Treasure seeker finds new paradise

Treasure seeker finds new paradise
An antiquities expert from Iraq becomes a visiting scholar
BY OLIVIA WINSLOW
Newsday Staff Writer

December 14, 2006

The tipping point for Donny George came the day last summer his sister found a letter with a bullet in it in the driveway of their mother's home in Baghdad.

George, an antiquities expert recently recruited for the faculty of Stony Brook University, said the letter threatened to kidnap and behead his son Martin, 17, for allegedly "cursing Islam and teasing Muslim girls," unless he apologized and paid a $1,000 fine.

"The letter also mentioned his father was working with the Americans," said George.

George already was disenchanted with what he said was his diminishing authority as director general of the National Museum in Baghdad and president of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, so he decided it was time to leave. He retired in August from his positions, and he and his family fled to Damascus, Syria.

George, 56, accompanied by his wife, Najat Daniel Sarkees and Martin, his youngest son, has now settled in Port Jefferson Station. He will shortly assume his duties as a visiting professor at Stony Brook.

George had drawn international acclaim for his efforts to safeguard Iraq's remaining artifacts and track down those that were looted in the aftermath of the American-led invasion in March 2003. At Stony Brook, he will teach about the archeology of Mesopotamia and the cultural heritage of Iraq. He also plans to conduct archeological
research, and he is relieved to be here. Stony Brook and Long Island are "a part of paradise here," he said. "You are a blessed people."

George said he also hoped to give a seminar about life in occupied Iraq.

"Every single day there are hundreds of people being killed," George said. "Unfortunately, it is very damaging to the image of the United States that they first had when they got rid of Saddam Hussein ... Everyone is surprised that this superpower cannot control this," he said of the escalating sectarian violence.

George plans to continue his work to support the recovery of precious cultural artifacts. "Working and supporting, that means tracking the looted materials, helping Iraqi institutions stand up and helping the Iraqis working in this field to be trained at a very good institution like Stony Brook," George said.

His arrival at Stony Brook stems from his long association with anthropology professor Elizabeth Stone. For decades, she has conducted archeological field work in Iraq and more recently, with an $11-million grant from the United States Agency for International Development, has worked with Iraqis to help rebuild
higher education there. That effort has brought some Iraqi faculty and students to Stony Brook for training. George has visited the university twice before.

In Iraq, George traced some of his untenable position to his minority status as a Christian in a Muslim nation. Stony Brook officials were also concerned about his safety. They secured $10,000 from the Scholar Rescue Fund, a program of the Institute of International Education, to help finance his appointment. Stone calls George a "first-rate Mesopotamian anthropologist."

"When I knew that he was running into trouble, I e-mailed [university president] Shirley [Strum] Kenny," Stone said. "I said, 'Can we be his parachute?' and she said yes."

Kenny called George "a great addition to an incredible anthropology department here," who "makes Stony Brook important, in terms of ancient cultures of the Middle East."

George said about 15,000 artifacts were stolen from Iraq's National Museum in 2003. He said about 4,000 of them have been recovered. He said that around 17,000 objects looted from archeological sites in Iraq were returned but, unlike the museum objects, those were not numbered. "The big question," he said, "is how many other thousands were lost and [are] now filling the illicit markets of antiquities in Europe, Japan and the U.S.?"