Posted on 03/23/2015 7:27:08 PM PDT by Lorianne
Two of the ancient cities now being destroyed by Islamic State lay buried for 2,500 years, it was only 170 years ago that they began to be dug up and stripped of their treasures. The excavations arguably paved the way for IS to smash what remained - but also ensured that some of the riches of a lost civilisation were saved.
In 1872, in a backroom of the British Museum, a man called George Smith spent the darkening days of November bent over a broken clay tablet. It was one of thousands of fragments from recent excavations in northern Iraq, and was covered in the intricate cuneiform script that had been used across ancient Mesopotamia and deciphered in Smith's own lifetime.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Without any kind of official permission, and working under cover of darkness, Rassam had his team dig into the northern corner of the mound. In December 1853, about a week into the excavation, a huge bank of earth collapsed and Rassam heard his men shouting "Suwar!" - images. There, in the moonlight, were stone panels that had been carved more than 2,500 years earlier for the rooms of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (who ruled from 668 to 627BC).
That one is right out of Indiana Jones, only better because it's real. What a moment!
Within a couple of decades Nineveh gave way to Babylon, and seven decades later, Babylon to a feller named Cyrus, whose upstart Persian empire would both oppose and nurture what would become Western culture. Great stuff.
Thank the Lord the Europeans “stole” a lot of these artifacts, bringing them safe to European museums (which even 2 world wars didn’t destroy) away from ISIS and other (Muslim) savages.
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