Baghdad (AFP)
Buying a clay tablet more than 3,000 years before our era is relatively easy and cheap via the internet, at the risk of fueling the traffic in antiques in an Iraq plagued by insecurity and corruption.
On liveauctioneers.com, an auction site, the "Sumerian terracotta tablet" is priced at around 550 pounds (645 euros) and is believed to be "owned by a gentleman from Sussex" in south-eastern England. England.
The piece, which has traces of cuneiform writing - the oldest writing in the world - "was part of a collection belonging to a resident of London" before 1992, according to the site.
However, it is difficult to be sure that the small object of barely 70 grams was not stolen in present-day Iraq, where the Sumer empire stood in the 4th millennium BC.
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At the British TimeLine Auctions, parent company of the liveauctioneers.com site, they say they are aware of the "contraband problem" of cultural goods.
But "we are investing a lot of money and effort to eliminate the risks," Chris Wren, an official, told AFP.
Iraq, which Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians have trodden, is a land of choice for smugglers.
Archaeological sites are teeming there and with them "random exhumations" carried out by traffickers, as explained by Laïth Majid, director of the Iraqi Council for Antiquities and Heritage, a state body.
"We do not have statistics on the number of antiques that have been smuggled" from Iraq, said Mr. Majid.
But corruption and the advent of armed groups of various persuasions have encouraged this juicy traffic.
Take this site in southern Iraq, where the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations flourished.
His guard, whose identity and place of work cannot be revealed for fear for his safety, says he has repeatedly surprised traffickers.
An Iraqi soldier inspects archaeological finds in an underground dug by the Islamic State group on March 6, 2017 east of Mosul, Iraq ARIS MESSINIS AFP / Archives
"One day, I saw a truck arrive with three armed men. They started to dig and when I called out to them, they shot in the air and shouted at me: + do you think you are at home here? + ", he says.
The lack of resources put in place by the authorities for the protection of archaeological sites is glaring in Iraq, where 40% of the 40 million inhabitants live below the poverty line.
- Through Iran, to the Gulf -
The sites are concentrated around Kout, Samawa and Nassiriya, in the south of the country.
From there, the smugglers transport their booty to the southern swamps and Amara, a city located not far from Iran which has become the "hub of antiquities trafficking", explains an Iraqi archaeologist who wishes to remain anonymous.
Most of the stolen antiques cross the border to Iran before heading out to sea, aboard "fishing boats to the Gulf countries," he says.
Another route crosses the desert of western Iraq to the Jordanian, Syrian and Turkish borders.
Destruction committed by the Islamic State group on the archaeological site of Nimrod, south of Mosul, on November 15, 2016 in Iraq SAFIN HAMED AFP / Archives
An Iraqi government source assures us that the trafficking feeds criminal networks in a country where armed groups, some of which are close to Iran, have greatly gained in influence.
The corruption of government officials, poorly paid, also plays a role.
According to the ranking of the NGO Transparency International, Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
When it occupied large swathes of Iraqi territory between 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State group ransacked dozens of pre-Islamic treasures with a bulldozer, a pickax or an explosive.
Like the site of Nimrod, jewel of the Assyrian empire founded in the 13th century BC, located outside Mosul, in northern Iraq.
The jihadists "also practiced smuggling. It brought them money, but it more affected regions of Syria", where ISIS was present, argues a European security expert on condition of anonymity.
According to a report published in 2020 by the NGO Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, "on ISIS's annual income, estimated at between $ 2.35 and $ 2.68 billion, $ 20 million came from trafficking in antiques and taxation "of smugglers, in 2015.
A few weeks ago, the United States returned to Iraq 17,000 archaeological pieces dating back almost 4,000 years and looted in recent decades.
Destruction committed by the Islamic State group on the archaeological site of Nimrod, south of Mosul, on November 15, 2016 in Iraq SAFIN HAMED AFP / Archives
If he welcomes this effort, the government official interviewed by AFP believes that the problem "lies in the neighboring countries" of Iraq, complicit in this trafficking, according to him.
"The Iraqi state is weak. Archaeological pieces are not a priority for it," he concludes.
© 2021 AFP