I was there earlier last year, and it was none too impressive.
Pretty shoddy brick walls (just straight blocks), crumbling at many places, constructed possibly along ancient foundations or maybe not, that you sort of walk through. Interesting things here and there. Couple of other tourists.
Walking through Saddam's palace next to it was much more fascinating; extreme grandeur morphed into a typical lost place with graffiti and empty bottles. The nearby town Al7illa certainly offered more to actually experience, like a mini theme park with the main attraction being (artificial) rain.
Anyways I genuinely wish the committed people all the best in the restoration, but I feel like the article is a tad over-enthusiastic and easily convinced.
The reconstruction looked very bare and empty in the program. But I guess it is a work in progress.
BTW the Assyrian exhibits in the British museum are amazing and well worth visiting. Yes, I know, colonialism is bad and they probably shouldn't be in London. But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
> But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
I get it, but thats problem with 'good theft', its still amoral, and well we all know history and how things actually happened. Inability to even properly acknowledge fuckups of one's ancestors leaves little room for moving further and learning hard from that, instead of some shallow blah to not stick out of the crowd.
The ancient history of this region is fascinating, and the politics of that time were not so different from today. I highly recommend the “Fall of Civilizations Podcast”, episode 8. High quality work.
There is no way to restore the most precious sites which were destroyed intentionally.
Some a perfectly preserved sites.
It simply gone and will never returned.
Just look at the map in page 7 in the report below:
Sounds more like "reconstruction" than "restoration". I appreciate many original parts may be too damaged, but it risks becoming an archeological Disneyland.
Reconstruction is great provided archaeologists are done with the site and at least some of the tourism revenue generated is put towards archaeology.
Ancient Mesopotamia is, in my view, one of the most exciting fields out there, simply because their written records are imperishable. There's thousands of years of history, not pre-history, there. Much of it has already been discovered but, for want of money, not yet fully studied. Not yet deciphered. Not yet understood.
We know the approximate locations of important cities that have yet to be found. We know roughly where they are, but they're not in easy places to access due to remoteness as well as political instability and violence. We currently only have records from other places to tell us they exist, but we could find entire libraries and hear from these ancient people in their own words.
There are few other frontiers in all of archaeology that offer such potential for gaining intimate knowledge of ancient human societies. Anything that can inject a little much-needed funding into the field is welcome.
I don't see the problem. If a building is damaged we should not reconstruct it? I'd much rather see the Colosseum in its original state, covered in marble, than the current state, after centuries of neglect and looting from the italians.
That's still not the original state. In addition to not always knowing what exactly it was supposed to look like, using non-authentic materials and methods (power-tools) will effect the final outcome. If people are more interested in the experience than the genuine artifact, full-scale replicas can be created offsite without damaging ancient artifacts (BTW there's a 1:1 Parthenon replica in Tennessee, ive never been but I hear its impressive).
Also, the article barely mentioned this but the biggest source of damage to these specific ruins actually isn't being adjacent to major battles in two modern conflicts, it's Saddam-era "restorations". The reason why the zigguraut looks so much more pristine than any other ancient ruins is that what you're looking at was built in the 80s on top of the actual ancient ruins. It wasn't a particularly accurate restoration either; they used concrete and Saddam even made them stamp his face on some of the bricks so future generations would associate him with nebuchanezzar.
The value of ancient buildings is in what we learn from whatever survives. How can we rebuild the Coliseum to its original state without first learning what that state was? The Coliseum was operational for centuries and underwent constant modification. Which period should it be restored to, and to what end?
As long as they're done faithfully; there's reproductions of old ships too for museum purposes, since the old ships just rotted away over time (I assume). Rebuilding them with modern knowledge of e.g. wood / rope / sail preservation will be valuable.
It also makes me think of a reddit question the other day - why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets? The answer is that they didn't have epoxy sealants and the like back then so it was maintenance heavy.
You mean they need to be true believers of Anu, Enlil and Istar?
