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What's Been Lost to the Islamists' Sledgehammers (historians shocked)
Aleteia ^ | March 1, 2015 | JOHN BURGER

Posted on 03/01/2015 12:28:43 PM PST by NYer


Screen Capture

A video showing Islamic State militants with sledgehammers and power drills on a rampage inside the Mosul Museum shows the destruction of both reproductions and priceless originals from at least two important eras in the region’s history, said a British expert on Iraqi culture.

Paul Collins, of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, in an email to Aleteia, said it was “distressing” to watch scenes of the destruction of colossal winged bulls of the seventh century BC. “These are certainly the real things and it looks from the video that the sculptures are those situated outside the museum at the site of Nineveh—the colossal figures guarded one of the city gates (the so-called Nergal Gate) and were created by king Sennacherib, famous from the Old Testament.”

“The videos show sculptures from the site of Hatra (1st to 2nd century AD),” Collins added. “Some of these may be casts, since the vast majority of objects had been removed to Baghdad in advance of the 2003 invasion when the museum was looted (the empty case that once contained the so-called Balawat Gate bronzes of the ninth century BC that were taken in 2003 appears briefly in the video). Some of the sculptures, however, look genuine. These represent one of the earliest Arab kingdoms in the region.”

The museum in northern Iraq showcases archaeological finds from the ancient Assyrian empire. Islamic State militants seized the museum—which had not yet opened to the public—when they took over Mosul in June and have repeatedly threatened to destroy its collection. The extremists appear to be trying to cleanse the region of ideas they consider un-Islamic, including artworks, library books and relics.

In the video, put out by the Islamic State’s media office for Nineveh Province, a man explains, “The monuments that you can see behind me are but statues and idols of people from previous centuries, which they used to worship instead of God.” A message flashing on the screen read: “Those statues and idols weren’t there at the time of the Prophet nor his companions. They have been excavated by Satanists.”

A professor at the Archaeology College in Mosul confirmed to the Associated Press that the two sites depicted in the video are the city museum and Nergal Gate, one of several gates to the capital of the Assyrian Empire, Ninevah.

"I'm totally shocked," Amir al-Jumaili said by phone from outside of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. "It's a catastrophe. With the destruction of these artifacts, we can no longer be proud of Mosul's civilization."

Reaction from around the world, particularly from historians and archaeologists, expressed horror and sadness. Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, denounced the destruction as "cultural cleansing" and a war crime that the world must punish. Bokova said she couldn't finish watching the video, which she called "a real shock."

Speaking to reporters Friday, Bokova announced the creation of a "global coalition against the illegal trafficking of cultural goods" that will meet in coming weeks. She has also asked for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on protecting Iraq's cultural heritage.

The Louvre Museum in Paris said in a statement, "This destruction marks a new stage in the violence and horror, because all of humanity's memory is being targeted in this region that was the cradle of civilization, the written word, and history."

Amr al-Azm, a Syrian anthropologist and historian, on his Facebook page called the destruction “a tragedy and catastrophic loss for Iraqi history and archaeology beyond comprehension."

A narrator of the video calls the objects “idols and statues that people in the past used to worship instead of Allah.”

“The so-called Assyrians and Akkadians and others looked to gods for war, agriculture and rain to whom they offered sacrifices,” he says, according to a translation by the International Business Times. “The Prophet Mohammed took down idols with his bare hands when he went into Mecca. We were ordered by our prophet to take down idols and destroy them, and the companions of the prophet did this after this time, when they conquered countries.”

The website Gates of Nineveh, authored by Christopher Jones, a Ph.D student in ancient Near Eastern history at Columbia University in New York, has a summary of what appears to have been destroyed and historical information on the lost pieces. He said that of the Assyrian artifacts, "by far the most important losses are the lamassu at the Nergal Gate, one of which was exceedingly well preserved.... They were some of the few lamassu left in their original locations to greet visitors to Nineveh the same way they would have greeted visitors in ancient Assyria.”


The entrance to the gate was flanked by two large winged human-headed bulls known as lamassu in Akkadian. The gate and its lamassu were first excavated by Sir Austen Henry Layard in 1849 but then re-buried. The left lamassu (seen above behind the ISIS narrator) was uncovered again sometime before 1892, and a local man paid an Ottoman official for the top half of it, cut it off and broken down over a fire in order to extract lime. The right lamassu remained buried until 1941 when heavy rains eroded the soil around the gate and exposed the two statues. The gate was later reconstructed around them and they have remained on display ever since.

