Wow, this is really exciting. Archaeologists uncovered a newly discovered Babylonian town. On one hand it’s not surprising–there are many more to be found including, astoundingly, the capitol city of the Akkadian empire, Agade.
However, here comes the sad part:
He added that his team has come across several cuneiform tablets but “there is no one to read the ancient writing because Iraqi experts with the knowledge to decipher Mesopotamian script have fled the country.â€
This is a terrible shame, however, I’ll volunteer to read some of them! Let’s pray that the site doesn’t get destroyed by looters.
This is the second time I’ve read this kind of comment from a public source like a newspaper. I’m beginning to wonder if it is intended to shame Assyriologists who’ve left Iraq. In any case, hi-res photos or delivery of the tablets to a safe site by a trusted courier service (dare I say send them out on a flight from the Green Zone?) could solve the archaeologists’ problems. I’d bet that Assyriologists would be willing to go to Damascus or Aleppo to look at the tablets.
Assyriologists (and many other scholars) have left Iraq because they risk being taken out back and shot. Maybe such comments are designed to shame them, but I certainly didn’t read it that way. I read it as a statement of tragedy. This isn’t a scholarly issue as much as it is a human rights issue. Not unlike Jewish scholars who fled Europe in the 1930s.
You’re absolutely correct, Angela. If the reports are accurate (if anything, they’re probably incomplete), the situation in Iraq is awful. If I were in Iraq, I would do whatever I could to get me and my family out.
My comment was cynical, probably too cynical. But I am amazed that archaeologists are still digging. They might be asking themselves, Why can’t others stick it out?
I also think it’s amazing that they are still digging–those archaeologists put Indiana Jones to shame. If it were it were me, I’d be getting out of Iraq ASAP and I wouldn’t feel guilty either. People trying to cut my head off because I’m a scholar, no thanks.
I’m with Charles. I don’t think I’d be “sticking it out” either. Perhaps there is a way to turn cyncicism into assistance. HUC aided Jewish scholars escaping from Europe. They saved any number of individuals whose contributions to scholarship made them household names—think of the loss otherwise. Sometimes I wonder what I can do. But I have no institutional affiliation and not much power (so it seems) alone from my tiny study. I haven’t yet put much effort into what can be done, and probably is being done by some, and how any of us could aid those efforts.