1972 Tourism Service Arabic Map of Iraq (Ba'athist Co-option of Assyrian Antiquity)

Babylon for the Ba'athists.

This is a c. 1972 Arabic-language tourism map of Iraq, prepared by the country's tourist administration. It is notable for its celebration of ancient cultures of the region, an important element in the ideology of the Ba'athist Party.

A Closer Look

This map covers the entirety of Iraq, with oil pipelines, railways, air routes, and highways (paved and unpaved) traced, with distances on various stretches noted. Cities, administrative capitals, filling stations, resorts, and resthouses noted. A table of distances is included at bottom-left, with the distances between major cities and destinations listed at bottom-right.

A grid surrounds the map, corresponding to an index of cities, hotels, resthouses, and casinos. Major routes, such as Baghdad - Ankara, Baghdad - Basra, and Baghdad - Damascus, represented by circled numbers along highways on the recto, are described at bottom-right on the verso.

Although not specified, dashed black lines delimit the boundaries of liwa (لواء, 'banners' or districts), a sore issue given regional autonomy movements in Iraq, particularly in Kurdistan, which enjoyed a brief lull between two insurgencies when this map was published. On a similar note, the large Lake Hammar (هور الحمّار) and marshes in southern Iraq near Basra were largely drained by Saddam Hussein, both to supply irrigation projects elsewhere and to prevent the area from serving as a haven for insurgents and opponents of the Ba'athist regime, as they had provided refuge to rebels and escaped slaves and serfs in earlier centuries. During Saddam's reign, tens if not hundreds of millions of Marsh Arabs (Ahwaris) were forcibly settled on agricultural lands as their marshes were desiccated.

From Babylon to the Ba'athists

Saddam's Ba'athist party was keen to claim the artistic and cultural heritage of Iraq. Here artistic views highlight 8 ancient sites across Iraq:

1. Ur (including the Ziggurat of Ur) - One of the oldest Sumerian city-states (fl. 3rd millennium BCE), famed for royal tombs and the monumental stepped ziggurat dedicated to the moon god Nanna; a cornerstone of early urban civilization and writing in southern Mesopotamia.
2. Shrine of Imam ʿAlī, Najaf - Among the holiest sites in Shia Islam, housing the mausoleum of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; its gilded dome and courtyards have made Najaf a major pilgrimage center and a continuous hub of scholarship and devotion.
3. Malwiya Minaret, Great Mosque of Samarra (Spiral Minaret) - An iconic 9th-century Abbasid monument with a striking helical ramp rising above the Tigris plain; emblematic of Samarra's brief role as imperial capital and its innovative Islamic architecture.
4. Temple (City) of Hatra - A prosperous 2nd-3rd-century CE caravan city blending Parthian, Hellenistic, and Mesopotamian traditions; feared destroyed by ISIL in 2016, but later assessments showed damage - though serious - was less extensive than first reported.
5. Lamassu (Winged Bull) of Nineveh - Colossal protective genii statues that guarded Neo-Assyrian palace gateways (9th-7th centuries BCE); several were deliberately defaced or smashed by ISIL in 2015, underscoring the fragility of Assyria's sculptural heritage.
6. Arch of Ctesiphon (Taq Kasra) - The vast 3rd - 6th-century CE Sasanian brick barrel vault, once part of a royal audience hall on the Tigris; the largest single-span vault of antiquity and a masterpiece of pre-Islamic Iranian architecture in Mesopotamia.
7. Lion of Babylon - A basalt monument near ancient Babylon symbolizing royal power and protection; an enduring emblem of Iraqi heritage frequently associated with Nebuchadnezzar's famed capital.
8. Ancient City of Babylon - Capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (7th-6th centuries BCE), renowned for its processional ways, Ishtar Gate, and monumental temples; a nucleus of Mesopotamian culture whose remains contextualize nearby monuments like the Lion of Babylon.

Why would an Arab nationalist and nominally revolutionary socialist regime champion centuries-old sites of the Babylonians and Assyrians? The tourism dollars certainly helped and are the immediate motivation in this case. But employing the heritage of the Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians also fit nicely with Ba'athist ideology, which was secular (less inclined to focus on Islamic heritage) and sought evidence of ancient Arab brotherhood as a basis for a 20th-century pan-Arab identity. In a characteristically modest move, Saddam Hussein, who liked to compare himself to Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605 - 562 BCE), even 'reconstructed' ancient Babylon with modern bricks inscribed with his name and topped off the 'city' with a hilltop temple dedicated to himself.

Publication History and Census

This map was created and published in the early 1970s by the Summer Resorts and Tourism Service (مصلحة المصايف والسياحة) of the Iraqi Tourism Administration. There is a companion English-language edition (also offered by us, TouristIraq-tourismservice-1970) that is more common (OCLC 9518957), while this Arabic-language variant is only noted among the holdings of the National Library of Australia.

Condition

Very good. Wear along original fold lines. Verso repair to a fold separation in margin. Index on verso.

References

OCLC 1164184126.