Democracy does not need archeology

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Patroklos
I demand the entire continent of Europe be declared an off limits area. Every field tilled, every road built, every footfall landed is destorying something historic.

Actually, over here (in France at least) , whenever we have to dig something for a new building, an archeological team comes first to see if there is buried historical material to salvage.

[Hueij]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Actually, over here (in France at least) , whenever we have to dig something for a new building, an archeological team comes first to see if there is buried historical material to salvage.

Here too

[chequita guevara]

Patroklos gets PIZZOWNED!

[Hueij]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Patroklos gets PIZZOWNED!

That's not something to be proud of, I mean, how difficult can it be...

[DAVOUT]

It is obvious that a 220 years old nation has not yet met the concept of history. We cannot exclude that in 1000 years the US will show some respect for archeological material.

[ahasverus]

The reason for that is that in the beginning of the 90's EU made the Malta-tractate that says that members has to protect their cultural inheritage including unearthed ones, but sadly the eastern european countries has bulldozed away many remains before they became a member.
We can only hope the EU will force them to ratify this tractate.

In Denmark it work like this; If one want to build something they can choose to have it checked by the local museum on the contractors bill. If one choose not to do that, they still have to report if anything gets unearthed and we can stop the construction for up to a year still on the contractors bill.

The "we" is good enough roughly. I'm on my way to become a archeologist

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Actually, over here (in France at least) , whenever we have to dig something for a new building, an archeological team comes first to see if there is buried historical material to salvage.

here too. particularly during the contruction of the metro in athens.... madness.... countless relics discovered. countless times the works stopping. every one who wants to build a house dreads what will happen if he digs... because the archeologists have the power to make him stop and declare the property under protection if something is found. and if it is something removable then maybe ok. if not....

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
It is obvious that a 220 years old nation has not yet met the concept of history.

It's not the lack of age that's a problem. After all, some parts of the U.S. have been settled by Europeans for oever 500 years. We've got history up the yin-yang, and some of it is still causing problems for us today (The Mexican-American War, the Civil War, Slavery, the Great Awakening, the Indian Wars, etc). The problem is our corporate-marketing-tv culture, which is exceedingly anti-intellectual, and thus anti historical.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sikander
Did anyone else see that documentary on PBS about the looting of the Iraqi National Museum? It seemed to indicate that much of the looting, and most of the most valuable losses there happened before the U.S. got to Baghdad.

No there wasn't a break down in law and order until after the US arrived in Baghdad and the statue got torn down. Then everyone realized Saddam was done for and the looting started. The real problem was Rumsfield slashing the number of troops in the invasion plan so that there just wasn't enough troops to control everything.

Still, most of the valuable stuff was stashed away by the museum employees in other buildings so the greatest teasures at least were saved.

[DerSchwarzfalke]

Most of the useful archaeology in America has very little to do with the European settlement and much more to do with the indigenous folks and their civilizations here. Way to ignore 10,000 years of settled life in North America, chegitz.

To the point of the article, the only "blame" that can be assigned is if the US is not working effectively with Iraq to recover these artefacts. The looting of the museums was something that was clearly in the works in the months leading up to the US invasion, because whoever was planning it knew there would be a power vacuum of at least a day in which they could take everything they wanted.

As for Babylon, something tells me what the US tanks were destroying by basing themselves there was the Saddam Hussain reconstruction. Much of Babylon's remaining artefacts and edifices were undermined when Hussain in a fit of vainglory rebuilt the city "as it would have been in Nebuchadnezzar's time" and had it rededicated to himself. Shame, really.

[Dinner]

Babylon sucked. It was a nasty concrete Disney land type theme park that had zero historical realism and didn't even try to recreate real history. That concrete monstrocity was built right on many of the ruins sights in Babylon too.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by ahasverus

The "we" is good enough roughly. I'm on my way to become a archeologist

Me too . Should be graduating next year harhar...

Belgium has ratified the Malta agreement, but unfortunately due to a lack of funds and because of other much deeper problems it isn't applied properly. We still lose a lot of valuable archaeological material everyday. sucks.

The annyoing thing in Iraq is that the US troops bombed the ancient sites to smithereens. Especially in Gulf War I a lot of stuff got wasted
I know it's not a priority for the Americans, but do know that for a country like Iraq this is one of the most important things in the country. The place were urban life started, and a place that has been one of the most densely populated regions in the world for thousands and thousands of years!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The problem is our corporate-marketing-tv culture, which is exceedingly anti-intellectual, and thus anti historical.

Unfortunately, this "culture" has been spreading.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Trajanus

I know it's not a priority for the Americans, but do know that for a country like Iraq this is one of the most important things in the country.

Which is why the Iraqis are looting it.