America's North Shore Journal

Nouri Obeyd Kathem –left-, an archae­ol­o­gist with the Min­istry of Antiq­ui­ties and Tourism, explains the Sob­bar Abu Habba site, Nov. 4, to Maj. Charles Mor­ri­son of Nashville, N.C., –cen­ter– and Capt. Ross Boyce of Chapel Hill, N.C. Photo by Sgt. Jon Soles

What may look like large, weath­ered mounds of dirt in rural farm­land near Mah­mudiyah are actu­ally artifact-filled ruins of an ancient civilization.

Sol­diers of the North Car­olina National Guard's 120^th Com­bined Arms Bat­tal­ion, 30^th Heavy Brigade Com­bat Team, sur­veyed the sites, here, recently, with offi­cials from the Gov­ern­ment of Iraq's Min­istry of Antiq­ui­ties and Tourism to exam­ine ways to pre­serve and pro­tect two ancient Sumer­ian sites from looters.

The com­plexes of dirt mounds – Tal Aldair and Sob­bar Abu Habba – were once Sumer­ian city walls out­side of what is today Mah­mudiyah, south of Bagh­dad. Pot­tery and clay tablets with the world's first form of writ­ing, Cuneiform, are known to be in the mounds. The Sumer­ian cul­ture is the old­est civ­i­liza­tion in the world, dat­ing back to the 6^th cen­tury B.C.

"It's for the world and not just Iraq to pre­serve these world her­itage sites because a lot of folks know it as the cra­dle of civ­i­liza­tion," said Mor­ri­son. "These [Sume­ri­ans] were the first peo­ple we know of in his­tory to be able to write and keep records and those are the kinds of arti­facts that are here today."

The sites have already seen loot­ing, and the GoI offi­cials and archae­ol­o­gists want to pre­vent more plun­der­ing by erect­ing secu­rity fences and a guard shack at the mounds.

"It has been iden­ti­fied as one of those sites that have been an easy tar­get for loot­ers over the years because of close prox­im­ity to Bagh­dad and because of tur­bu­lence in Iraq's his­tory," said Maj. Charles Mor­ri­son, exec­u­tive offi­cer for the 120^th CAB. "We're work­ing with the Min­istry to secure the site for preser­va­tion and future exca­va­tion. It's impor­tant for the Iraqi peo­ple, espe­cially to pre­serve their heritage."

Mor­ri­son, an infantry offi­cer from Nashville, N.C., is tak­ing a lead in the project. A self-described his­tory buff, Mor­ri­son for­merly worked for the North Car­olina of Archives and His­tory. He said he is par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in help­ing the Iraqis pre­serve a site that is 4,000 years old.

Nouri Obeyd Kathem, an archae­ol­o­gist with the Min­istry of Antiq­ui­ties and Tourism, led Mor­ri­son over the mounds. Thou­sands of years of ero­sion have worn down the once city walls and tem­ple struc­tures, expos­ing count­less pieces of clay pot­tery and other arti­facts. Many more are still buried in the centuries-old mounds.

"They have been with us today to make sure we don't dam­age any of the archae­o­log­i­cal sites when we emplace the fence and scope of work," said Mor­ri­son. "We're try­ing to work hand in hand with the gov­ern­ment to make sure we do what they want in terms of pre­serv­ing the site."

The plans call for secu­rity fences and pos­si­bly guard shacks to pro­tect the sites. Signs would also be erected to let Iraqis know about the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the sites.

One of the lega­cies Amer­i­can Sol­diers can leave behind in Iraq as the troop draw­down con­tin­ues is a fence that will help pre­serve an ancient site that will con­tinue to be a sym­bol of the nation's ancient his­tory and culture.

DVIDS
Story by Sgt. Jon Soles