Aqar Quf (photo: Shiho Fukada for The New York Times)
A Tour of Iraq’s Ancient Sites
New York Times
By Stephen Lee Myers, Stephen Farrell and Shiho FukadaJanuary 2, 2011, 8:29 pm
"The war has long put Iraq’s ancient historic and religious sites off limits to all but the most daring of scholars, archeologists, tourists and ordinary Iraqis. Slowly, if unevenly, that may be changing.
A conservation project at the ancient ruins of Babylon — funded by the United States and overseen by the World Monuments Fund — is merely the most ambitious of numerous projects to begin restoration of sites across the country that have increasingly become accessible with improved security in recent years.
Postcard A postcard from Saddam’s Iraq, before it became too dangerous.
In a place still recovering from years of conflict, the projects promise to open Iraq’s rich, deeply layered history to study and to tourism — not just for foreigners but also for Iraqis, whose engagement with the ancient past has been obliterated by the more recent past..."
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