Sunday, June 18, 2023

Italy returns stolen property to Iraq

Charlene Anne Rodrigues (BBC NEWS) reports:

A 2,800-year-old stone tablet has gone on display in Iraq after being returned by Italy following nearly four decades.

The artefact is inscribed with complete cuneiform text - a system of writing on clay in an ancient Babylonian alphabet.

Italian authorities handed it over to Iraq's President Abdul Latif Rashid in the city of Bologna last week.

It is not clear how the tablet was found - or how it made its way to Italy where it was seized by police in the 1980s.

Iraqi Culture Minister Ahmed Badrani said that it might have been found during archaeological excavations of the Mosul dam, which was built around that time.


ALMAYADEEN notes, "The Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations, to which humanity owes writing and the first cities, originated in the land of modern-day Iraq."

 



Suffer not Your neighbor's afflictionSuffer not Your neighbor's paralysisBut extend your hand Extend your handLest you vanish in the city And be but a traceJust a vanished ghost And your legacyAll the things you knew Science, mathematics, thoughtSeverely weakened Like irrigation systemsIn the tired veins forming From the Tigris and EuphratesIn the realm of peace All the world revolvedAll the world revolved Around a perfect circleCity of Baghdad City of scholarsEmpirical humble Center of the worldCity in ashes City of BaghdadCity of Baghdad Abrasive aloof
Oh, in Mesopotamia Aloofness ran deepDeep in the veins of the great riversThat form the base Of EdenAnd the tree The tree of knowledgeHeld up its arms To the skyAll the branches of knowledge All the branches of knowledgeCradling CradlingCivilization In the realm of peaceAll the world revolved Around a perfect circleOh Baghdad Center of the worldCity of ashes With its great mosquesErupting from the mouth of god Rising from the ashes likea speckled bird Splayed against the mosaic skyOh, clouds around We created the zeroBut we mean nothing to you You would believeThat we are just some mystical tale We are just a swollen bellyThat gave birth to Sinbad, Scheherazade We gave birthOh, oh, to the zero The perfect numberWe invented the zero And we mean nothing to youOur children run through the streetsAnd you sent your flames Your shooting starsShock and awe Shock and aweLike some, some Imagined warrior productionTwenty-first century No chivalry involvedNo Bushido
-- "Radio Baghdad" written by Patti Smith and Oliver Ray, first appears on Patti's TRAMPIN' 


Patti's touring overseas right now.  She returns for performances in the US in August (and September before going to Germany in October).

Of the nearly 3,000 year old stone tablet, AFP notes, "The tablet -- whose text is written in cuneiform, the Babylonian alphabet -- bears the insignia of Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian king who ruled the region of Nimrod, in present-day northern Iraq, from 858 to 823 BC."  




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