A senior British archaeologist accused US-led coalition and Polish forces of significantly damaging the ruins of Babylon as American officials prepared to return control of the site to Iraqi authorities in January 2005. John Curtis of the British Museum's Ancient Near East department compiled his findings after visiting in December 2004.
Curtis found that large sections of the ancient city had been leveled and blanketed in gravel, that paving stones surviving more than 2,600 years had been crushed by heavy vehicles, and that decorative bricks on the Ishtar Gate had been cracked and partly pried loose. Nine dragon reliefs on the gate were damaged, one severely, and part of the Ninmah Temple roof had collapsed.
Coalition forces imported sand and soil from the surrounding area to build helipads and vehicle parks, contaminating the stratigraphic record and complicating future excavation. Fuel leaks posed an additional risk to buried deposits below ground.
Curtis called the site “irrevocably contaminated” and urged Iraqi authorities to commission an international archaeological survey. He acknowledged the camp had deterred looting after Saddam Hussein’s fall but said placing a military base at Babylon, about 100 kilometers south of Baghdad and once the seat of an empire that produced the ancient world’s first legal code, was comparable to stationing troops beside Stonehenge.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in January 2005, in its own words.