Stolen Sumerian Tablets Come from the Lost City of Irisagrig

Live Science ^ | April 30, 2018 | Owen Jarus

[SunkenCiv]

Not all scholars agree that the artifacts should be returned right away. "If these tablets are returned and if they are from Irisagrig, it will be a great tragedy for scholarship that they will not be published before they are returned," said David Owen, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. Owen has published a number of scientific papers describing tablets from Irisagrig, but has not worked with Hobby Lobby and has not studied the seized texts.

"Once they enter the bowels of the Iraq Museum, it is unlikely scholars will ever have acccess to them, nor are there any Iraqi scholars capable of publishing them given the many thousands of unpublished texts already in storage in the museum for generations and mostly inaccessible to scholars," Owen told Live Science.

Owen added, "Our goverment should, first and foremost, make sure all artifacts are recorded and published before repatriation. This would be of great benefit not only to scholarship but also to the Iraqis who do not have the resources to publish these texts. Anything less is a travesty."

[SunkenCiv]

They go back tomorrow.

[BenLurkin]

How hard could it be to take pictures of each one as they are being packed?

[libertylover]

"If these tablets are returned and if they are from Irisagrig, it will be a great tragedy for scholarship that they will not be published before they are returned," said David Owen, a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University... "nor are there any Iraqi scholars capable of publishing them..."

Sounds like an arrogant asshole.

[Pilsner]

a few [of the Sumerian tablets] contain a form of magical spells called incantations, the statement said.

Has anyone alerted Ash Williams?

[ZOOKER]

Muzzies seem to have a habit of destroying anything predating or in conflict with their own history. Artifacts are either demolished or looted and sold to the west. Historical sites have been dynamited or rebuilt for their own use, erasing the culture that built it originally.

They're right to be concerned, these artifacts won't last intact in Iran.

[ConservativeMind]

“Owen has published a number of scientific papers describing tablets from Irisagrig, but has not worked with Hobby Lobby and has not studied the seized texts.”

Why is THAT reference in there?

I’m sure plenty of archaeologists could say they haven’t worked with many companies...

[hanamizu]

A father of one of my students was stationed in Europe. It seemed he took everything that wasn’t nailed down. He had loads of stuff. Had a Nero coin he found at Pompeii, bits from Augustus’s tomb, a breastplate from the English Civil war and lots of Soviet stuff—he was in Europe about the time that the Soviet Union collapsed. And he had four cuneiform tablets that he bought at a “jumble sale” in England. They were white, about 10” x 4”. No doubt a souvenir of an Englishman in Mesopotamia back in the day.

[clockwise]

From the article:

The tablets are part of a cache of thousands of looted artifacts purchased by Hobby Lobby and seized by the U.S. government. They are now set to be returned to Iraq.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

For the love of God, where is Indiana Jones when you really need him!
 

[Mastador1]

Pictures? How hard would have been to 3D scan them and 3D print copies for study?

[Defiant]

the Lost City of Irisagrig

Now you're just making words up.

[PIF]

It is just the truth not arrogance.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Islamism, like any other totalitarian ideology, has been a disaster for scholarship. The left-wing totalitarianism in the American academy seems to have been even more destructive than Nazism because it has been in force longer, and the majority of the faculty are adherents. At least in Nazi Germany most scholars despised the Nazis, and were embedded in a tradition of classical European liberalism, although reactionary anti-nazism hasn’t been altogether healthy.

[MUDDOG]

Irisagrig is a "Sumerian city never excavated before and whose location remains unknown"

No wonder. The Anunnaki's bases were destroyed when the Antarctic glaciers melted.

[SunkenCiv]

D***, ya got me.

[SunkenCiv]

Iraq, not Iran.

[SunkenCiv]

Well put, Lonesome in Massachussets.

[SunkenCiv]

We think alike. /s

[SunkenCiv]

/bingo

[Monkey Face]

What the heck did I just read???

:o|

‘Face