Primary among the archeologists' concerns was a rash of looting at many Iraqi sites after the war. Left unguarded, some sites were overrun by illegal excavators, some of whom came in with bulldozers and took away whole mounds of earth rich with cuneiform tablets, bowls and other priceless artifacts. Much of the loot ended up in private collections in London and New York, they said. One of them was at Nineveh, the site of the palace of Assyrian King Sennacherib where Russell, the Massachusetts researcher, spent years digging. It's pretty hard to imagine them destroying a site the size of 40 or 50 football fields.
Iraqi officials say they have gotten the problem mostly under control now by hiring more guards.
The Iraqis also celebrated after getting the main Iraq Museum in Baghdad reopened last year. Most of the artifacts are back in place, although the embargo prevented them from getting the special glues and other materials needed to repair some damaged pieces. The gold and other precious finds are still housed in Iraqi banks, where it was rushed before the bombing began in 1991. Another way the field was set back was when the exchange of information was prevented between the researchers inside and outside of Iraq. The foreigners could not follow along with progress at the Iraqi digs, while the Iraqis were cut off from what the outsiders were writing about previous finds.