Screen Capture
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.”
Yep. Other than using the Sphinx for artillery practice.
we need to capture ISIS terrorists and tie them up and go after them with sledge hammers .
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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.
While the British Museum and the Met may have their flaws they tend not to take drills and hammers to their artifacts.
Effing savages. Nuke the lot of them.
“Legitimate Grievences” -Barack Obama
My first thought! Typical humanist- humans are expendable, my stuff is not.
This is just destroying history not “idols”. This will only cause the opposition to them to grow.
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.
Who? ISIS or obama and jarret?
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.
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.
You’d think that they would at least think of selling them first before smashing the hell out of them.
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!
One imagines that Obama and Pelosi would be supplying sledgehammers at the Washington and Jefferson monuments, deeming the destruction 'a lifestyle choice'.
THIS is why the Elgin Marbles can stay right where they are.
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.
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/
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