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The Newly Discovered Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh
- brianbreslin 11y agoSmart move to offer to buy the artifacts without fear of prosecution. They probably saved tons of items which otherwise would have been lost forever.
- GabrielF00 11y agoUnless people start looting artifacts because they know there will be a buyer who won't prosecute them.
- wavefunction 11y agoThe looting in question was an acute episode resulting from the US invasion of Iraq and the rapid disintegration of public institutions and order that followed.
- hugh4 11y agoThey would have wound up in the hands of rich collectors, where they'd probably be a lot safer than they are in Baghdad right now, a few hundred km from an army which would happily destroy all pre-Islamic artefacts. Especially this one, which is a story with other gods in it! Can't get much more unislamic than that... So yeah, as long as ISIS or any of its successors never takes Baghdad it's safe. I'd rather it were in some rich dude's house though.
- oofabz 11y agoIf they make it to a museum, then the information on the tablets becomes public and therefore very safe. Discovering and preserving the story is more important than the physical tablets.
- rdl 11y agoIf it stays here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulaymaniyah_Museum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulaymaniyah_Museum) it is probably safer from IS than basically anywhere else in the region. Baghdad is still relatively safe, but could be better. I could see them loaning it to the National Museum at some point, but only temporarily, and not for many years.
- melling 11y agoSpeaking of Gilgamesh, what happened to that Kickstarter movie based on Gilgamesh? It has been over 3 years. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-open-movie https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-ope...
- buovjaga 11y agoLatest related blog post is from this month: http://urchn.org/post/sun-and-sky-mini-tutorial http://urchn.org/post/sun-and-sky-mini-tutorial
- xerophyte12932 11y agoDon't know about that but the Fate Zero anime has Gilgamesh as a main character and is pretty good.
- infimum 11y agoI don't know enough about the epic of Gilgamesh but the Fate series tends to take a lot of freedoms with its interpretation of mythical figures, so it might not be accurate enough for some people.
- xerophyte12932 11y agoAh yes, depends on if you are seeking accuracy or amusement
- huskyr 11y agoI really don't want to be 'that' guy, but this article is pretty much unreadable due to the fact that there are six social media buttons hovering over the text. Madness. http://imgur.com/T4l8UQ4 http://imgur.com/T4l8UQ4
- mhartl 11y agoYeah, I hate that, too. Maximizing the window worked, though.
- reikonomusha 11y agoIt's not good but it's far from unreadable.
- mirimir 11y agoI don't see those, thanks to NoScript and Privacy Badger :)
- pwg 11y agoAnd yet, running NoScript, here is how it looks: http://postimg.org/image/i2blngyfv/ http://postimg.org/image/i2blngyfv/ No social media buttons hovering over the page at all.
- huskyr 11y agoI could do that. I'm just feeling pity for the 99.9% of internet users who don't know how to use NoScript / AdBlock / whatever.
- Houshalter 11y agoIf you have adblock plus, go here: https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/ https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/ and add "Fanboy's Annoyance List". That includes "Fanboy's Social Blocking List", which is also there. I have not seen social media buttons on the internet in a long time and it is incredible.
- riffraff 11y agoublock origin here, did not see them at all.
- fitzwatermellow 11y agoFor lovers of the ancient world, this sort of thing is more news worthy than a visit from Vatican City's Holiest. Sola lingua bona mortua est... huskyr above called out the use of ancient.eu's social buttons as being a distraction. But to be honest I've rarely seen a web or native digital library of ancient sources experience that was acceptable to non-scholastic audiences. Take a look at UCLA's CDLI - Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative: http://cdli.ucla.edu/ http://cdli.ucla.edu/ A search for "Gilgamesh" yields a trip back to an ancient page layout Endukugga himself might have been more comfortable browsing. I realize these are digital humanities projects funded with scarce grant resources. But I can't help thinking they would appeal to a much wider audience, that would be enriched tremendously by the wisdom of the ancients, if only presented in a more user-friendly manner.
- gilgoomesh 11y agoIt would be more news worthy if the news were newer. The tablet's discovery was announced in 2014. From the exact same website: http://www.ancient.eu/image/3061/ http://www.ancient.eu/image/3061/
- thaumasiotes 11y ago> Sola lingua bona mortua est... It's hard for me not to understand this as "the only good language [ever?] has died".
- masklinn 11y ago"The only good language is a dead language" as a callback to "the only good indian is a dead indian"?
- ableal 11y agoSheesh, people, masklinn is just quoting old "westerns" that used to be mainstream fifty years ago. And providing useful info. Calm down, please. (P.S. Nowadays all that is being remade with "zombies", probably because it's much easier to beat up on the dead. So far.)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]