Yeah, that would likely help the spirit of restoration efforts..
"why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets?"
Don't carpets also provide good insulation? When you are cold and do not have automatic heating build into the ground ... most people appreciate warm feed over aesthetics.
The entire history of this exercise is basically one in which it’s never done faithfully. Not due to bad faith. But because we don’t know everything yet.
Better than reconstructing in situ is rebuilding elsewhere, as in your ship analogy.
> why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets
For a minute there i thought you were talking about the 70s.
Considering the Greek's love of what modern people consider garishly colored statues, my first instinct would have been that it's for decorative reasons.
Like Newgrange in Ireland. “Reconstructed” in the ‘60s and ‘70s based largely on the opinions of one person in a matter now considered to be mostly speculative. After 5 millennia, it now seems that “conservation” efforts have completed destroyed its original form.
It would be far more facinating to fund something like the ongoing construction of a true mideval castle in France, where they are re creating the teqcniques used by building and then testing for accuracy, and refining there methods by letting thins weather and be used in daily operations to be able to compare wearmarks and longevity to original archiological evidence, in France there work and workers have directly been used in the rebuilding of the great chapell burned down in paris a decade ago.
So a full on mesoptaimian city on the banks of the Euphraties, and maybe we can find out what on earth "the things of stone" are, among other almost infuriating criptic references that leave us grasping for meaning, like a bunch of dweebs listening to the cool kids talking about getting down with the gods themselves
Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true:
1. Jerusalem would get destroyed with the temple, the Jews scattered, persecuted, then Israel recreated, big exporter of produce, many trees, survives all its enemies, and yet wouldn't be able to rebuild the temple on one piece of land. All came true and it's the only country to ever re-appear like that.
2. Revelation says they will try to build a world government with one currency. They'll financially cut off, or cancel, dissenters. The elites have been repeatedly trying to do that for decades.
3. Society itself would change. People would be godless, apathetic, focus on money/pleasure, disobedient to their parents (family disintegration), violent, etc. People would listen to whoever tickled their ears, or told them what they wanted to hear. Famous preachers would be false teachers, perform fake miracles, and do it for ego and money.
4. Revelation talks of a new Babylon that was a huge, imperialist nation (or religion) that gets most of the world under its influence, is one of the richest in history, and (strangely) exports sexual immorality to other nations. Aside from imperialisma and capitalism, the U.S. exported sexual immorality worldwide through porn industry, Hollywood movies, and funding LGBT promotion. Whatever it is, God destroys the new Babylon likely via the consequences of its own worldviews.
I'll be glad if Babylon is never raised. It deserved to be destroyed for all the cruel things it did which it never repented of. Over there, they still chase the false religions and practices that tore their country to pieces. If the repent, and turn to Christ, we will see a transformation of the nation like the people of Ninevah saw in Jonah's day.
> Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Matthew 24:34–35
Of course when the prediction doesn't fit, the Cirque du Soleil level mental gymnastics come out to explain how "this generation" didn't actually mean that.
Meanwhile, scientists predict solar eclipses with 100% accuracy. Among many other physical phenomena. Much of that knowledge was ascertained despite religion relentlessly persecuting those seeking out answers about our universe.
> Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true...
I can promise you that followers of every religion have made this same claim and also have a list of "proof". They don't look at each other and go "darn, that Christianity keeps getting it right somehow!".
I highly recommend checking out The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan [0]. It is a great way to improve anyone's baloney-detector kit. We all want to understand our world, but some "answers" are pure Grade-A baloney.
Their idea of preservation and repair leaves a lot to be desired IMO, although the same is true for some parts of Europe. Sadly Palmyra and so many places have been destroyed in the last decade or so.
Screw the tourists, bring in the archeologists, maybe start by resuming excavations at Eridu. 99% of our history is buried or looted. And the one or two Assyriologists in the world need new material to study.
After several years, Iraqi Hezbollah recently released their Princeton researcher hostage (granted, she is a dual Israeli citizen). Maybe that will encourage more archeologists to visit.
