The Rape of Mesopotamia

The Rape of Mesopotamia PDF Author: Lawrence Rothfield
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226729435
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
On April 10, 2003, as the world watched a statue of Saddam Hussein come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, a mob of looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15,000 artifacts—some of the oldest evidence of human culture—disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. In the five years since that day, the losses have only mounted, with gangs digging up roughly half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated; the loss to our shared human heritage is incalculable. With The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield answers the complicated question of how this wholesale thievery was allowed to occur. Drawing on extensive interviews with soldiers, bureaucrats, war planners, archaeologists, and collectors, Rothfield reconstructs the planning failures—originating at the highest levels of the U.S. government—that led to the invading forces’ utter indifference to the protection of Iraq’s cultural heritage from looters. Widespread incompetence and miscommunication on the part of the Pentagon, unchecked by the disappointingly weak advocacy efforts of worldwide preservation advocates, enabled a tragedy that continues even today, despite widespread public outrage. Bringing his story up to the present, Rothfield argues forcefully that the international community has yet to learn the lessons of Iraq—and that what happened there is liable to be repeated in future conflicts. A powerful, infuriating chronicle of the disastrous conjunction of military adventure and cultural destruction, The Rape of Mesopotamia is essential reading for all concerned with the future of our past.

The Rape of Mesopotamia

The Rape of Mesopotamia PDF Author: Lawrence Rothfield
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226729435
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Get Book

Book Description
On April 10, 2003, as the world watched a statue of Saddam Hussein come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, a mob of looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15,000 artifacts—some of the oldest evidence of human culture—disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. In the five years since that day, the losses have only mounted, with gangs digging up roughly half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated; the loss to our shared human heritage is incalculable. With The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield answers the complicated question of how this wholesale thievery was allowed to occur. Drawing on extensive interviews with soldiers, bureaucrats, war planners, archaeologists, and collectors, Rothfield reconstructs the planning failures—originating at the highest levels of the U.S. government—that led to the invading forces’ utter indifference to the protection of Iraq’s cultural heritage from looters. Widespread incompetence and miscommunication on the part of the Pentagon, unchecked by the disappointingly weak advocacy efforts of worldwide preservation advocates, enabled a tragedy that continues even today, despite widespread public outrage. Bringing his story up to the present, Rothfield argues forcefully that the international community has yet to learn the lessons of Iraq—and that what happened there is liable to be repeated in future conflicts. A powerful, infuriating chronicle of the disastrous conjunction of military adventure and cultural destruction, The Rape of Mesopotamia is essential reading for all concerned with the future of our past.

Famous Rapes

Famous Rapes PDF Author: Andrea Baker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781621342250
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
It is a simple truth that throughout history, certain rapes have become "famous." Old Master painters depicted sexual violence again and again, generally representing it as the transcendent work of heroes. Traditional Catholic stories teach that it is better to die during an attempted rape than it is to survive a completed one.In19th- and 20th-century America, notorious fear about the sexuality of black men wreaked havoc. From the days of Reconstruction through to the Central Park Jogger, wild accusations justified the literal and metaphoric lynching of men perceived as threats to white power. Meanwhile, a revolution did take place. Conversations became public. Laws changed. In 1974 it was legal in all fifty states to rape one's wife. By 1980, when a CBS movie of the week dramatized the first case of marital rape to come to trial, the depiction of events was told from the woman's point of view--she was the hero. By 1993, marital rape was illegal in all fifty states. Still, sexual assaults occurring in prisons remain comic fodder, and when our athletes rape, we remain unclear about whether a crime has been committed. Andrea Baker's project is to reflect on the history of how rape has been depicted.She draws images of sexual assault from both art history and contemporary visual culture, remaking them as spare white paper cutouts against a paper-packing-tape background. The swath of time from Mesopotamia to the present day is flattened and rolled out in unflinching continuity. As difficult as the material is, we do see progress within a history that is not always as distant we might prefer, and Baker is insistent that we celebrate our accomplishments, even as we continue to evolve.

