Large
traces of Iraqi, world history wiped out.
K
S Dakshina Murthy
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When
mobs in Baghdad entered the Iraqi national museum and destroyed
the artifacts, little did they know that they were wiping out
large traces of history. Not
just of Iraq, but that of the entire world.
So, when the museum deputy director Nabhal Amin openly wailed and cried
in anguish it was perfectly understandable.
She picked up the broken pieces of the artifacts, her
helplessness on display for the entire world to see. "They
have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity dating back
thousands of years...They were worth billions of dollars,"
she said, sobbing.
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Iraqi
looters ride on the top
of a car with stolen goods
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The museum grounds were full of smashed doors, windows and littered with
office paperwork and books.
Twenty eight galleries of the museum and vaults
with thick steel doors were ransacked through Thursday and
Friday with almost no intervention by the US troops.
A 4000-year-old copper visage of an Akkadian king, golden
bowls, colossal statues and ancient manuscripts were all looted
and destroyed.
The museum housed items from ancient Babylon and Nineveh, Sumerian
statues, Assyrian reliefs and 5,000-year-old tablets bearing some
of the earliest known writing. There were also gold and
silver helmets and cups from the Ur cemetery.
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Iraq, a cradle of civilisation long before the empires of Egypt, Greece or
Rome, was home to dynasties that created agriculture and writing and built
the cities of Nineveh, Nimrud and Babylon -- site of Nebuchadnezzar's
Hanging Gardens.
On the eve of the invasion in March,
archaeologists around the world had warned the US government it had
a responsibility to ensure the safety of Iraq’s heritage,
of the remnants of the Mesopotamian civilization.
To no avail.
The museum deputy director blamed the US troops for failing to heed
appeals from museum staff to protect it from looters. "The Americans
were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one tank and two
soldiers nothing like this would have happened," she said. "I
hold the American troops responsible for what happened to this
museum."
The plundering was ruthless. "We
know people are hungry but what are they going to do with these
antiquities," said Muhsen Kadhim, a museum guard for the last 30
years but who said he was overwhelmed by the number of looters. "As
soon as I saw the American troops near the museum, I asked them to protect
it but the second day looters came and robbed or destroyed all the
antiquities," he said.
According to archaeologists, a full accounting of what has been lost may
take weeks or months. The
only hope now is that at least some of the
museum's priceless gold, silver and copper antiquities,
ancient stone and ceramics, and perhaps some of its fabled bronzes
and gold-overlaid
ivory had been locked away for safekeeping elsewhere before the looting.
During the first Gulf war in 1991, nine
of Iraq's 13 regional museums were plundered. Fortunately, the
Baghdad museum was spared because the war did not replace the government
and policing of the city was not disrupted. The museum incidentally,
had been closed during much of the 1990s, and had been reopened
only in April 2000.
The museum’s deputy director has now asked the guards to keep guns and
protect whatever remains -- a
case of “too little too
late” ?
--- Al Jazeera with agency inputs
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Deep sea monster squid found
Thursday,
April 3, 2003 Posted: 2026 GMT ( 4:26 AM HKT)
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) -- A rare and
dangerous squid with eyes the size of dinner plates and scores of
razor-sharp hooks to snag its prey has been caught by fishermen off
Antarctica, New Zealand scientists said on Thursday.
The half-grown female colossal squid is only the second intact example
of the monster cephalopod known to have been found, said marine biologist
Steve O'Shea of New Zealand's national museum.
"I've seen 105 giant squid, but seeing something like this is
pretty sensational," O'Shea told Reuters.
A trawler caught the 150 kg, 330-pound squid in the sub-Antarctic Ross
Sea about 3540 kilometers (2,200 miles) south of Wellington.
The squid was eating Patagonian Toothfish, which grow to two meters in
length, when it was caught. It was dead when it was hauled into the
trawler and the remains are now in the New Zealand national museum.
The body of the colossal squid is much bigger than the giant squid,
which can weigh up to 900 kg, 2,000 pounds when fully grown. A giant
squid's tentacles can be up to 13 meters long, compared with five meters
on the recovered creature.
Comparisons are difficult because of the colossal squid's hostile
environment and rarity. Five of the six previous discoveries have only
been pieces inside sperm whale stomachs.
More dangerous
American marine biologist Kat Bolstad said the colossal squid was a
more dangerous animal than the giant squid, the mythical monster of the
deep that attacked Captain Nemo's Nautilus in Jules Verne's "Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."
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fell in the water next to it you would be in big trouble," said
Bolstad.
The colossal squid finds food by literally glowing in the dark,
deep waters to light up prey for its massive eyes -- the biggest of
any animal.
But it is the colossal squid's weaponry that marks it out from
its giant cousin.
Its eight arms and two tentacles have up to 25 teeth-like hooks
-- deeply rooted into muscle and able to rotate 360 degrees -- as
well as the usual suckers to ensure fish do not escape.
The hooks not only hold fish for the squid's two parrot-like
beaks, but also are used to fend off attacks from hungry sperm
whales, O'Shea said.
