had captured in November 1914, to advise Chief Political Officer Percy Cox. She drew maps to help the British army reach Baghdad safely. She became the only female political officer in the British forces and received the title Liaison Officer, Correspondent to Cairo. She was Jack Philby's field controller at this time and taught him the finer arts of espionage. When British troops took Baghdad on March 10, 1917, Cox summoned Bell to Baghdad and presented her with the title of Oriental Secretary. She later departed for Persia. Her work was specially mentioned for credit in the British Parliament, and was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

Creation of Iraq

Gertrude Bell (third rider from left) is flanked by Winston Churchill, on her right, and T.E. Lawrence at Giza during the 1921 Cairo Conference.

When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in late January 1919, Bell was assigned to conduct an analysis of the current situation in Mesopotamia and the options for future leadership in Iraq. She spent the next ten months writing what was later considered a masterful official report. When her conclusion was largely favorable to Arabic leadership, her superior, A. T. Wilson, turned against her. On October 11, 1920, Percy Cox returned to Baghdad and asked her to continue as Oriental Secretary, acting as liaison with the new forthcoming Arab government.

Her influence led to the creation of a nation inhabited by a Shi'ite majority in the southern part of the country and Sunni and Kurdish minorities in the center and the north. By denying the Kurds a separate state, the British tried to keep control of the oilfields in their territory. The British thought that Sunnis should lead the Iraqi nation, because the Shi'ite majority was regarded to be religiously fanatic. "I don't for a moment doubt that the final authority must be in the hands of the Sunnis, in spite of their numerical inferiority; otherwise you will have a ... theocratic state, which is the very devil," Bell once said. The rivalries and the different religious attitudes still cause frictions which might break Iraq apart.

Bell persuaded Winston Churchill to endorse Faisal, the recently deposed King of Syria, as the first King of Iraq. When Faisal arrived in Iraq in June 1921, Bell advised him in local matters, including issues involving tribal geography and local business. Bell also supervised the selection of appointees for other posts in the new government. Faisal was crowned king of Iraq on August 23, 1921. Due to her influence with the new king, she earned a nickname "The Uncrowned Queen of Iraq". Working with the new king, however, was not easy: "You may rely upon one thing -- I'll never engage in creating kings again; it's too great a strain."

Baghdad Archaeological Museum

After the situation stabilized, Bell begun to form what would later become the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, located at first inside the confines of the royal palace. She supervised excavations and examined finds and artifacts. Against European opposition, she insisted that excavated antiquities should stay in their country of origin, thereby ensuring that her museum could retain a collection of Iraq's antiquities. The museum was officially opened in June 1926.

Death

Bell briefly returned to Britain in 1925 and, in following years, found herself facing family problems and ill health. Her family fortune had begun to decrease. She returned to Iraq, but soon after developed pleurisy. When she recovered she heard that her brother had died of typhoid. Bell committed suicide on July 12, 1926 in Baghdad by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. She had never married or had children. She was buried at the British cemetery in Baghdad's Bab al-Sharji district.

After her death, in 1927, her stepmother edited and published two volumes of Bell's collected correspondence during the 20 years preceding World War I.

[moneypenny]

Such an amazing woman. Considering she lived in Victorian times, and her life consisted of doing things that were unheard of for a "proper" lady, she was fascinating enough for an exciting work of fiction, but it all really happened. I would encourage readers to look for one of three biographies of Bell, and the BBC website also has an audio interview with one of her biographers.
  It deeply saddens me to think of her unflagging work to bring about the museum in Iraq, and then to think of Donny George today, needing to seal the doors with concrete to keep out the looters. 
  Gertrude Bell was one of the instigators of the idea that antiquities of a country should remain in that country. This view caused her many problems with the British and European academics.  And we are still agonizing over it daily, as seen in this forum and others.
 
To quote a BBC article:
 But Bell was far from happy. She died in July 1926, two days before her 58th birthday, after taking a heavy dose of sleeping pills.  Winstone says: "There is a suggestion she committed suicide, which she almost certainly did. With the collapse of the political set-up that she had established, and the collapse of the last of her romantic associations, she was a very unhappy woman." Thousands lined the streets of Baghdad to watch the uncrowned queen of Iraq being taken to her last resting place in Baghdad's British cemetery.  Today, her grave is unattended, her city at war and her beloved museum looted of many of its treasures. Winstone is astonished that so little has been learned from the past: "I simply couldn't have imagined when I first wrote this book 30 years ago that I would meet a situation in the present day, 80 years on, where we are simply repeating, act by act, the follies of the past. Bell was trying her best, she was experimenting. The politicians of today have all the knowledge of what went wrong and took no account of it."
    This insightful statement by her biographer, Winstone, says so much. Sadly.   
moneypenny

[Sovereign]

Vase dedicated by Entemena, king of Lagash, to Ningirsu. Silver and copper, ca. 2400 BC. Found in Telloh, ancient city of Girsu.
H. 35 cm (13 ? in.), Diam. 18 cm (7 in.)
Gift of Sultan Abdul Hamid, 1896, to the Louvre, Paris.

Entemena

His son and successor Entemena (ca 2455-2425 BC) restored the prestige of Lagash. Illi of Umma was subdued, with the help of his ally Lugal-kinishe-dudu of Uruk, successor to Enshakushanna and also on the king-list. This Lugal-kinishe-dudu seems to have been the predominant figure at the time, since he also claimed to rule Kish and Ur.

A tripod of silver dedicated by Entemena to his god is now in the Louvre. A frieze of lions devouring ibexes and deer, incised with great artistic skill, runs round the neck, while the eagle crest of Lagash adorns the globular part. The vase is a proof of the high degree of excellence to which the goldsmith's art had already attained. A vase of calcite, also dedicated by Entemena, has been found at Nippur.

After Entemena, a series of weak, corrupt priest-kings is attested for Lagash. The last of these, Urukagina, was known for his judicial, social, and economic reforms, and his may well be the first legal code known to history.