That is so sad.
Iraq, Uruk, Mesopotamia, Babylon...
The birthplace of so many nations and cultures in the region.
The cultural and commercial hub for centuries.
Tourism is such a wasteful tax on society. I met an Egyptologist who had been leading tours for two years so he could feed his family but he longed to go back to Egyptology and go and study the ruins even though it didn’t pay well
Tourism is one of the best “products” a country can produce. It’s almost all a service industry which doesn’t strain natural resources, doesn’t cause physical health issues for its employees, incentivizes a higher level of education, and brings in large amounts of foreign currencies, helping to stabilize their own currency. The positives FAR outweigh the negatives. Countries like Saudi Arabia have embraced tourism as a great way to diversify. A country like Thailand is able to “thrive” relative to its neighbors because it derives far more economic power from its tourist trade.(20% of GDP compared to Cambodia’s 9%, Malaysia’s 15% and Myanmar’s 3%)
Hate to break it to you, but every other tour guide in Egypt will tell you that they actually are an "Egyptologist". It's a common scam. Of course I don't know the situation of your specific tour guide though, they might have been genuine.
I was there earlier last year, and it was none too impressive.
Pretty shoddy brick walls (just straight blocks), crumbling at many places, constructed possibly along ancient foundations or maybe not, that you sort of walk through. Interesting things here and there. Couple of other tourists.
Walking through Saddam's palace next to it was much more fascinating; extreme grandeur morphed into a typical lost place with graffiti and empty bottles. The nearby town Al7illa certainly offered more to actually experience, like a mini theme park with the main attraction being (artificial) rain.
Anyways I genuinely wish the committed people all the best in the restoration, but I feel like the article is a tad over-enthusiastic and easily convinced.
This site and the nearby Saddam palace were featured in the recent Michael Palin travelogue on Iraq.
https://www.themichaelpalin.com/watch/#section8
The reconstruction looked very bare and empty in the program. But I guess it is a work in progress.
BTW the Assyrian exhibits in the British museum are amazing and well worth visiting. Yes, I know, colonialism is bad and they probably shouldn't be in London. But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
> But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
I get it, but thats problem with 'good theft', its still amoral, and well we all know history and how things actually happened. Inability to even properly acknowledge fuckups of one's ancestors leaves little room for moving further and learning hard from that, instead of some shallow blah to not stick out of the crowd.
5 replies →
The ancient history of this region is fascinating, and the politics of that time were not so different from today. I highly recommend the “Fall of Civilizations Podcast”, episode 8. High quality work.
https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/2019/10/25/episode-8-...
Seconded. The “Fall of Civilizations” Podcast is a masterpiece.
There is no way to restore the most precious sites which were destroyed intentionally. Some a perfectly preserved sites. It simply gone and will never returned.
Just look at the map in page 7 in the report below:
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/C...
What they are doing here is "rebuilding"
Sounds more like "reconstruction" than "restoration". I appreciate many original parts may be too damaged, but it risks becoming an archeological Disneyland.
Reconstruction is great provided archaeologists are done with the site and at least some of the tourism revenue generated is put towards archaeology.
Ancient Mesopotamia is, in my view, one of the most exciting fields out there, simply because their written records are imperishable. There's thousands of years of history, not pre-history, there. Much of it has already been discovered but, for want of money, not yet fully studied. Not yet deciphered. Not yet understood.
We know the approximate locations of important cities that have yet to be found. We know roughly where they are, but they're not in easy places to access due to remoteness as well as political instability and violence. We currently only have records from other places to tell us they exist, but we could find entire libraries and hear from these ancient people in their own words.
There are few other frontiers in all of archaeology that offer such potential for gaining intimate knowledge of ancient human societies. Anything that can inject a little much-needed funding into the field is welcome.
I don't see the problem. If a building is damaged we should not reconstruct it? I'd much rather see the Colosseum in its original state, covered in marble, than the current state, after centuries of neglect and looting from the italians.
