Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation
Building in Modern Iraq

Magnus T. Bernhardsson
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006. 327 pages.

“Stuff happens.” United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s
laconic comment on the widespread looting triggered by Baghdad’s fall in
early April 2003 arguably marks the lowest point in Iraqi archaeology, a
field already stained and tarnished by the ugliness of international geopoli-
tics. Priceless treasures were plundered by well-informed gangs of thieves
who smashed or ignored replicas on display and went straight for the con-
cealed originals, while the more opportunistic looters simply made off
with whatever they could seize. Despite briefings by archaeologists before
the war, the American government did not order its military to intervene, and
thereby allowed the damage to Iraq’s cultural patrimony to accelerate beyond
repair. 

In a fitting introduction, Magnus Bernhardsson uses this preventable dis-
aster as a segue into the theme of his work: the largely unfortunate sublima-
tion of the archaeological record to nationalism and nation building. As he
aptly notes, “nationalism influences the kinds of questions archaeologists
have been willing to ask and determines what sort of historical sites to exca-

116 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 23:2



vate and uncover. Nationalist ideologies can lead and have led archaeologists
to present history as a nonproblematic, linear progression of a people often
validating a specific nation-state’s interpretation of its own history” (p. 6). In
the Middle East, where the British and French occupiers cobbled together
unstable new nations on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, the utility of
archaeology in this regard is particularly evident. 

Bernhardsson devotes his first chapter to examining the early
European fascination with the Orient’s history and people, as well as its
role in the European imagination as the Biblical heartland. He also offers
a standard history of early archaeological theory and an overview of
Islamic views on Mesopotamian history. His presentation of the former
two subjects is sadly truncated and notably narrow, especially in the arena
of European art and literature, where the bounteous French and German
offerings on the imagined Middle East are passed over mostly in silence.
However, his treatment of Orientalism and archaeological theory provide
a helpful initial stepping stone to a fuller inquiry. The author does a more
thorough job concerning the rare Islamic treatment of ancient Mesopotamia,
although it would have been interesting to learn of the medieval Muslim
scholars’ overt rejection of the value and interest of Mesopotamian civi-
lization as well, if only to get a fuller picture of how they understood the
relics in their midst.

Bernhardsson is much better when relating the history of archaeological
exploration in Iraq. Practically everyone of any significance is included,
from Pietro della Valle and Carsten Niebuhr to Paul Emile Botta, A. H.
Layard, and the tragic Gertrude Bell. While detailing their frenzied, sloppy,
and sometimes dangerous peregrinations through the cradle of civilization,
the author does not stint on providing the necessary diplomatic, political, and
cultural contexts. His research into Ottoman antiquities law is valuable and
does much to move antiquarianism away from its stolidly Eurocentric
approach.

Real archaeology is covered in the second through fifth chapters, which
detail work in Iraq from the late nineteenth century to the rise of a truly
independent Iraqi archaeology in the 1940s. While passing mention is made
of improvements in excavation, stratigraphy, and artifact analysis, the real
focus is on modern Iraq’s formation and its inhabitants’ struggle to control
their own heritage. Bernhardsson shines in detailing the complex diplo-
matic wrangles by which Iraq was brought into being and its first antiqui-
ties law created. Using the correspondence of various British government
offices, museums, archaeologists both European and American, Iraqi politi-

Book Reviews 117



cians, and the country’s early newspapers, the author provides a compre-
hensive and coherent picture of archaeological compromise and conflict
between a fading imperial Britain and the young Iraqi state. 

Archaeology was (and remains) a powerful tool to bind the multieth-
nic Iraqis together, as some of the country’s early leaders were not slow
to recognize. This made it imperative that some sort of agreement be
reached between foreign excavators and the inexperienced Iraqis, who
did not start running their own projects for several decades. Bernhards-
son is excellent at describing and carefully analyzing the conflicts that
quickly arose between prestige-hungry foreign excavators, a cautious Brit-
ish government, and Iraqi politicians balancing on a high-wire of sectarian
tensions.

Two contentious issues were what percentage of finds could be exported
by foreign teams and which finds were too important to let out of the coun-
try. At the center of the conflict were the directors of antiquities (foreigners
until 1934) and Iraqi leaders hunting for symbols to unite a fragile nation.
Such people as Gertrude Bell, who created the first Iraqi antiquities law,
and Sati’ al-Husri, first Iraq’s director of education and later its first Arab
director of antiquities, clashed frequently with each other and with archae-
ologists over the first right of possession of antiquities. Amid smuggling
and confrontations, a series of messy compromises were worked out until
Iraq assumed full control of its own archaeology and banned antiquities
exports at mid-century.

Bernhardsson attempts to end the book on an uplifting note by remark-
ing on how far Iraqis have come in controlling every aspect of their sover-
eignty and suggesting that archaeology offers a way out of the current bout
of sectarian strife. However, this is extremely dispiriting, for if Iraqi archae-
ology must remain at best a nationalist crutch rather than a field of objective
scientific inquiry, it will remain tainted by politics and beyond the full con-
trol of its rightful owners.

Reclaiming a Plundered Past is highly recommended. It is an important
work, one that is well-researched, scrupulously fair-minded, and could serve
as a valuable supplementary text for a course on archaeological method and
theory. In addition, it is an enlightening guide to a dim and ill-visited corner
of Middle Eastern nationalism.

Timothy Giannuzzi
M.A. Candidate, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

118 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 23:2