Hands of Victory
|
|
In 1986 (two years before the war's end) the government of Iraq began the construction of a festival and parade ground in Zawra Park, near the extensive presidential complex in the center of Baghdad. Known as Grand Festivities Square, this comprises a large parade ground, an extensive review pavilion, and the two arches.
Iraq's leading sculptor, Adil Kamil, was commissioned to design these arches. His design consists of a pair of massive hands emerging from the ground, each holding a 140 foot long sword. A small flagpole rises from the point where the swords meet. Kamil used photographs of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as his model for the design of the hands. When Kamil died in 1987, with the monument incomplete, his position was assumed by fellow artist Mohammed Ghani. Ghani personally took an impression of one of Saddam's thumbs, and the resulting fingerprint was added to the mold for one of the arches' thumbs.
The arches were made by an international consortium led by German foundry H+H Metalform and including British company Morris Singer Founders. The guns of Iraqi soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war were used to make the bronze alloy from which the arches are cast. Each blade weights 24 tons. Further, the helmets of 5,000 Iranian soldiers killed during the war are held in nets between the swords and are scattered on the ground beneath.
Samir Al-Khalil's book Monument: Art, Vulgarity, and Responsibility in Iraq (ISBN 0520073762) describes the Hands of Victory and Saddam's programme of producing lavish monuments celebrating his reign.
External links
- FAS page on Baghdad (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/baghdad.htm)
- Baghdad's monuments (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/baghdad-monuments.htm)
- Map of central Baghdad (http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0306/feature3/images/mp_download.3.pdf)
- Sidney Morning Herald story about Saddam's thumbprints (http://www.morrissinger.co.uk/news-1.htm)
- Digital Globe satellite photograph (http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/baghdad/baghdad_unknown_soldier_april1_2003_dg.jpg) showing the Hands of Victory area in the bottom left (from [1] (http://www.digitalglobe.com/press/imagesinthenews.shtml))
