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Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

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Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#151

Post by luckydata »

Amezarak wrote: post #128
nemo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of the region is not an accurate account. Not at all. There have been various sophisticated civilizations in the region, among them various Islamic states. The rises and falls of various sophisticated civilizations came about for a variety of reasons, most of which were prior to the Islamic world existing. The Islamic Golden Age brought Alexandria back from being a declining backwater with its scho…

Nobody is disputing the existence of the Islamic Golden Age. We are talking about the intermediate, bloody and chaotic period caused by the Muslim conquests that rapidly spread from the Arabian peninsula and overcame the Persian Empire and most of the Roman Empire. These empires didn’t go away for a “variety of reasons”, they went away because they were violently conquered by invading force in the name of religion. h…

About the "schools being closed" thing, I had a chance to compare notes (so to speak) with a few friends that grew up in north african muslim countries. I remember they had a few interesting takes that showed a VERY distorted perspective on a few aspects of medieval history (we all do, history books are written by whoever runs the schools), a little beyond the self congratulatory takes I experienced in European schools. I still remember vividly an Egyptian friend of mine that was dead sure Egypt won the Six Days War against Israel to mention one of the most obviously wrong things he believed.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#152

Post by econcon »

deathgrips wrote: post #35
keiferski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The destruction of Baghdad itself, including the House of Wisdom (large library), by the Mongols in 1258 is probably a more apt comparison. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)

What a tragedy. Most westerners don't realize that when Europeans were living in mud huts and emptying their chamber pots into the streets, the Muslim world had plumbing, water filtration, surgery, advanced mathematics, and many more amazing scientific advances which quickly spread throughout Muslim countries due to the cultural exchange at Mecca. I wonder what the world could have been like if the Mongols had never…

>the Muslim world had plumbing, water filtration, surgery, advanced mathematics, and many more amazing scientific advances

A lot of which came through Indian traders, first evidences of human surgeries are found in Indian subcontinent, Indus valley civilization had pretty advance irrigation system for the time and mathematics: quadratic equations, notion of zero, notion of limits and inifinty were here in philosophical sense even if no one every applied it in mathematics.

In the field of war strategy and material, like steel for sword - India was wayy ahead at its time. They knew about the steel temperament long before Europeans even started using steel for swords.

"During the 6th Century BCE, an Indian physician named Sushruta – widely regarded in India as the 'father of surgery' – wrote one of the world's earliest works on medicine and surgery"

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#153

Post by nemo »

Amezarak wrote: post #128
nemo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding of the region is not an accurate account. Not at all. There have been various sophisticated civilizations in the region, among them various Islamic states. The rises and falls of various sophisticated civilizations came about for a variety of reasons, most of which were prior to the Islamic world existing. The Islamic Golden Age brought Alexandria back from being a declining backwater with its scho…

Nobody is disputing the existence of the Islamic Golden Age. We are talking about the intermediate, bloody and chaotic period caused by the Muslim conquests that rapidly spread from the Arabian peninsula and overcame the Persian Empire and most of the Roman Empire. These empires didn’t go away for a “variety of reasons”, they went away because they were violently conquered by invading force in the name of religion. h…

>Nobody is disputing the existence of the Islamic Golden Age.

It's pretty clear we're not going to have a useful conversation, since I was specifically responding to this:

>When the Arab armies conquered North Africa, it was one of the richest and most developed areas in the Mediterranean. After the Arab conquest, it became a backwater and never achieved the prominence it had before.

>People were still writing those “important classical texts” you mention when they were killed and their texts burned.

You might want to check your dates here.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#154

Post by luckydata »

cortesoft wrote: post #150
luckydata wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehm, plumbing is a bad example since the Romans did that WAY ahead of the Muslim world. For that AND sidewalks, you're welcome. Thanks for the numbers, that was handy.

> you're welcome I am confused... are you an ancient Roman?

close, I'm Italian.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#155

Post by [deleted] »

ctdonath wrote: post #131

NYTimes: "In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Hobby Lobby accused the auction house Christie’s of “deceitful and fraudulent conduct” in connection with an ancient tablet bearing a fragment of Gilgamesh. The suit claims “fraud and breach of express and implied warrant” in connection with the tablet, and seeks the return of what it paid for the tablet. In a statement on Tuesday, Christie’s said the lawsuit was related to an…

[deleted]

