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Science 15 August 2003:
Vol. 301. no. 5635, p. 905
DOI: 10.1126/science.301.5635.905d
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ScienceScope

U.S. officials say they have canceled Saddam Hussein's plan to build the massive Makhool Dam across the Tigris River. Archaeologists feared that the project would have drowned at least 65 major unexcavated Assyrian sites, including Ashur, the capital of the ancient empire (Science, 22 March 2002, p. 2189).

"Makhool simply didn't rank high" on postwar priority lists, says Eugene Stakhiv, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official in Baghdad. His team last week eliminated funding for the dam, which is under way. That's "good news," says archaeologist Arnulf Hausleiter of the Free University in Berlin. But until there is an official Iraqi decision, "it is too soon to rejoice."




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)