WASHINGTON — If war comes to Iraq, it also comes to what's below the surface there: the civilizations of Mesopotamia, the cities of Babylon and Ur, ancient places where humanity learned to write, to raise wheat and barley, domesticate animals and live in cities.

But archeologists are surprisingly sanguine about the safety of artifacts buried under the sands in Iraq's vast desert.

Thousands of unexcavated sites and millions of clay tablets whose writings have yet to be interpreted will survive, even if Iraq and Kuwait turn into a battleground, these scientists say.

"Obviously, if war comes, there will be unexpected damage, but I don't think it will be calamitous with regard to archeological sites" except those near modern cities or other potential targets, said Robert McC. Adams, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and an eminent archeologist known for his years of research in Mesopotamia's ruins.

Among the potential targets, however, is the city of Ur, built on the banks of the Euphrates at the dawn of history and said to be the birthplace of Abraham, the biblical patriarch.

What sits atop of Ur now is a major Iraqi airfield, almost certain to be targeted in a war.

And the fabled city of Babylon, dating back to 3000 BC, is just north of modern Hilla, an industrial city. A stray bomb intended for Hilla could shatter Babylonian artifacts.

Like most sites in Iraq, these two retain their secrets despite 150 years of research. Only a fraction of what is to be found has been uncovered, Adams said.

"We probably have some knowledge, other than having walked over the surface, of less than 1%, and it may be one-tenth of 1%, of the existing sites," he said. "I myself must have mapped 5,000 mounds or something in that neighborhood.

"So the treasures there to be unearthed over thousands of years to come are enormous."

The prospect of war--and of Islamic hostility to Westerners--raises doubts about the future of work in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere in the region. The Iran-Iraq War and the Iranian revolution of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini halted excavations in Iran.

The threat of war raises greater concern about the safety of antiquities stored in such places as the "spectacular" museum in Baghdad, according to archeologist Elizabeth Stone of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

"A direct hit would be catastrophic," she said.