Anyone concerned with antiquities, including ancient historians and museum curators in particular, are rightly concerned about the trade in stolen artifacts from the ancient world. Sites from Egypt to Mesopotamia have been looted regularly in modern times to sell stolen goods to private collectors and major museums, and in ancient times to obtain gold and precious jewels After the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government a number of museums in Iraq were looted and some valuable statuary was destroyed by Muslim fundamentalists.
That is why the US government has filed suit against the Hobby Lobby seeking to return stolen tablets containing part of the story of Gilgamesh to the Iraqi government. [Read the interesting story here.] The Hobby Lobby’s owners are donors to extreme right-wing causes and political action groups who established the Bible Museum in Washington, DC and have been involved in a number of prior instances of dealing with dealers of ill repute to obtain artifacts for their museum.
1 comment:
When on high. Have u ever heard of that? Creation tale the emlish. The story of the ancient ones. The old ones Grandpa. And the new Gods. Very old ancient script. I real enjoyed reading it. Ancient sumarian from the land of sumer. Gilgamesh is just one of the tales in it. And what of Kingu? The General of Tiamat. And of Inki. And his Son Marduk the Saviour. Acadian ancient language of Sumer. Can't say I didn't comment on ur post. I did it cuz no one else did. Ttyl love u
Post a Comment