The gate was built during Sennacherib’s expansion of Nineveh sometime between 704 and 690 BC.

The video stops at 2:26 to emphasize the sign which states that “this gate is related to the god Nergal, the god of plague and the lower world.” The left lamassu, already missing its upper half, does not seem to have been targeted. The right lamassu had its face chiseled off with a jackhammer, likely causing irreparable damage.

The Iraqi region under the control of the extremists has nearly 1,800 of the country's 12,000 registered archaeological sites, and the militants appear to be out to cleanse it of ideas they consider un-Islamic, including library books, relics and even Islamic sites considered idolatrous, said AP.

Islamic State militants ransacked the Central Library of Mosul in January, smashing the locks and taking about 2,000 books, while leaving only Islamic texts. Days later, militants broke into University of Mosul's library and built a bonfire out of hundreds of books on science and culture, destroying them in front of students, reported the wire service.

Among the most important sites under the militants' control are four ancient cities: Ninevah, Kalhu, Dur Sharrukin and Ashur, which at different times were capitals of the mighty Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians first arose around 2,500 B.C. and once ruled from the Mediterranean coast to what is now Iran.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Israel; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: albaghdadi; archaeology; artifacts; assyria; assyrians; godsgravesglyphs; history; idolatry; iran; iraq; isis; israel; jihad; jihadi; jihadis; library; mosul; museum; muslimworld; nineveh; sennacherib; waronterror
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To: miss marmelstein

Yep. Other than using the Sphinx for artillery practice.


21 posted on 03/01/2015 12:55:16 PM PST by Hugin ("Do yourself a favor--first thing, get a firearm!")
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To: LeoWindhorse

we need to capture ISIS terrorists and tie them up and go after them with sledge hammers .

________________________________________________________
The lying SOB that inhabits the WH keeps repeating again and again, trying to convince us that Muslims have made such grand cultural contributions to society. What a steaming pile of BS. Not only have they never built or creating anything that contributes to civilized society, they actively and aggressively destroy anything and everything that represents civilized society including its humanity.


22 posted on 03/01/2015 12:58:43 PM PST by iontheball
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To: NYer
I understand and support your point, however, the destruction of artifacts supports one of my pet peeves which is people who clamor for artifacts which were discovered decades and centuries ago to be "given back" to the countries where they were discovered.

While the British Museum and the Met may have their flaws they tend not to take drills and hammers to their artifacts.

23 posted on 03/01/2015 1:00:13 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: NYer

Effing savages. Nuke the lot of them.


24 posted on 03/01/2015 1:00:27 PM PST by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: NYer

“Legitimate Grievences” -Barack Obama


25 posted on 03/01/2015 1:04:34 PM PST by Organic Panic
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To: NYer

My first thought! Typical humanist- humans are expendable, my stuff is not.


26 posted on 03/01/2015 1:05:27 PM PST by antidisestablishment (When the passion of your convictions surpass those of your leader, it's past time for a change.)
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To: NYer

This is just destroying history not “idols”. This will only cause the opposition to them to grow.


27 posted on 03/01/2015 1:05:34 PM PST by Republican1795.
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To: NYer
Whether they are murdering infidels or destroying efforts at expression of infidel humans, they are doing us a favor by showing what a world wide caliphate would look like.

When you are dead inside, 100% dead in every way that matters while you still waste air, you give us, I suppose, a taste of Armageddon.

28 posted on 03/01/2015 1:10:59 PM PST by stevem
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To: LYDIAONTARIO
They do not take care of their people, they do not build anything. They are just destructive and full of hate.

Who? ISIS or obama and jarret?

29 posted on 03/01/2015 1:15:30 PM PST by null and void (As always, keeping a low profile with anything you do is to your advantage.)
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To: NYer

Islam (peaceful, moderate or militant) and culture (any culture) is an oxymoron.

Give it another 100 years and any trace of an “American” culture will be non-existent.


30 posted on 03/01/2015 1:16:04 PM PST by 353FMG
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To: NYer

It’s deja vu all over again. Remember when the Progressives railed against the invasion when the looting started? Where are they now? Somehow this destruction will be the fault of the US again.


31 posted on 03/01/2015 1:20:05 PM PST by griswold3 (Just another unlicensed nonconformist in am dangerous Liberal world.)
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To: NYer

You’d think that they would at least think of selling them first before smashing the hell out of them.


