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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Gil Stein

Aired May 04, 2003 - 07:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ROBIN MEADE, CNN ANCHOR: Iraqi museums were looted during the war in Iraq, and much of the region's history may have been lost forever. However, some of Iraq's most precious treasures were already outside the country awaiting display in a New York museum. CNN's Maria Hinojosa explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For so many Americans, their history and the history of Iraq are closer than they know.

ELIZABETH STONE, MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHAEOLOGIST: Iraq has been kind of demonized in certainly recent American history. On the other hand, it was the cradle of civilization, it was the place where we all come from. We would not be living in cities if it weren't for them, we wouldn't be writing, if it weren't for them. We wouldn't have the wheel if it weren't for them.

HINOJOSA: Many Americans feel sadden by the looting of Iraq's museums. But for an archaeologist like Elizabeth Stone, who spent years digging Iraqi deserts for their roots and ours, it's so much more painful.

STONE: We were horrified because we had warned them. We had -- we had communicated with the U.S. military, and every single archaeologist in this country and around the world had told them, if that anything you are going to protect, it has to be the museum. It is, you know -- it is this treasure house that you have to protect. And they did not.

HINOJOSA: Just weeks after the U.S. military spent millions of dollars bombing Iraq, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opens an exhibit exulting the first Iraqi cities. Joan Aruz is the head curator of the exhibit, "Art Of The First Cities," that opens on Monday morning.

JOAN ARUZ, CURATOR ART OF THE FIRST CITIES: The fact that this exhibition is taking place proves that art transcends politics.

HINOJOSA: The exhibit is a huge undertaking -- exquisite pieces never seen in the United States before. And were it not for the recent war, perhaps this show would not be drawing the attention of the public.

ARUZ: I want people to come out of this exhibition with the sense that we are all one one, with the sense that the tragedy in Iraq was the tragedy -- was our tragedy, that the losses to human civilization were universal.

HINOJOSA: And that now, together, we can appreciate the art of our own so very distant roots.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, art experts around the world are trying to track down the return -- and track down and return the treasures looted from the Iraq museum in Baghdad. The University's of Chicago Oriental Institute is helping by set up a Web site with pictures of the missing items. We want to introduce you to Gil Stein. He is with the institute, and he joins us now.

Gil, thanks very much for being with us. The idea behind this Web site -- is it simply to inform people or is it really to help law enforcement try to track down these items?

GIL STEIN, ORIENTAL INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Well, Anderson, actually, it's -- it's three fold. Of course, we want to inform and educate the public as to the tremendous cultural value of the artifacts in the museum. We want to be able to help law enforcement officials and just people in general who might either be offered the items or might encounter them, we'd like them to be able to identify these as stolen treasures. And third of all, we want to be able to help the Iraqis antiquities authority reconstitute itself, put together again a list of the holdings that they had that were lost due to the theft.

COOPER: Well, let me ask --- let me ask you about that. How much information do you actually have on not only what was in the museum but what was lost or stolen or broken?

STEIN: Well, at this point, we have only a smattering of information about what was actually lost, because they are still assessing the damage. A team from the British museum was there very recently. But we do know a lot about what was in the museum. The Oriental Institute where I work has been involved in work in Iraq for 80 years, and so we have conducted many of the excavations there, and a lot of the artifacts in the Baghdad museum were, in fact, excavated by people from University of Chicago. So our own records plus published records of many other excavations give us a way of reconstructing what was there.

COOPER: Now you've got a new Web site which is coming online on Tuesday. It's going to have some pictures of individual items. We've got a couple of pictures we want to show, just to talk about a little bit about what they are. Well, I think the first one is a cast copper statue head. What's the significance of this?

STEIN: Well, the cast copper statue head of an ancient king named Naramseen (ph), or perhaps his grandfather, Sorgon (ph). This is the man who created the world's first empire. He is the man who united all of Mesopotamia and conquered the Near East from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. This is one of the few -- perhaps, the only representation of this man in existence. It's an extraordinarily important historical document.

COOPER: And the next one is an alabaster (UNINTELLIGIBLE) vase. As we look at these pictures -- we can just kind of go through these pictures. What specifically -- how difficult is it or will it be for someone to actually sell these items? If these are in someone's possession and they are looking to sell them. It's not an easy thing to do, to just go out and try to sell this, particularly with this Web site now out there showing these pictures.

STEIN: Well, that's part of the whole point -- is to make these objects too hot to handle. The ones that you've been seeing, that alabaster vase, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- it's a masterpiece, it's in all the basic art history textbooks. So it will be very difficult to sell, although the problem is there are always wealthy and unscrupulous collectors who are perfectly willing to buy the piece and never display it. And that's the problem.

COOPER: And where do these things get sold? I mean -- these -- you said, private collectors -- are these -- is this all done under the table or would some of these actually end up in a shop somewhere?

STEIN: These are -- well, the particular treasures that you are illustrating are so well known and so precious that they would only be sold, as you say, under the table. There is a vast network of illicit art dealers who have been funneling the material out of Iraq ever since the first Gulf War in 1991. And here we are just seeing the absolute low point in this -- in this trade.

COOPER: So the new Web site launches on Tuesday, what is it called? It's www?

STEIN: Iraqlostheritage. That's one word -- .org. And it's meant to be an international collaborate of effort with the Iraqi museum, with UNESCO and with other institutions around the world. We are going to have it be in both English and Arabic, so that our colleagues in the Near East can use it.

COOPER: Yes, definitely good idea. It's www.iraqlostheritage.org, you are seeing on the screen there. It starts on Tuesday. Gil Stein, I appreciate you joining us. Thanks very much, good luck on your effort.

