[Bigg Red]

Thanks for posting this. Weird -- I was just wondering today about this land and about these people.

[SamiGirl]

Where were the environmentalists when this was going on? Where was Green Peace to stage one of their protests? Notice their silence? Yet, they were/are so vocal against our President and the US.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

SUMERIANS

[McGavin999]

If they bring back the Marsh, the way of life will return as well. Maybe not in the numbers of before, but it will be a new start. As to it interferring with oil production, if they can drill in the deep waters of the ocean, they can drill in the marsh.

[El Gato]

Villagers made the trip only when necessary to sell livestock, hand-woven carpets and reed mats, and to buy certain necessities from outside, including spices, aluminum cookware and guns

Gee, guns as neccessities, I like them already. And the author too perhaps, but I wonder if he realises what he wrote?

[El Gato]

They sound alot lot the folks who live in the Mississppi delta region. Or most any other place thought inhospitable by city folks.

[El Gato]

Experts aren't sure of the prospects for restoration and the return of the marsh Arabs. Alexandre Tkachenko, a specialist in Middle East economics at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, said a crucial question is whether restoration can co-exist with large-scale irrigation and oil drilling in a post-war Iraq desperate for economic development.

Yeh, like they should listen to a Russian expert on economics? Riight! No problem with drilling oil wells in the marshlands. It's done all the time, although I thought the oil was mostly not in that area.

[Billthedrill]

Very, very cool. I've been reading about these people for years now - I prefer not to use the vernacular "marsh Arabs" when I don't have to for clarity - they're not Arabic. This is actually a look at a way of life that predates Sumeria, that term usually being reserved for the civilization there, meaning settlements larger than the ones these people use.

Unfortunately, time and tide (literally) have taken from us our chance to understand what language predated Sumerian - certainly one non-Sumerian language did judging by place names and those personal names that have survived. But the lifestyle lives on. I wish them luck.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. Never got pinged.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

Just updating the GGG information, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)