Against Our Will

Against Our Will PDF Author: Susan Brownmiller
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480441953
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 767

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Book Description
DIVDIVSusan Brownmiller’s groundbreaking bestseller uncovers the culture of violence against women with a devastating exploration of the history of rape—now with a new preface by the author exposing the undercurrents of rape still present today/divDIV Rape, as author Susan Brownmiller proves in her startling and important book, is not about sex but about power, fear, and subjugation. For thousands of years, it has been viewed as an acceptable “spoil of war,” used as a weapon by invading armies to crush the will of the conquered. The act of rape against women has long been cloaked in lies and false justifications./divDIV It is ignored, tolerated, even encouraged by governments and military leaders, misunderstood by police and security organizations, freely employed by domineering husbands and lovers, downplayed by medical and legal professionals more inclined to “blame the victim,” and, perhaps most shockingly, accepted in supposedly civilized societies worldwide, including the United States./divDIV Against Our Will is a classic work that has been widely credited with changing prevailing attitudes about violence against women by awakening the public to the true and continuing tragedy of rape around the globe and throughout the ages./divDIV Selected by the New York Times Book Review as an Outstanding Book of the Year and included among the New York Public Library’s Books of the Century, Against Our Will remains an essential work of sociological and historical importance./divDIV/div/div

Return to Babylon

Return to Babylon PDF Author: Brian M. Fagan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Tells the story of archaeological travel and excavation in Iraq -- then Mesopotamia -- from the time of the great Arab geographers to the 2003 devastation of the Iraq National Museum. Fagan tells of Henry Rawlinson, Jules Oppert, and Edward Hincks, decipherers of cuneiform; Claudius and Mary Rich, observers of Nineveh and Babylon; and Émile Botta and Austen Henry Layard, who revealed the Assyrian civilisation to an astonished world. Here, also, are men like Hormuzd Rassam, whose illegal digging and plundering horrified local officials, and Wallis Budge, consummate smuggler of cuneiform tablets. Fagan also recounts the careers of the multi-talented administrator Gertrude Bell, a primary influence in the creation of the nation of Iraq, and of Leonard Woolley, renowned for his excavation of Sumerian civilisation at Ur. Bringing this remarkable history up to date, Fagan chronicles the development of scientific archaeology in Mesopotamia, the growing Iraqi involvement in archaeology, and the tragic events of recent years that led to the looting of the Iraq National Museum and many archaeological sites.

Greek Myths and Mesopotamia

Greek Myths and Mesopotamia PDF Author: Charles Penglase
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134729294
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The Mesopotamian influence on Greek mythology in literary works of the epic period is considerable - yet it is a largely unexplored field. In this book Charles Penglase investigates major Mesopotamian and Greek myths. His examination concentrates on journey myths. A major breakthrough is achieved in the recognition of the extent of Mesopotamian influence and in the understanding of the colourful myths involved. The results are of significant interest, especially to scholars and students of ancient Greek and Near Eastern religion and mythology.

Broken Timelines - Book 2: Mesopotamia

Broken Timelines - Book 2: Mesopotamia PDF Author: Jack Stornoway
Publisher: Digital Ink Productions
ISBN: 1999092325
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
The current conventional Mesopotamian timeline of dynastic Mesopotamia is impossible. Believing in it means endorsing the idea the Egyptians lagged thousand years behind the Sumerians technologically during the Middle Kingdom. This timeline forces the bronze age Harappan civilization to have existed as recently as 1200 BC, even as an iron age civilization had existed on the Ganges since at least 1800 BC. It is also not what the ancient Sumerians actually recorded, so believing it means believing that modern Assyriologists know more about ancient Sumer than the ancient Sumerians themselves. Given that the ancient Sumerians lived through it, and all Assyriologists have to go on is random bits of clay-tablets and mostly ruined city-mounds, this seems like an incredible stretch of the imagination. The fact is Assyriologists cant' and don't need to explain the anachronisms, because the Mesopotamian timeline is synchronized with the Egyptian timeline, which Egyptologists insist on keeping as short as possible. The idea that the ancient Sumerians built their earliest cities in the marshlands of Southern Iraq using stone imported from other countries is entirely illogical, they would have simply built them using mud-bricks as they did in the later periods. As the stone had to have been locally quarried, the region could not have been a marshland when the earliest cities built, meaning that the oldest levels of Uruk and Eridu must date back to before the region began turning into a marshland circa 9,000 years ago. The fact that they switched to using mud-bricks simply proves that the water-levels rose during the course of Sumerian history, flooding their farmlands, and ultimately forcing the Mesopotamian cultures to migrate northward to Akkadia, Babylonia, and Assyria. The fact that Assyriologists ignore the ancient Sumerian records of the antediluvian era is probably for the best, as they cannot even accept that the 1st Kish Dynasty went back to 25,000 BC, even though it has been proven that grains was being farmed in the region at that time. Unfortunately, the timeline of Egypt and Sumer are the two pillars that ancient history is built around. As the early Sumerians were trading with the early Egyptians, Assyriologists have been forced to synchronize the Mesopotamian timeline with the preposterous timeline used by Egyptologists. While this means that most of Sumerian history is has to be ignored, is also effects the timelines of all other Eurasian cultures in contact with the Mesopotamian. The Harappan civilization of ancient India was trading with the Sumerians throughout its history and went into decline around the end of the Sumero-Akkadian dynastic period, which means the entire Harappan civilization is forced to correlate with the short Conventional Mesopotamian Timeline. This forced the entire Harappan timeline into a period of 2000 years, even though some of the archaeological sites in Pakistan and India have been carbon-dated back to over 8000 BC. These broken timelines then fan out further pulling the Minoans and Greeks, Iranians, and Chinese into this confusing mess.

