Interesting article about the destruction of the antiquities and how upset the author is.
Just like the Nazis, they are trying to wipe out a civilisation
Tom Holland
PUBLISHED06/03/2015 | 02:30
OPEN GALLERY 1
Iraqi soldiers gather near their vehicles as smoke rises from burning oil wells in the Ajil field, east of the city of Tikrit. Photo: REUTERS/ Mahmoud Raouf
Last week, a video was released showing the destruction of antiquities in Mosul's museums. Since the antiquities themselves were probably smashed months ago, the dust in the display-rooms will long since have settled. Meanwhile, in the world beyond, the brutal and deliberate attack on treasures spanning millennia is already yesterday's news.
Isil, whose goons perpetrated the vandalism, appreciate more cynically than anyone that the world's media feeds on a rapid turnover of atrocities. One succeeds another in a murderous churn. Why, then, should the destruction of statues matter more than the loss of human life? It is a question that troubles me: for I must acknowledge, if I am honest, that no images from the hell that is the Islamic State have upset me more than those which showed a winged bull more than two-and-a-half thousand years old being deliberately and methodically power-drilled.
Why should anyone care that it was destroyed? An answer, perhaps, is to be found in a Christian legend reported of Assyria, an ancient kingdom that incorporated what is today Mosul and its surroundings.
In AD 362, the daughter of the Assyrian king, dying of an incurable illness, was restored to full health by the prayers of a local Christian saint. So impressed was her brother, Prince Behnam, by this miracle that he turned his back on his ancestral religion and accepted baptism. His martyrdom, though, swiftly followed; for Behnam's father, outraged by his apostasy, had him put to death.
When the king in turn fell sick, his wife had a dream which revealed that only his own baptism would serve to cure him. The king, bowing to the inevitable, not only agreed to become a Christian, but to found a number of monasteries.
Continue reading at:
Just like the Nazis they are trying to wipe out a civilisation - Independent.ie?
Just like the Nazis, they are trying to wipe out a civilisation
Tom Holland
PUBLISHED06/03/2015 | 02:30
Iraqi soldiers gather near their vehicles as smoke rises from burning oil wells in the Ajil field, east of the city of Tikrit. Photo: REUTERS/ Mahmoud Raouf
Last week, a video was released showing the destruction of antiquities in Mosul's museums. Since the antiquities themselves were probably smashed months ago, the dust in the display-rooms will long since have settled. Meanwhile, in the world beyond, the brutal and deliberate attack on treasures spanning millennia is already yesterday's news.
Isil, whose goons perpetrated the vandalism, appreciate more cynically than anyone that the world's media feeds on a rapid turnover of atrocities. One succeeds another in a murderous churn. Why, then, should the destruction of statues matter more than the loss of human life? It is a question that troubles me: for I must acknowledge, if I am honest, that no images from the hell that is the Islamic State have upset me more than those which showed a winged bull more than two-and-a-half thousand years old being deliberately and methodically power-drilled.
Why should anyone care that it was destroyed? An answer, perhaps, is to be found in a Christian legend reported of Assyria, an ancient kingdom that incorporated what is today Mosul and its surroundings.
In AD 362, the daughter of the Assyrian king, dying of an incurable illness, was restored to full health by the prayers of a local Christian saint. So impressed was her brother, Prince Behnam, by this miracle that he turned his back on his ancestral religion and accepted baptism. His martyrdom, though, swiftly followed; for Behnam's father, outraged by his apostasy, had him put to death.
When the king in turn fell sick, his wife had a dream which revealed that only his own baptism would serve to cure him. The king, bowing to the inevitable, not only agreed to become a Christian, but to found a number of monasteries.
Continue reading at:
Just like the Nazis they are trying to wipe out a civilisation - Independent.ie?