Looters May Have Destroyed Priceless Cuneiform Archive

The Washington Post ^ | April 18th, 2003 | Guy Gugliotta

[wideminded]

Looters at Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities pillaged and, perhaps, destroyed an archive of more than 100,000 cuneiform clay tablets -- a unique and priceless trove of ancient Mesopotamian writings that included the "Sippar Library," the oldest library ever found intact on its original shelves.

Experts described the archive as the world's least-studied large collection of cuneiform -- the oldest known writing on Earth -- a record that covers every aspect of Mesopotamian life over more than 3,000 years. The texts resided in numbered boxes each containing as many as 400 3-inch-by-2-inch tablets.

The Sippar Library, discovered in 1986 at a well-known neo-Babylonian site near Baghdad, was one of the archive's crown jewels. Dating from the sixth century B.C., it comprised only about 800 tablets, but it included hymns, prayers, lamentations, bits of epics, glossaries, astronomical and scientific texts, missing pieces of a flood legend that closely parallels the biblical story of Noah, and the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian lawgiver. ...

... Iraqi archaeologists found the library in a previously unexcavated section of temple ruins at Sippar, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad. "The room is approximately 4.5 meters [15 feet] by three meters [91/2 feet], lined with sets of pigeon holes" along the floor, said Jeremy Black of Oxford University's Oriental Institute. "The tablets were still in the pigeonholes, intact and in place. We'd never found such a thing before."

[Black Agnes]

Meanwhile, Dr. Daniel Jackson is on suicide watch.

[wideminded]

I think those were Colorforms. They were great.

[woofie]

My comment was a joke...I think this was done by the museum people ...but we shall see

[dinodino]

Okay, I'll bite: why does Man "never seem to keep it together?" Twenty words or less, please. Also, I'd like you to name one libertarian culture which has been "shattered...to the rubble of time." Are you asserting that Sumerian culture was libertarian?

[dinodino]

Note that my last post is not intended to imply that libertarian cultures DO survive longer than others. I just would like you to name a purely libertarian culture, as I'm not aware that any have existed.

[MHGinTN]

Question for you: I'm in a bit of a confused state; Ashurbanipal's kingdom was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC, during which Ashurbanipal's library at Ninevah was destroyed; were the cuneiform tablets in his library collected from the ancient Sumerian collection and is that what made up the library of Sippar?... Wouldn't the tablets therefore be much older than 2 - 3000 years old?

[MHGinTN]

Referring to your post #39; isn't the issue really one of fungibility ... the Iraqi people want to retain their precious history yet sell the more fungible resource to use for rebuilding their country?

[Doc Savage]

It is all relative. How long do you think the USA will continue to be as we know it now? 100 years, 500 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years? Yes they would be nice to have, but Priceless???

In the end the sun will eventually destroy our solarsystem in it's death throes and unless we have been able as a people to move on to another solarsystem in this galaxy or another, there will be nothing to indicate we ever existed? Priceless? I don't know.

[MHGinTN]

GOOD CATCH! It is the effort to divert attention from the success of this administration ... brought to US by the bitter political party lusting for power lost due to their feckless leadership.

[aristeides]

Since when is it news that something "may have" happened?

[Psycho_Bunny]

Well, no matter how you look at it, it sucks that this happened.  However, the tablets that were broken and left can be put back together and read....I mean, that's what archeologists do.

The tablets that were stolen will most likely - eventually - resurface.

Had we the choice between stolen intact, or broken and left on the floor, I would have chosen the latter over the former.

Either way, it's unlikely that much of the collection's information will be permanently lost.

Still....it does suck.  There's no getting around that.

[bmwcyle]

The answer is no. You are cold on the real answer. I don't have time right now. I've got to go.

[Fifth Business]

Question for you: I'm in a bit of a confused state; Ashurbanipal's kingdom was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC, during which Ashurbanipal's library at Ninevah was destroyed; were the cuneiform tablets in his library collected from the ancient Sumerian collection and is that what made up the library of Sippar?... Wouldn't the tablets therefore be much older than 2 - 3000 years old?

The Ninevah texts are in the British Museum because Ninevah was excavated long ago. Everything dug up in Iraq since the 1920s has gone into this museum. The Sippar texts talked about in this article were found relatively recently. Sippar was part of Babylonia, whose civilization lasted longer than Assyria in the North. The Akkadians of both Assyria and Babylonia continued to use Sumerian as their academic, official, and religious language, just like Western civilization continued to use Latin long after the demise of the Roman Empire. Does that answer your question or just hit around it?

[wideminded]

Since when is it news that something "may have" happened?

Depends on the strength of the evidence. If 4 JDAMs land on Saddam Hussein's bunker after he was seen walking inside, it's news that he may be dead.

[wideminded]

"And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more then sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"

Jonah 4:11, King James Bible

[wideminded]

No particular point. I noticed that you had been discussing Ninevah and seemed to know something about it. That was a favorite Bible verse of a member of my family and I like it a lot too. Also, the sparing of the last remnants of Ninevah may now be in question.

[nopardons]

I left out no word. Therefore, I am assuming that you don't know how to read simple English.

I've pinged you to TWO threads.

As much as I am fascinated by ancient civilizations, the loss ( if it is indeed a loss ) of these items, is preferred to the continuation of the staus quo in Iraq. As a matter of fact, it now appears that vast amounts of antiquitoes have been stolen by Saddam, those close to him, and professional criminals, for decades. It's only NOW, when it can be blamed on our military's lack of guarding them ( gee, they weren't sent to Iraq to be museum guards, for crying out loud ! ),that these hand wringing articles, by lefties are surfacing.

Stop " feeling " so much for the loss of things which don't really mean a damned thing to you and try, for a change, to think about the whole picture.

[nopardons]

They were probably stolen decades ago. At this point in time, it doesn't matter where they are. So very much IS still extant, with much more still to be found.

[geedee]

I'm sick of these leftist blame-America first, last, and always CRY-BABIES!!

There ain't a damn thing that was in that museum that was PRICELESS!!

Nothing.

A coalition life being lost is priceless. An inanimate object only rich, elitist jackasses look at anyway isn't worth the sweat off one Marine's ass!

So you leftists stop your whining. We kicked ass, took names, and you idiots just have to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING to whine about!

Okay . . . whew . . . I took my nitroglycerin tablet. Relax . . . relax. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

[geedee]

Nice thread by the way. I'm sorry I vented on your thread but all these doom and gloom leftists have taken enough potshots and we need to do all we can to expose them for what they are.