Free Republic

Archeologists from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tübingen have uncovered a large Bronze Age city not far from the town of Dohuk in northern Iraq. The excavation work has demonstrated that the settlement, which is now home to the small Kurdish village of Bassetki in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, was established in about 3000 BC and was able to flourish for more than 1200 years. The archeologists also discovered settlement layers dating from the Akkadian Empire period (2340-2200 BC), which is regarded as the first world empire in human history. Scientists headed...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In a joint raid, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi policemen recovered two of the most important artifacts looted from the Iraqi National Museum following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, a coalition spokesman said Thursday. Both artifacts have been identified by museum authorities in Baghdad and will be returned in the next few days, Charles Heatly said. One of the two pieces, the so-called Bassetki copper statue, dating back to 2,300 B.C., depicts a man seated on the ground. It was found in a cesspool during a joint raid by U.S. Military Police and Iraqi police. The second...

ROME - American soldiers in northern Iraq (news - web sites) mistakenly fired on a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities, killing the man's Iraqi interpreter, an official said Friday in Rome. The Italian, Pietro Cordone, was unhurt.   Cordone, who is the senior adviser for cultural affairs of the U.S. provisional authority and the top Italian diplomat in the country, was traveling between Mosul and Tikrit on Thursday when his car was fired on at a U.S. roadblock, said a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official...