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#156

Post by kapilvt »

luckydata wrote: post #146
ctdonath wrote: post #131

NYTimes: "In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Hobby Lobby accused the auction house Christie’s of “deceitful and fraudulent conduct” in connection with an ancient tablet bearing a fragment of Gilgamesh. The suit claims “fraud and breach of express and implied warrant” in connection with the tablet, and seeks the return of what it paid for the tablet. In a statement on Tuesday, Christie’s said the lawsuit was related to an…

gee, who would have thought that a super rare artifact well known for being in a specific museum in a specific country ravaged by war and all of a sudden showing up at auction would be stolen. They must have done a hell of a job with their due diligence.

compared to the 99% of the rest of museums in dc, which are publicly funded, the Bible museum was private and needed to show return on investment which was covid interuppted, especially after it just opened and took over newseum real estate (capital prime).

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#157

Post by brigandish »

nemo wrote: post #149
brigandish wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that "Golden Age" includes the destruction of Nalanda[1], then forgive me if I agree with the person you're replying to, it was an incredibly destructive empire that aggressively expanded and destroyed anything that deemed heretic. As such, it's not exceptional in either sense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda#Decline_and_destructio... Edit - As I can't reply to stuff like this (it deserved to die) but in…

Acknowledging that virtually every major civilization's Golden Age was accompanied by expansionist military imperialism and was destructive as well as creative is a fine position to take, but were you to take that position honestly then you wouldn't be singling out only one specific civilization to spit venom at. That's why you really are making a racist argument, even if your biases blind you to your racism. edit: "…

An utterly specious response.

1. I'm not singling out anything but the subject. If you want a different response to compare it with, pick a different subject.

2. It's not venomous, and even if it were, it's irrelevant to everything here (quite the feat). You're supposed to show prejudice, venom with reason and/or evidence is not prejudice.

3. Since a) my point was not about a race and b) the subject is not a race, then it's not a racist argument. Far from it.

4. Hence, I'm not a racist. Or maybe I am but you certainly can't ascertain it from your fatuous logic nor anything I've written here.

5. Also hence, and however, you are an apologist.

You need to up your game.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#158

Post by TigeriusKirk »

luckydata wrote: post #146
ctdonath wrote: post #131

NYTimes: "In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Hobby Lobby accused the auction house Christie’s of “deceitful and fraudulent conduct” in connection with an ancient tablet bearing a fragment of Gilgamesh. The suit claims “fraud and breach of express and implied warrant” in connection with the tablet, and seeks the return of what it paid for the tablet. In a statement on Tuesday, Christie’s said the lawsuit was related to an…

gee, who would have thought that a super rare artifact well known for being in a specific museum in a specific country ravaged by war and all of a sudden showing up at auction would be stolen. They must have done a hell of a job with their due diligence.

I mean, one of the top auction houses in the world assured them it had a spotless provenance.

HL is still culpable here, but Christie's absolutely is guilty too.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#159

Post by rtkwe »

rolph wrote: post #22
slg wrote: post #5

>"Whenever looted cultural property is found in this country, the United States government will do all it can to preserve heritage by returning such artifacts where they belong" So what is the definition of "looted" here? Museums are full of things that fit various definitions of that word.

i think looting relates to desired material or financial gain vs historical or cultural revelation niether of them would be immune to criticism but i think archeology has at least a foot to stand on

It gets tougher knowing how much archaeology during the colonial period was essentially just looting.

Re: Authorities say Hobby Lobby's Gilgamesh tablet is stolen, must go back to Iraq

#160

Post by foobar_ »

Cyph0n wrote: post #137
foobar_ wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a barbaric lie. It's akin to Christians taking credit for the Greco-Roman civilisation. Completely backwards. Persia / Babylon / Sumer was one of the first advanced civilisations. Arabs have contributed nothing to civilisation in terms of anything and are pretty much like the mongols for their role in history.

Speaking in absolutes like that without sources is a great approach... if you don’t want to be taken seriously, that is.

In which history book does it say that Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of civilisation and muslims had anything to do with it ?

The OP was talking about advanced muslim civilisations when he obviously meant Persia, who were Zoroastrians. I use the word Persia to mean Iran / Iraq / Syria / Turkey and parts of central asia who were fairly advanced in the past and some are still advanced to this day.

Muslims did not invent and make anything. Even the so called islamic golden age was a direct result of brain drain from Persia. Arab muslims and Persian muslims are wildly different. Iran has long maintained their pre-islamic language and culture. It was because of Iran's resistance to becoming Arab that any golden age was at all possible. This rivalry persists to this day in the islamic world as Saudi Arabia vs Iran vs Turkey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_Iran

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