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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

#271

Post by deathgrips »

luckydata wrote: post #262
daseiner1 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually not close at all, if dude is really trying to be Mr. Ancient Rome, well, he’s likelier descended from the “savages” that sacked her than the ancient patricians who led her in glory

why "likelier"? We had invasions and racial mixing like everywhere else in the mediterranean, but that was happening during roman times too. I'm actually more of a cisalpine gaul than a roman myself, but the beauty of the empire was that it was multi cultural and multi racial. Said that, Italians absolutely look like romans, this is a small example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdUPYm06gVc Our language is also the…

>Our language is also the closest to the type of Latin romans spoke during the empire (which itself evolved).

Wrong. Modern Galician is the closest extant language to Latin, the next closest being Spanish.

Romans fought wars against Italians for centuries, who after being conquered were regarded as allies, then as citizens, but never as Romans. The French and Germans have just as much Roman in their blood as the Italians.

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

#272

Post by RandomBacon »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #234
deathgrips wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example is shutting down What.cd, which was a digital library that had an unbelievably large collection of music. Many titles couldn't be found anywhere except on What.cd.

License holders honestly can't be trusted with archiving or distributing their own works. So much music and movies is available in inferior or compromised formats if you go through the versions available on the market today from the license owners.

Annecdote: My dad collects plastic model kits. A major model kit company asked him if he could scan the lid of one of their products they made decades ago, so that they could have the artwork to re-release the same model.

I think LEGO Group is good about this; they have a vault containing a copy of every product they ever made.

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

#273

Post by deathgrips »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #183
deathgrips wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/wi…

>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.

I'll take whig historiography for $500, Alex.

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

#274

Post by esyir »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #176
oh_sigh wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Christie's frequently traffic in stolen goods? Is it possible that groups sometimes just defer to Christie's judgement when determining if something can legally be bought and sold or not?

They probably deal in stolen goods somewhat frequently, but even if you could trust whether the sale was legal Hobby Lobby needed to ensure the import was legal.

Would the onus then be on the amazon consumer to verify that their purchase wasn't counterfeit

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

#275

Post by officemonkey »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #231
officemonkey wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of the marbles from the Parthenon survive in the Acropolis Museum. In other words, the Greeks know what they're doing. The Elgin Marbles were taken when the country was owned by the Ottoman Empire. I really wish you would do some research before spouting off with ill-informed opinions. The Nazis and Italians conquered Greece during WW2, they didn't take Acropolis marbles.

That's some sort of anomaly. They took everything else, and murdered half a million civilians. I guess the remaining marbles were in locations too difficult to easily loot? Or too weighty. Anyway, Elgin 'rescued' the marbles after a period of particularly egregious destruction of Greek history. Much was lost, blown up or deliberately demolished. If the Greeks didn't give a damn, why should Elgin be blamed for caring?

The Ottomans controlled Greece during that time. I don't think it was the Greeks that didn't give a damn.

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

#276

Post by boomboomsubban »

esyir wrote: post #274
boomboomsubban wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably deal in stolen goods somewhat frequently, but even if you could trust whether the sale was legal Hobby Lobby needed to ensure the import was legal.

Would the onus then be on the amazon consumer to verify that their purchase wasn't counterfeit

If you are buying something from another country, you are responsible for ensuring it is legal to ship into your country. A seller doesn't need to know every countries laws.

That said, knowingly buying counterfeits is illegal. If you have good reason to suspect it's counterfeit before buying, you could be charged.

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

#277

Post by JoeAltmaier »

officemonkey wrote: post #275
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's some sort of anomaly. They took everything else, and murdered half a million civilians. I guess the remaining marbles were in locations too difficult to easily loot? Or too weighty. Anyway, Elgin 'rescued' the marbles after a period of particularly egregious destruction of Greek history. Much was lost, blown up or deliberately demolished. If the Greeks didn't give a damn, why should Elgin be blamed for caring?

The Ottomans controlled Greece during that time. I don't think it was the Greeks that didn't give a damn.

And who controls Greece now?

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

#278

Post by nemo »

harimau777 wrote: post #242
nemo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth thinking through the question of whether Iraq or Syria would not be entitled to see stolen property returned due to destabilization. Right now the possessor of the stolen property is an American who also has trafficked in a number of items which were looted in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq (this particular tablet was stolen earlier). Art theft is a real issue in the US and Europe. If an art thie…

For sake of argument, I think that the difference may be that if an artifact is stolen can be recovered. It may even continue to be available to researchers and the general public if it is stollen to be placed in a museum. It is a much different scenario if an artifact is destroyed either intentionally or unintentionally.

>It is a much different scenario if an artifact is destroyed either intentionally or unintentionally.

I'd forgotten to respond to this earlier but it's been bugging me, so I'd like to note that a significant amount stolen art is never recovered. In some cases prominent and expensive artworks have been destroyed by the thieves when they couldn't move the art in an attempt to destroy the evidence. Stolen art is sometimes destroyed either intentionally or unintentionally.

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

#279

Post by lopmotr »

daseiner1 wrote: post #258
lopmotr wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something 1000s of years old hardly belongs to any particular modern country. Perhaps if whoever is looking after it can't protect it from theft, they don't deserve to be looking after it and it's better that it got stolen. If an entire country is too weak to protect artifacts, then they should be given to somewhere that has that capability. Who would want to return artifacts to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan just be…

so you feel the same about the elgin marbles, presumably? because i absolutely adored seeing them at the British Museum, but it sorta feels to me like they ought to be returned to Athens

I don't know what they are but if they were stolen, then obviously it was unable to protect them at that time. No, I don't think ancient Greek artifacts belong to modern Greek people or the modern Greece country. Perhaps they could just as well belong to the EU and be kept in any EU country. Who decides what political entities are the true heirs?

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

#280

Post by dntbnmpls »

deathgrips wrote: post #273
dntbnmpls wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/wi…

>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. I'll take whig historiography for $500, Alex.

No. Just geopolitical, economic, historical facts. Meaning, what actually happened. Sorry if it doesn't mesh with your "mud huts" worldview and agenda.
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