MORE ON THE MUSEUM
A comment on the BBC2 documentary referred to below, from Dave Farber's Interesting-People listserve:
It really was a *truly remarkable* programme, and I strongly urge you and your IPers to see if you can get to see it somehow, perhaps via PBS.
It was called "Dan Cruickshank and the Raiders of the Lost Art", and was screened on BBC2 at 9pm on Sunday, 8 June. Don't let the cute title put you off. This was a one hour long documentary, by a serious historian, well-experienced in TV presentation, showing day by day during a return trip to Baghdad just after the war (he'd also made a trip there a few months before the war) how he gradually came to understand what must have happened at the Museum, and what sort of people were (and I fear still are) running it.
Unfortunately I cannot find the programme, or (at least yet) anything based on it, in the BBC's very comprehensive web-site - though I did come across a series of articles, by Cruickshank, based on one of his earlier programs about Afghanistan:
Afghanistan: At the Crossroads of Ancient Civilisations Once a cultural crossroads, Afghanistan has been ravaged by 22 years of war and the Taliban regime whose systematic destruction of the country's cultural heritage culminated in the blowing up of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Early in 2002, Dan Cruickshank travelled to Kabul to investigate what treasures remain and find out how Afghanistan's people have dealt with attempts to destroy their culture and national identity.
This will give you some idea of Cruickshank's talents.
Cheers
Brian Randell
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle