After 36 years of lobbying by Iraq, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon was designated in July a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But this may mean even harder work for Baghdad and the local administration, which now have to implement a tough plan for the management and protection of the site that was the seat of successive empires under rulers such as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar.
“Now that the city has been included on [the UNESCO list], there are several key projects that need to be carried out,” said Qahtan al-Abeed, the Iraqi coordinator for UNESCO, the United Nation's cultural arm, and head of the team that prepared the Babylon file for UNESCO. He told Al-Monitor, “Most importantly, [we need to] document the damage of archaeological sites and start rehabilitation in line with international collaboration.”
