A shameful theft of the crown jewels of memory

A shameful theft of the crown jewels of memory was spotted by Lee Hadden.

The story says Until this week only soldiers and reporters had witnessed the devastation of the National Museum of Baghdad, the seventh biggest in the world, and the burning of the National Library, containing some 5,000 of the earliest known manuscripts. On Tuesday a team led by John Curtis from the British Museum returned from Iraq and agreed with the senior archaeologist, Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, that we face the greatest heritage catastrophe since the Second World War. Though it is early days, two vast repositories of world history appear simply to have vanished.