Free Republic

Crammed into a single large gallery, the Penn Museum show -- filled with delicate cylinder seals and alabaster pots, and glittering strings of gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli beads -- is at once frustratingly old-fashioned and deliberately retro in its design. Musical selections from the expedition's record collection play in the background. The texts are well-written but long and somewhat dense. They are supplemented by archival and contemporary images of the site and computer terminals displaying the exhibition's Web site and other Web resources and offering visitors a chance to "live blog" about the show.

BASRA — Iraqi Security Forces recently uncovered hundreds of historical artifacts during two raids in northern Basra. The 228 ancient artifacts included Sumerian and Babylonian sculpture, gold jewelry and other items from ancient Mesopotamia.“This is my favorite item,” said Iraqi Col. Ali Sabah, commander of the Basra Emergency Battalion that led the operation, holding a piece of gold jewelry. “It’s gold from the Babylon ages and about 6,000 years old. It doesn’t have a price.”“I’m very happy because this is my civilization’s heritage,” he said.The Basra Emergency Battalion led raid operated from tips that smugglers intended to remove the...

Posted on Mon, Jul. 22, 2002 Key to an ancient tongue Penn archaeologists have puzzled over the cuneiform writings for decades. At last, a Sumerian dictionary may be ready by 2004. By Faye Flam Inquirer Staff Writer Steve Tinney and Tonia Sharlach hold cuneiform tablets from the collection at Penn’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The two Sumerologists are working on the 30-year dictionary project. The people known as Sumerians are credited with starting the first civilization and building the first settlements worthy of being called cities. They also invented writing, and then they wrote and wrote and wrote, filling...

If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history", I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine: When was it founded and by whom? What were its borders? What was its capital? What were its major cities? What constituted the basis of its economy? What was its form of government? Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat? Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation? What was the language of...

Introduction - Investigations of Bolivia Fuente Magna and the Monolith of Pokotia The following material is reprinted by permission from Bernardo Biadós Yacovazzo & Freddy Arce, OIIB - Omega Institute Investigations (Bolivia), INTI - NonGovernmental Organizacion (Bolivia). A large stone vessel, resembling a libation bowl, and now known as the Fuente Magna, was originally discovered in a rather casual fashion by a country peasant from the ex-hacienda CHUA, property of the Manjon family situated in the surrounding areas of Lake Titicaca about 75/80 km from the city of La Paz. The site where it was found has not been...