STEIN: Thank you, Anderson.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired May 4, 2003 - 07:12   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ROBIN MEADE, CNN ANCHOR: Iraqi museums were looted during the war in Iraq, and much of the region's history may have been lost forever. However, some of Iraq's most precious treasures were already outside the country awaiting display in a New York museum. CNN's Maria Hinojosa explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For so many Americans, their history and the history of Iraq are closer than they know.

ELIZABETH STONE, MESOPOTAMIAN ARCHAEOLOGIST: Iraq has been kind of demonized in certainly recent American history. On the other hand, it was the cradle of civilization, it was the place where we all come from. We would not be living in cities if it weren't for them, we wouldn't be writing, if it weren't for them. We wouldn't have the wheel if it weren't for them.

HINOJOSA: Many Americans feel sadden by the looting of Iraq's museums. But for an archaeologist like Elizabeth Stone, who spent years digging Iraqi deserts for their roots and ours, it's so much more painful.

STONE: We were horrified because we had warned them. We had -- we had communicated with the U.S. military, and every single archaeologist in this country and around the world had told them, if that anything you are going to protect, it has to be the museum. It is, you know -- it is this treasure house that you have to protect. And they did not.

HINOJOSA: Just weeks after the U.S. military spent millions of dollars bombing Iraq, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opens an exhibit exulting the first Iraqi cities. Joan Aruz is the head curator of the exhibit, "Art Of The First Cities," that opens on Monday morning.

JOAN ARUZ, CURATOR ART OF THE FIRST CITIES: The fact that this exhibition is taking place proves that art transcends politics.

HINOJOSA: The exhibit is a huge undertaking -- exquisite pieces never seen in the United States before. And were it not for the recent war, perhaps this show would not be drawing the attention of the public.

ARUZ: I want people to come out of this exhibition with the sense that we are all one one, with the sense that the tragedy in Iraq was the tragedy -- was our tragedy, that the losses to human civilization were universal.

HINOJOSA: And that now, together, we can appreciate the art of our own so very distant roots.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, art experts around the world are trying to track down the return -- and track down and return the treasures looted from the Iraq museum in Baghdad. The University's of Chicago Oriental Institute is helping by set up a Web site with pictures of the missing items. We want to introduce you to Gil Stein. He is with the institute, and he joins us now.

Gil, thanks very much for being with us. The idea behind this Web site -- is it simply to inform people or is it really to help law enforcement try to track down these items?

GIL STEIN, ORIENTAL INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Well, Anderson, actually, it's -- it's three fold. Of course, we want to inform and educate the public as to the tremendous cultural value of the artifacts in the museum. We want to be able to help law enforcement officials and just people in general who might either be offered the items or might encounter them, we'd like them to be able to identify these as stolen treasures. And third of all, we want to be able to help the Iraqis antiquities authority reconstitute itself, put together again a list of the holdings that they had that were lost due to the theft.

COOPER: Well, let me ask --- let me ask you about that. How much information do you actually have on not only what was in the museum but what was lost or stolen or broken?

STEIN: Well, at this point, we have only a smattering of information about what was actually lost, because they are still assessing the damage. A team from the British museum was there very recently. But we do know a lot about what was in the museum. The Oriental Institute where I work has been involved in work in Iraq for 80 years, and so we have conducted many of the excavations there, and a lot of the artifacts in the Baghdad museum were, in fact, excavated by people from University of Chicago. So our own records plus published records of many other excavations give us a way of reconstructing what was there.

COOPER: Now you've got a new Web site which is coming online on Tuesday. It's going to have some pictures of individual items. We've got a couple of pictures we want to show, just to talk about a little bit about what they are. Well, I think the first one is a cast copper statue head. What's the significance of this?

STEIN: Well, the cast copper statue head of an ancient king named Naramseen (ph), or perhaps his grandfather, Sorgon (ph). This is the man who created the world's first empire. He is the man who united all of Mesopotamia and conquered the Near East from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. This is one of the few -- perhaps, the only representation of this man in existence. It's an extraordinarily important historical document.

COOPER: And the next one is an alabaster (UNINTELLIGIBLE) vase. As we look at these pictures -- we can just kind of go through these pictures. What specifically -- how difficult is it or will it be for someone to actually sell these items? If these are in someone's possession and they are looking to sell them. It's not an easy thing to do, to just go out and try to sell this, particularly with this Web site now out there showing these pictures.

STEIN: Well, that's part of the whole point -- is to make these objects too hot to handle. The ones that you've been seeing, that alabaster vase, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) -- it's a masterpiece, it's in all the basic art history textbooks. So it will be very difficult to sell, although the problem is there are always wealthy and unscrupulous collectors who are perfectly willing to buy the piece and never display it. And that's the problem.

COOPER: And where do these things get sold? I mean -- these -- you said, private collectors -- are these -- is this all done under the table or would some of these actually end up in a shop somewhere?

STEIN: These are -- well, the particular treasures that you are illustrating are so well known and so precious that they would only be sold, as you say, under the table. There is a vast network of illicit art dealers who have been funneling the material out of Iraq ever since the first Gulf War in 1991. And here we are just seeing the absolute low point in this -- in this trade.

COOPER: So the new Web site launches on Tuesday, what is it called? It's www?

STEIN: Iraqlostheritage. That's one word -- .org. And it's meant to be an international collaborate of effort with the Iraqi museum, with UNESCO and with other institutions around the world. We are going to have it be in both English and Arabic, so that our colleagues in the Near East can use it.

COOPER: Yes, definitely good idea. It's www.iraqlostheritage.org, you are seeing on the screen there. It starts on Tuesday. Gil Stein, I appreciate you joining us. Thanks very much, good luck on your effort.

STEIN: Thank you, Anderson.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com