32 posted on 03/01/2015 1:28:37 PM PST by Slyfox (I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever)
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To: NYer
A video showing Islamic State militants with sledgehammers and power drills on a rampage inside the Mosul Museum shows the destruction of both reproductions and priceless originals from at least two important eras in the region’s history, said a British expert on Iraqi culture.

The population of Mosul is 1,800,000, and it's reasonable to assume most of the population is Iraqi.

My new permanent attitude to whatever they suffer now and in the future is simple. If all of those Iraqis of all ages do not see the life-and death urgency of defending their own community, their population, their families, and their cultural heritage, THEY CAN BETTER ACCEPT THAT NO FURTHER AMERICAN BLOOD AND TREASURE WILL DO IT FOR THEM! PERIOD.

I will support helping the Iraqis who clearly are not members of the barbaric two-legged animals in ISIS and related bands of criminals, but only if that help is guaranteed not to be allowed to eventually get to the enemy, and under no circumstances will that aid be in terms of U.S. Dollars dumped into that God-forsaken place full of criminals, corrupt politicians and opportunities milking the American taxpayer..

Resist or die now should be their own choice.

No more American waste there, please!

33 posted on 03/01/2015 1:39:48 PM PST by publius911 (If you like Obamacare, You'll LOVE ObamaWeb.)
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To: Politicalkiddo
Give me a sledgehammer and I’ll sledge them. Stuff like this really angers me.

One imagines that Obama and Pelosi would be supplying sledgehammers at the Washington and Jefferson monuments, deeming the destruction 'a lifestyle choice'.

34 posted on 03/01/2015 1:41:19 PM PST by IncPen (None of this would be happening if John Boehner were alive...)
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To: NYer

THIS is why the Elgin Marbles can stay right where they are.


35 posted on 03/01/2015 1:51:24 PM PST by Hetty_Fauxvert (FUBO, and the useful idiots you rode in on!)
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To: AEMILIUS PAULUS
What a tragedy. When the crazies govern. I admit that when it comes to historical artifacts I am extremely liberal. They should be preserved for all that man may not forget his history.

And I am extremely conservative, and paradoxically, our ends would be the same : preservation of humanity's history and legacy, no matter how primitive and brutal it may be.

In the past, in recent times, I am amazed that academic institutions world wide have not insisted on using the available amazing technology to record exact digital 3D records to reproduce these treasures for the future. The technique can be applied to minuscule items as well as to entire buildings.

Why hasn't UNESCO insisted on this preservation of humanity's Legacy?

Instead, the UN seems to concentrate on enabling the worst cultures, the most ignorant and brutal that currently exist, and that history has seen in the last 70 years or so.

Animals not worth saving, in my opinion.

But the cultural historical record? Absolutely.

If any self appointed or "elected" "Iraqi a*****e wants to charge ransom for permission to photograph and scan these treasures, I would shoot him on the spot, as well as all his associates, his family and his camels and goats. Even his Toyota pickup truck.

Or we can all decide that these ancient cultures and their cultural product is not worth saving.

There is no other choice.

36 posted on 03/01/2015 1:54:32 PM PST by publius911 (If you like Obamacare, You'll LOVE ObamaWeb.)
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To: NYer

37 posted on 03/01/2015 2:03:45 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: sagar

I hope your comments were tongue-in-cheek.

“The ancient pagan idols cannot be replaced.”

They can easily be replaced - notice that some of the objects destroyed were not artifacts but replicas. REPLICAS. The average person can’t tell the replica from the real thing.

“Christians can be replaced and there are 3 billion of them anyway.”

No. An individual human being cannot be replaced for he is truly unique. You can’t tell an artifact from a replica, but I bet you could tell your real child from a “replacement”.

“They can handle a few massacres here and there.”

What? And the world can’t handle losing some artifacts that most of us have never even seen in person? I have a PhD in history and know that most of what men have created over the centuries has been lost and yet we’re still chugging along as a species. I hate to see the art destroyed, but once it is excavated, retrieved, examined, restored, photographed, and imaged using a 3-D imaging device we know about as much about it as we ever will and the object is nothing but a museum piece to be gawked at by tourists. You can even send replicas on tour: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30496810@N07/2923920612/


38 posted on 03/01/2015 2:05:04 PM PST by vladimir998
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To: NYer

39 posted on 03/01/2015 2:07:24 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: griswold3
How many people remember when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and blew up the statues of Buddha that were actually carved out of a mountain?
40 posted on 03/01/2015 2:10:04 PM PST by 5th MEB (Progressives in the open; --- FIRE FOR EFFECT!!)
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