That's still not the original state. In addition to not always knowing what exactly it was supposed to look like, using non-authentic materials and methods (power-tools) will effect the final outcome. If people are more interested in the experience than the genuine artifact, full-scale replicas can be created offsite without damaging ancient artifacts (BTW there's a 1:1 Parthenon replica in Tennessee, ive never been but I hear its impressive).
Also, the article barely mentioned this but the biggest source of damage to these specific ruins actually isn't being adjacent to major battles in two modern conflicts, it's Saddam-era "restorations". The reason why the zigguraut looks so much more pristine than any other ancient ruins is that what you're looking at was built in the 80s on top of the actual ancient ruins. It wasn't a particularly accurate restoration either; they used concrete and Saddam even made them stamp his face on some of the bricks so future generations would associate him with nebuchanezzar.
The value of ancient buildings is in what we learn from whatever survives. How can we rebuild the Coliseum to its original state without first learning what that state was? The Coliseum was operational for centuries and underwent constant modification. Which period should it be restored to, and to what end?
4 replies →
As long as they're done faithfully; there's reproductions of old ships too for museum purposes, since the old ships just rotted away over time (I assume). Rebuilding them with modern knowledge of e.g. wood / rope / sail preservation will be valuable.
It also makes me think of a reddit question the other day - why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets? The answer is that they didn't have epoxy sealants and the like back then so it was maintenance heavy.
"As long as they're done faithfully"
You mean they need to be true believers of Anu, Enlil and Istar? Yeah, that would likely help the spirit of restoration efforts..
"why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets?"
Don't carpets also provide good insulation? When you are cold and do not have automatic heating build into the ground ... most people appreciate warm feed over aesthetics.
> As long as they're done faithfully
The entire history of this exercise is basically one in which it’s never done faithfully. Not due to bad faith. But because we don’t know everything yet.
Better than reconstructing in situ is rebuilding elsewhere, as in your ship analogy.
> why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets
For a minute there i thought you were talking about the 70s.
Considering the Greek's love of what modern people consider garishly colored statues, my first instinct would have been that it's for decorative reasons.
Like Newgrange in Ireland. “Reconstructed” in the ‘60s and ‘70s based largely on the opinions of one person in a matter now considered to be mostly speculative. After 5 millennia, it now seems that “conservation” efforts have completed destroyed its original form.
It would be far more facinating to fund something like the ongoing construction of a true mideval castle in France, where they are re creating the teqcniques used by building and then testing for accuracy, and refining there methods by letting thins weather and be used in daily operations to be able to compare wearmarks and longevity to original archiological evidence, in France there work and workers have directly been used in the rebuilding of the great chapell burned down in paris a decade ago. So a full on mesoptaimian city on the banks of the Euphraties, and maybe we can find out what on earth "the things of stone" are, among other almost infuriating criptic references that leave us grasping for meaning, like a bunch of dweebs listening to the cool kids talking about getting down with the gods themselves
Yeah, meanwhile what happened to Gilgamesh's tomb? What is left to see in Iraq/Uruk is less than a shadow of what was excavated.
There is a prophecy in the Bible that says Babylon will never successfully be rebuilt. Isa 13:19, 20.
It's amazing we're living in a time again where we have to know the bible to predict government policy
I'll settle for what came long before it.
Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true:
1. Jerusalem would get destroyed with the temple, the Jews scattered, persecuted, then Israel recreated, big exporter of produce, many trees, survives all its enemies, and yet wouldn't be able to rebuild the temple on one piece of land. All came true and it's the only country to ever re-appear like that.
2. Revelation says they will try to build a world government with one currency. They'll financially cut off, or cancel, dissenters. The elites have been repeatedly trying to do that for decades.
3. Society itself would change. People would be godless, apathetic, focus on money/pleasure, disobedient to their parents (family disintegration), violent, etc. People would listen to whoever tickled their ears, or told them what they wanted to hear. Famous preachers would be false teachers, perform fake miracles, and do it for ego and money.
