Posted on 04/18/2003 2:10:35 AM PDT by 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."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"This is more than probably propaganda/lies."
So you think the article is more than propaganda and lies. There must really be some substance to it then.
I figured you must have meant this.:
"This is probabaly little more than propaganda/lies."
Funny you should mention that. I was just thinking today that maybe I should stop posting on this subject because some people are getting so worked up that someone is liable to have a heart attack.
And I definitely don't consider myself a leftist.
As for me, I'm calmer and have lower blood pressure than you do, I bet. I just don't suffer fools lightly. :-)
Oh, and dear, don't imagine that YOU are really all THAT " important "; you aren't.
I'll grant you that there is a little too much hand-wringing in some of these articles. But I think the articles are surfacing because this is a major news story. The world just became aware of this major looting a few days ago. Even though some things may have been taken earlier, some of it may have been done by professional thieves with keys, Saddam et al. may be behind it, it still occurred. You seem to feel that even mentioning that it occurred is an accusation aimed at destroying goodwill toward America for our triumph in Iraq. I think that it is possible to keep these ideas separate.
By the way, see post #62.
I believe the looters understood the value of what they stole, and that they'll protect the items so as to get top dollar. However, the items may end up in private collections, held secretly for many years, not surfacing again until maybe the owner dies.
Now you're talking crazy, man. In fact you're libelling me and I'd like you to stop that. But I'll probably just tune you out if I can.
By the way, my BP is 120/80.
If you will notice, the propaganda articles are filled with innuendo,exaggerations, and impugnations of ONLY America and our military. There's been an overwhelming dearth of condemnation of Iraqis...ANY Iraqis, including the " looters ".
I saw the post you replied to and took it for what it was..." funnin' " ; hyperboly, laughing at one's own rant.
Anyhoo, I thought it was funny.
Anyone who REALLY has an interest in ancient civilizations and Sumer in particular, has long ago read Kramer's wonderful books.The translations, therein are fascinating hand have NOTHING at all to do with sex with goats. What the show, is how much the early parts of the OT are similar to Sumarian myths, what wisdom these ancients had, and how little people have changed,in the time span of many so millennia.
Making nasty jibes against Arab " culture ", is based on erronious thinking. The true descendants of old Mesopotamia, Babylon, etc. ( from whence these writings come from ), are Jews and who the Iraqis call " Marsh Arabs ". Those Sunni & Shiite Arabs all came from some other region. Ditto the Kurds.
I would also include the Assyrians with the Marsh Arabs and Jews.
The Kurds are Indo-Europeans. Their origin should be traced back to whatever place is presently being pushed as the proto-European homeland (Caucasia, the steppes of the Don, Central Asia, etc.).
What do you mean no one there calls themselves Assyrians? Surely you've heard of the Assyrian Christians?
http://www.assyrianchristians.com/
This is the "Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East" pejoratively called "Nestorian".
This is the address of their official website:
There is also a version of this group that is in union with the Roman Catholic Church who go by the name Chaldean. They both speak Syraic. I'd encourage you to follow the Assyrian links portion of the webpage.
One last thought ... do you have Goode's World Atlas? If so, turn to the map in the European section showing the languages of Europe and the Middle East. IIRC, Assyrian is listed and is shown in northern Iraq, southern Turkey, and northeast Syria.
Look at the cached pages here also (the actual pages seem to be down right now):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Assyrians
Thanks for the links; interesting.
No, sorry, my Atlas is from National Geographic and my globe just has countries and water.
After the Versaille Treaty, the ME was cut up so, that people who thought of themselves as one thing ( other than Muslim, as that's what they think of first and nationhood last; if ever )often wound up belonging to someplace else. Even before that, Asseryians had been dispersed.
Hard to believe, isn't it, that a "unique and priceless trove..." never would have been photographed, catalogued or otherwise copied precisely for protection from ramdom destruction?
Isn't Iraq subject to frequent and periodic devastating earthquakes?
Political instability?
Invasion by aliens?
Did the world change the definitions of "priceless" and "unique" while I wasn't looking?
Archeologists and the other soft sciences have got to have the brightest people with the least common sense and sense of priorities of any human beings on earth.
Do they get tested for this?
OK, maybe not CD burners, but photography, microfilm and sketch books have been around for at least a hundred years!
We are all discussing the open barn door long after the metaphorical horse has left.
So it is perfectly appropriate to point out that microfilming or photographing the material requires a trivial amount of effort and zero risk.
Why would anyone stare at the spilt milk and wring their hands at anything more complicated?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.