Birthplace of Civilization at Risk in New Gulf War

March 10 -- As a famous general once said, war is hell and if it's staged in Iraq — the land where advanced cultures first flourished — archaeologists fear it could also wreak havoc on history.

"Ancient Iraq was the cradle of civilization," explains Elizabeth Stone, an archaeologist at State University of New York at Stony Brook. "They had the first writing, the first urbanization, the first poetry, the first everything."

Stone and other scientists acknowledge there are certainly more vital concerns than ancient temples, stone tablets and other artifacts should a war begin in Iraq. But they fear much of the history housed in the region — history that has already been battered and depleted following the previous Gulf War — will be lost through bombs, tanks and looting.

"I think the military is being as sensitive as possible," said McGuire Gibson, an expert in Mesopotamian archaeology at the University of Chicago who recently met with U.S. defense officials to inform them of vulnerable archaeological sites in Iraq. "But war is war and modern warfare has become a tremendously destructive thing. It doesn't even take a direct hit — damage can be done just by the concussion of a bomb."

The problem is in Iraq, an ancient ruin is hard to miss.

Chock-Full of Culture

Six thousand years ago, the region now known as Iraq was Mesopotamia, a civilization which rose along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The region was home to rich cultures that operated under democratic-like systems, shared written literature and poetry, built armies and temples and fostered the invention of modern plows, irrigation and sanitation systems.

Archaeologists figure nearly every acre in Iraq contains archaeological remains. More than 10,000 sites have been identified in the country — ranging in size from a small city to a small backyard — and many more. Some estimate at least half a million sites have not yet been discovered.

"I'm most worried about the sites I've never seen," says John Malcolm Russell, a specialist in Iraqi antiquities at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. "These are the sites that excavations will reveal completely unknown things."