The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime

The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime PDF Author: Saskia Hufnagel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137544058
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 909

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Book Description
This handbook showcases studies on art theft, fraud and forgeries, cultural heritage offences and related legal and ethical challenges. It has been authored by prominent scholars, practitioners and journalists in the field and includes both overviews of particular art crime issues as well as regional and national case studies. It is one of the first scholarly books in the current art crime literature that can be utilised as an immediate authoritative reference source or teaching tool. It also includes a bibliographic guide to the current literature across interdisciplinary boundaries. Apart from legal, criminological, archeological and historical perspectives on theft, fraud and looting, this volume contains chapters on iconoclasm and graffiti, underwater cultural heritage, the trade in human remains and the trade, theft and forgery of papyri. The book thereby hopes to encourage scholars from a wider variety of disciplines to contribute their valuable knowledge to art crime research.

Cosmopolitan Belongingness and War

Cosmopolitan Belongingness and War PDF Author: Matthew Leep
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438482450
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
In Cosmopolitan Belongingness and War, Matthew Leep develops a cosmopolitan account of war that blends sharp inquiry into interspecies politics with original poetry on animals, loss, and war. Informed by the works of Jacques Derrida, this book is not only a somber and sobering exploration of the loss of animal lives during the Iraq War—from the initial US invasion to later struggles with ISIS—but also an imaginative tracing of animal experiences in "spectral-poetic moments." By emphasizing elegies, poetic space, and multispecies belonging, Leep envisions the cosmopolitan text as a hybrid form of critical and poetic engagement with animal others. An insightful mix of cosmopolitan poetics, poetry, and analysis of the Iraq War in its multispecies entanglements, Cosmopolitan Belongingness and War connects contemporary concerns with political violence, memory, and interspecies politics to imagine a more spectral, posthumanist, and poetic cosmopolitanism. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book will engage scholars of international relations, political theory, US foreign policy, animal studies, poetry, and Derrida, as well as those interested in human-animal relations in perilous times.

Rape of the Fair Country

Rape of the Fair Country PDF Author: Alexander Cordell
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1473603587
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
The first volume in Alexander Cordell's classic trilogy of mid-nineteenth century Wales. Set in the grim valleys of the Welsh iron country during the turbulent times of the Industrial Revolution, this unforgettable novel begins the saga of the Mortymer family - a family of hard men and beautiful women, all forced into a bitter struggle with their harsh environment, as they slave and starve for the cruel English ironmasters. But adversity could never still the free spirit of Wales, or quiet its soaring voice, and the Mortymers struggle on even as the iron foundries ravish their homeland and cripple their people. Rape of the Fair Country launched the bestselling career of Alexander Cordell in 1959 and went on to sell millions of copies in seventeen languages throughout the world.

Heritage under Siege

Heritage under Siege PDF Author: Joris Kila
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004228535
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
WINNER OF THE BLUE SHIELD AWARD 2012! Drawing on the results of a multidisciplinary research a first comprehensive picture of cultural property protection involving the military is presented. Practical, legal and contemplative aspects are considered while presenting a fascinating new discipline in heritage related studies.