4. Revelation talks of a new Babylon that was a huge, imperialist nation (or religion) that gets most of the world under its influence, is one of the richest in history, and (strangely) exports sexual immorality to other nations. Aside from imperialisma and capitalism, the U.S. exported sexual immorality worldwide through porn industry, Hollywood movies, and funding LGBT promotion. Whatever it is, God destroys the new Babylon likely via the consequences of its own worldviews.
I put more of these up here:
https://gethisword.com/signsofthetimes.html
I'll be glad if Babylon is never raised. It deserved to be destroyed for all the cruel things it did which it never repented of. Over there, they still chase the false religions and practices that tore their country to pieces. If the repent, and turn to Christ, we will see a transformation of the nation like the people of Ninevah saw in Jonah's day.
> Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Matthew 24:34–35
Of course when the prediction doesn't fit, the Cirque du Soleil level mental gymnastics come out to explain how "this generation" didn't actually mean that.
Meanwhile, scientists predict solar eclipses with 100% accuracy. Among many other physical phenomena. Much of that knowledge was ascertained despite religion relentlessly persecuting those seeking out answers about our universe.
> Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true...
I can promise you that followers of every religion have made this same claim and also have a list of "proof". They don't look at each other and go "darn, that Christianity keeps getting it right somehow!".
I highly recommend checking out The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan [0]. It is a great way to improve anyone's baloney-detector kit. We all want to understand our world, but some "answers" are pure Grade-A baloney.
---
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_...
Their idea of preservation and repair leaves a lot to be desired IMO, although the same is true for some parts of Europe. Sadly Palmyra and so many places have been destroyed in the last decade or so.
Do we really want ancient buildings to be restored? I think I would prefer original ruins over modern reconstructions.
The Taliban and other theocratic totalitarian regimes should take notes.
57% of taliban are illiterate, so I don’t think they’ll be taking too many notes
'Building yesteryear's history today' for tourism, like so many "historical" sites.
Screw the tourists, bring in the archeologists, maybe start by resuming excavations at Eridu. 99% of our history is buried or looted. And the one or two Assyriologists in the world need new material to study.
After several years, Iraqi Hezbollah recently released their Princeton researcher hostage (granted, she is a dual Israeli citizen). Maybe that will encourage more archeologists to visit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Tsurkov
Thanks for the info and please pardon my previous ignorance of it. I'm grateful for her release.
2 replies →
Lovely place to be kidnapped
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That is so sad. Iraq, Uruk, Mesopotamia, Babylon... The birthplace of so many nations and cultures in the region. The cultural and commercial hub for centuries.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/C...
Tourism is such a wasteful tax on society. I met an Egyptologist who had been leading tours for two years so he could feed his family but he longed to go back to Egyptology and go and study the ruins even though it didn’t pay well
Tourism is one of the best “products” a country can produce. It’s almost all a service industry which doesn’t strain natural resources, doesn’t cause physical health issues for its employees, incentivizes a higher level of education, and brings in large amounts of foreign currencies, helping to stabilize their own currency. The positives FAR outweigh the negatives. Countries like Saudi Arabia have embraced tourism as a great way to diversify. A country like Thailand is able to “thrive” relative to its neighbors because it derives far more economic power from its tourist trade.(20% of GDP compared to Cambodia’s 9%, Malaysia’s 15% and Myanmar’s 3%)
Hate to break it to you, but every other tour guide in Egypt will tell you that they actually are an "Egyptologist". It's a common scam. Of course I don't know the situation of your specific tour guide though, they might have been genuine.
2 replies →
And after meeting that person you thought, "wow I wish this person didn't have an alternative income stream that allows them to feed their family"?
Many people in this world wish they could do something different with their lives, but to blame the activity they're currently doing is shortsighted.
6 replies →
You can fund a full time Egyptologist for the amount of money a turned receives in a year.
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