The species, whose scientific name is mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni,
was previously thought to have lurked at least 800 meters down in
the freezing waters near Antarctica, but the specimen found a
fortnight ago was near the surface.
O'Shea said the discovery raised questions about what else was
down deep in the ocean.
"We know so little about the marine environment in general.
If animals like this are turning up, what's going to be at
3,000-meters (10,000-foot) depth. We don't know," O'Shea said.
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Back to the Pagan Woods
Increasing numbers are turning their backs on traditional faiths to dance
in the forest and roll in the morning dew.
By Ruslan Gagua in Pinsk, South Belarus (BRS No. 11, 03-Apr-03)
Mermaids, house-elves and werewolves may be the stuff of fantasy for many
people, but for some Belarusians, they are vibrant and real, there to be
worshipped and revered by those who reach out to them through paganism.
"Amazing creatures live right next to us; we've simply lost touch
with them because we destroy nature like barbarians. But if we change our
attitude, we'll be able to talk to the mermaids and wood-goblins
again," said Tatiana Kormanovich, a student from the southern Belarus
town of Pinsk.
Kormanvich is one of many Belarusians who have turned their backs on the
country's traditional faiths to practice pre-Christian rituals.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused great insecurity in many
people, and many turned to religion for comfort and stability.
But today, increasing numbers of Belarusians are choosing an older, more
arcane faith.
"Paganism encompasses all the wisdom of our ancestors, and it gives
answers to all life's questions. With its help, I know how to live in
harmony with people and nature," worker Aleksei Nozdrin told IWPR.
Pagan communities now exist in many Belarusian cities, but it is difficult
to gauge their number as the majority are not officially registered.
However, cultural scientist Zoya Shumko believes several thousand people
are practising the faith.
And many who consider themselves to be Christians participate in a number
of traditionally pagan holidays such as Pancake Week - which celebrates
the beginning of spring - without attaching any spiritual significance to
them.
All across the country, people bake pancakes on outdoor fires, and hold
festivals, folklore fairs and even traditional fist-fight competitions,
before an ancient ceremony known as the "call of spring", when
young people sing songs and burn a straw scarecrow to symbolise the
passing of winter.
Another pagan holiday widely celebrated in Belarus is Kupalle. On the
night of June 6, bonfires burn brightly in the fields, and laughter and
old songs are heard as young couples and older villagers jump through the
fires and dance round a burning wheel raised on a pole, which symbolises
the greatest of all pagan gods, the sun.
Legends surrounding Kupalle include eternal happiness or great wealth
being bestowed on the one who finds the mystical fern flower blossom,
while young girls will cast wreaths into rivers to foretell their future.
Rolling in the morning dew is also popular and is believed to have a
number of health and beauty benefits.
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Kupalle is such a popular occasion that eventually it has been made an
official national holiday. But for pagans, such celebrations and rituals
are more than fun; they are sacred occasions where other ancient rituals
can be practised.
Werewolfing, or transformation, is one such rite. It aims to allow the
spirit of an animal - most often a wolf or a bear - to enter the heart and
bestow great strength.
Performed during a full moon, the ritual takes place in a clearing with a
wood-stump nearby. The pagan plunges a knife into the stump, invokes the
ancient god Perun (roughly equivalent to the Greek god Zeus) and fire and
sun god Svaroga, and spins around the clearing as fast as possible, until
an invocation springs to his lips.
The secret words are spoken, the pagan jumps over the tree stump, and a
deep silence falls over the forest. "This is torn by an inhuman roar,
and it can seem that for a moment the man really has turned into a
beast," said one Pinsk pagan who has undergone the transformation.
The popularity of such rituals can be traced to a growing interest in
Belarusian heritage and identity following its declaration of independence
in 1991, according to neo-pagan leader Sergei Volkov.
Today, paganism is also seen as a means of resisting the influence of
Russia and its orthodox church, which some Belarusians consider an alien
influence.
"Paganism is a religion of strong people who are willing to give life
for their motherland. But the Russian Orthodox Church is like a
prostitute: it sells itself and its believers to whoever pays the
most," worker Yuri Bokhan from Pinsk told IWPR.
Understandably, the increase in paganism's popularity has caused concern
within the Orthodox Church.
"Paganism is very dangerous," Father Vasiliy, an Orthodox priest
from Pinsk, told IWPR. "People are destroying themselves with this
fad; they don't realise they are falling prey to the devil.
"Belarus's fate is linked to orthodoxy - the people, the government
and the president admit that. Paganism has no place in Belarus."
However, some Belarusians simply dismiss paganism as an anachronism. Yury
Gumenyuk, a poet from Grodno, says that it is "exoticism and youthful
romanticism, which shouldn't be taken seriously these days".
Yet the popularity of pagan holidays and communities seems to suggest that
the faith has deeper and stronger roots than many may suspect. "It is
an integral part of the mentality of contemporary Belarusians, and is
practised regularly, albeit subconsciously, every day," said Vitaly
Evtukhovich, a teacher at the Pinsk industrial-pedagogical college.
Ruslan Gagua is a history teacher and freelance journalist in Pinsk |
