What follows is a newsletter from a respected arts "Lord of the Realm" and BBC broadcaster, reflecting on his weekly BBC radio 4 broadcast. It says it all about American Imperialism, though he (like me) loves America and is a supporter of the USA: Read the website if you wish: -------- After this morning's programme on Babylon, we spoke in the Green Room as usual but for longer than usual. It was both illuminating and depressing. The main topic was the sadness of the scholars at the destruction of the archaeological sites in present day Iraq, which is largely the area of the ancient Mesopotamia we had been discussing on In Our Time, the Mesopotamia of the first cities, the Mesopotamia of the development of writing, geometry, arithmetic, the invention of the wheel and of the spinning wheel for poetry, the development of religion, the first great literature - that Mesopotamia/Iraq. Although they were worried about the looting of the museums, they were reconciled to the fact that the objects would have moved onto the blackmarket - in fact, one or two of them seemed certain that they were already swilling around on the black market - and at least they would be intact. Not so on the great archaeological sites. Reports suggest that widespread looting by - and here I hesitate - is it Iraqis or other gangs of thieves from neighbouring/various countries - has done probably irreparable damage to the sites of the oldest civilisations in the world. They explained that to get out the delicate objects from an
archaeological site as old as that of Babylon, for instance, you needed immense care and patience. If you went in with a bulldozer simply to look for bits of gold or lumps with suggestive or sellable-looking figures on them, then in the process you destroyed much of what was of real value. One of the reasons why their area of study - Sumerian, Babylonian - is declining in allure to younger students is that these students cannot get to the sites. (And another reason is the massively competing claims of the not dissimilar age of Egyptian remains which are very easily accessible and massively monumental and often very well
cared for.) But the idea that out there the beginnings of civilised society are being literally dug up and discarded, despoiled and not only by local gangs, but by those who are operating in the place from the West and have themselves become, to some extent, loot hunters - is a very depressing one. It makes you glad that previous looters, with a good eye, got out as much stuff as they did and saw it stored, so much of it, especially the cuneiform tablets, in safety. Best wishes Melvyn Bragg Visit the In Our Time website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/
and the Radio 4 Homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ |
