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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

#181

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #145
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda like when you buy a used car at auction, but it turns out it was stolen.

Except the auction house is next door to a well known car thief's garage, the news is full of stories about a string of car thefts, and someone tells you those cars are probably stolen making it crime to buy.

Do you want to take a wager of how many times Christie’s is wrong regarding provenance for multimillion dollar historical items?

Not bad for hobby lobby, damned if they do and dammed if they don’t.

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

#182

Post by boomboomsubban »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #181
boomboomsubban wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the auction house is next door to a well known car thief's garage, the news is full of stories about a string of car thefts, and someone tells you those cars are probably stolen making it crime to buy.

Do you want to take a wager of how many times Christie’s is wrong regarding provenance for multimillion dollar historical items? Not bad for hobby lobby, damned if they do and dammed if they don’t.

>Do you want to take a wager of how many times Christie’s is wrong regarding provenance for multimillion dollar historical items?

Do you want to explain why they also purchased artifacts from private dealers in the United Arabs Emirate? Or how Christie's is responsible for their illegal import of the Gilgamesh Tablet?

>Not bad for hobby lobby, damned if they do and dammed if they don’t.

I assume that is why they already accepted their guilt and paid a three million dollar fine.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/05/hobby-lobby-fine-i...

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

#183

Post by dntbnmpls »

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…

> Most westerners don't realize that when Europeans were living in mud huts

Mud huts? Rome was composed of mud hut? The tallest building in the world for almost the entire 2nd millenia was in england. Not exactly "mud huts".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St_Paul%27s_Cathedral

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

https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-tallest-buildin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world%27s_talle...

I think you are overselling the muslim world and underselling europe a bit.

> 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.

Much of it brought to the muslim world by the roman empire and the greeks. Or from the indians/chinese/etc in the east. Of course there were muslim contributions but lets not get too carried away here.

> I wonder what the world could have been like if the Mongols had never destroyed so much civilization and progress.

The world would be exactly the way it was in the 1200s without the mongols. The muslim world had stagnated by the time the mongols came around. After all the arabic islamic golden age started in the 700s. The mongols destroy arabic islamic civilization but they helped create the turkic islamic civilization of the ottoman empire not to mention the persian centered khanates which went on to create mughal india. Without the mongols, we don't have the italian renaissance and modern europe and without modern europe we don't have modern civilization. The empire created by the mongols is why marco polo went east. It's also why christopher columbus set sail. Without the mongols, we don't have the new world.

No doubt, the arab world suffered and lost out, but the world advanced immensely due to the mongols. The mongol empire was the first truly "global" empire. It helped europe bypass the muslim world and trade directly with india, china, etc.

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

#184

Post by Larrikin »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #181
boomboomsubban wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the auction house is next door to a well known car thief's garage, the news is full of stories about a string of car thefts, and someone tells you those cars are probably stolen making it crime to buy.

Do you want to take a wager of how many times Christie’s is wrong regarding provenance for multimillion dollar historical items? Not bad for hobby lobby, damned if they do and dammed if they don’t.

What's the end game of shilling for hobby lobby? Flagging negative news of various governments I get like 共匪, huge corporations do it far less, but hobby lobby seems like such a weird company to engage in astroturfing. They played a minor role in past administrations but they seem like even smaller potatoes lately.

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

#186

Post by keiferski »

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…

Was this incendiary comment really necessary?

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

#187

Post by Cyph0n »

foobar_ wrote: post #160
Cyph0n wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inve…

> Muslims did not invent and make anything.

Again with the absolutes, and again, no sources. You must be a great debater!

I am not going to waste my time here ;)

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

#188

Post by boomboomsubban »

abiogenesis wrote: post #139

I'm amazed that "[...] fragment of the oldest known creation tale" is only worth $1.6 million. What is even more amazing is its (recent) history: > The U.S. dealer bought several pieces, including the Gilgamesh tablet, for $50,350.

Every time that the fragment was sold their were at least concerns that it was stolen, which likely drove down the price.

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

#189

Post by serf »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #64
enitihas wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "hungry" looters getting food by selling them is a much better outcome then the rich "gentleman" taking pleasure by seeing them in a museum. Just because one won the genetic lottery by being born in a richer nation doesn't mean their entertainment has more value than the food of "hungry" looters, who too are human beings.

So its ok if local thieves and looters take the treasures with no thought of their preservation or provenance? But a methodical effort of record-keeping and analysis is wrong, simply because of the thieves nationality? That's what I mean by 'PC'. One results in the loss forever of the treasure; the other at least preserves them. One is 'better' than the other, only from a comfortable armchair far from the turmoil.

>One results in the loss forever of the treasure; the other at least preserves them.

you paint an unfair picture.

you fail to mention that, in the case of this argument at least, preserving the artifact by means of foreign intervention may very well result in the starvation of the would-be local thieves.

many would argue that the loss of any human life is greater than the loss of all the world's artifacts.

It isn't really that unfounded a concept.

A well studied and documented artifact has only a specific amount of practical importance, aside from some sort of cultural significance. A human life has an unknown future, be it good or evil -- and unlimited (human) possibility if given the opportunities.

It's a fairly simple value proposition when simplified unreasonably this way : "Do you let another human die for the sake of storing an already studied artifact in a location where the object is safer?"

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

#190

Post by TomMarius »

luckydata wrote: post #151
Amezarak wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 schoo…

Similar as with Russians.
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