PERSEPOLIS, once the capital of the Persian
empire, and the massive mud-brick Bam citadel are among the nine listed
World Heritage Sites in Iran. Yet leading archaeologists are urging
colleagues to refuse any military requests to draw up a list of Iranian
sites that should be exempted from air strikes.
credibility and respectability to the military action,” said a
resolution agreed by the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland,
last week. Instead, delegates were advised to emphasize the harm that
any military action would do to Iran’s people and heritage.
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003,
bombing damaged important monuments, including the Al-Zohur Palace in
Baghdad, and museums and archaeological sites were later looted – even
though archaeologists had been consulted in advance. “If these
archaeologists had little impact in terms of saving even the few selected
archaeological sites listed, what did they achieve?” asks Yannis
Hamilakis of the University of Southampton, UK.
From
issue 2664 of New Scientist magazine, 10 July 2008, page 6