I was there earlier last year, and it was none too impressive.
Pretty shoddy brick walls (just straight blocks), crumbling at many places, constructed possibly along ancient foundations or maybe not, that you sort of walk through. Interesting things here and there. Couple of other tourists.
Walking through Saddam's palace next to it was much more fascinating; extreme grandeur morphed into a typical lost place with graffiti and empty bottles. The nearby town Al7illa certainly offered more to actually experience, like a mini theme park with the main attraction being (artificial) rain.
Anyways I genuinely wish the committed people all the best in the restoration, but I feel like the article is a tad over-enthusiastic and easily convinced.
The reconstruction looked very bare and empty in the program. But I guess it is a work in progress.
BTW the Assyrian exhibits in the British museum are amazing and well worth visiting. Yes, I know, colonialism is bad and they probably shouldn't be in London. But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
> But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
I get it, but thats problem with 'good theft', its still amoral, and well we all know history and how things actually happened. Inability to even properly acknowledge fuckups of one's ancestors leaves little room for moving further and learning hard from that, instead of some shallow blah to not stick out of the crowd.
> thats problem with 'good theft', its still amora
You may have meant immoral. But amoral puts it better.
From the perspective of common heritage, it’s better at the British Museum. From the perspective of ethnonational self determination, it should be returned to its origin even if that means its destruction.
I personally tend towards the latter for newer artefacts and the former for older ones. (The logic for the people living somewhere today having exclusive domain over something made millennia earlier falls apart if the present occupants may be barely more related to those forerunners than someone on another continent.)
And an inability to acknowledge the ongoing fuckups of strangers(eg: see Taliban and ISIS destruction of archaeologically significant sites) that very well could have resulted in the same fate if they had been left in situ. None of us knows what would have actually happened, but at least standing out of the crowd earns some points.
I do agree that this is a complex topic but it is worth noting that the looting of Iraq was done by the British both times, making the argument a little circular.
Like good thing the British saved the relics from what might have happened from the aftermath of the invasion the British also engineered.
The ancient history of this region is fascinating, and the politics of that time were not so different from today. I highly recommend the “Fall of Civilizations Podcast”, episode 8. High quality work.
There is no way to restore the most precious sites which were destroyed intentionally.
Some a perfectly preserved sites.
It simply gone and will never returned.
Just look at the map in page 7 in the report below:
Sounds more like "reconstruction" than "restoration". I appreciate many original parts may be too damaged, but it risks becoming an archeological Disneyland.
Reconstruction is great provided archaeologists are done with the site and at least some of the tourism revenue generated is put towards archaeology.
Ancient Mesopotamia is, in my view, one of the most exciting fields out there, simply because their written records are imperishable. There's thousands of years of history, not pre-history, there. Much of it has already been discovered but, for want of money, not yet fully studied. Not yet deciphered. Not yet understood.
We know the approximate locations of important cities that have yet to be found. We know roughly where they are, but they're not in easy places to access due to remoteness as well as political instability and violence. We currently only have records from other places to tell us they exist, but we could find entire libraries and hear from these ancient people in their own words.
There are few other frontiers in all of archaeology that offer such potential for gaining intimate knowledge of ancient human societies. Anything that can inject a little much-needed funding into the field is welcome.
I don't see the problem. If a building is damaged we should not reconstruct it? I'd much rather see the Colosseum in its original state, covered in marble, than the current state, after centuries of neglect and looting from the italians.
That's still not the original state. In addition to not always knowing what exactly it was supposed to look like, using non-authentic materials and methods (power-tools) will effect the final outcome. If people are more interested in the experience than the genuine artifact, full-scale replicas can be created offsite without damaging ancient artifacts (BTW there's a 1:1 Parthenon replica in Tennessee, ive never been but I hear its impressive).
Also, the article barely mentioned this but the biggest source of damage to these specific ruins actually isn't being adjacent to major battles in two modern conflicts, it's Saddam-era "restorations". The reason why the zigguraut looks so much more pristine than any other ancient ruins is that what you're looking at was built in the 80s on top of the actual ancient ruins. It wasn't a particularly accurate restoration either; they used concrete and Saddam even made them stamp his face on some of the bricks so future generations would associate him with nebuchanezzar.
The value of ancient buildings is in what we learn from whatever survives. How can we rebuild the Coliseum to its original state without first learning what that state was? The Coliseum was operational for centuries and underwent constant modification. Which period should it be restored to, and to what end?
>To finally see the gladiators Zuckerberg vs Musk celebrity deathmatch obviously.
NGL, would love to see techbros battle to the death for our entertainment.
Hey, if we're already near the fall of the empire, we might as well get some bread and games out of it.
Though Suck and Bezos would easily kill Musk since Zuck is a martial arts expert and Bezos is roided out of his mind, while Musk is kinda doughy like a human slug monster.
I really hate the “end of the empire” or “late stage capitalism” attitudes. They’re ignorant and self-fulfilling.
If you really believe it then please go out in the world and engage people in a positive way. Go do some volunteering. Not to make a change in the world but in yourself.
If you don’t believe this and are just repeating a meme for clout or whatever then just stop. It’s toxic and unfunny. Like “locker room talk” or whatever other lame justifications are offered for people to say gross things nobody needs to hear.
What worries rather me to be honest, is people refering positive to the thought of being an empire in the first place and just negative that the empire is in decline.
What worries me even more, is that people end up missing the entire point of an argument because they can't seem to be able to pick up on uses of figures of speech within a context, so when they see the word 'empire' they think you mean literal empires, get fixated on that one thing turning it into the main issue, and then the rest of the argument and discussion goes above their head becoming pointless. Even LLMs are better than that.
>I really hate the “end of the empire” or “late stage capitalism” attitudes. They’re ignorant and self-fulfilling
When you put down all the dots and they form a line that trends in one direction, it's just reality. Ignoring it and calling it "self fulfilling" as if it's a thing that you personally have control of, IS what's ignorant.
>If you really believe it then please go out in the world and engage people in a positive way. Go do some volunteering. Not to make a change in the world but in yourself.
Being a decent human being does not undo the politically induced global economic issues related to the "late stage capitalism" you mentioned. It's two orthogonal things that are unrelated.
As long as they're done faithfully; there's reproductions of old ships too for museum purposes, since the old ships just rotted away over time (I assume). Rebuilding them with modern knowledge of e.g. wood / rope / sail preservation will be valuable.
It also makes me think of a reddit question the other day - why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets? The answer is that they didn't have epoxy sealants and the like back then so it was maintenance heavy.
You mean they need to be true believers of Anu, Enlil and Istar?
Yeah, that would likely help the spirit of restoration efforts..
"why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets?"
Don't carpets also provide good insulation? When you are cold and do not have automatic heating build into the ground ... most people appreciate warm feed over aesthetics.
The entire history of this exercise is basically one in which it’s never done faithfully. Not due to bad faith. But because we don’t know everything yet.
Better than reconstructing in situ is rebuilding elsewhere, as in your ship analogy.
> why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets
For a minute there i thought you were talking about the 70s.
Considering the Greek's love of what modern people consider garishly colored statues, my first instinct would have been that it's for decorative reasons.
Like Newgrange in Ireland. “Reconstructed” in the ‘60s and ‘70s based largely on the opinions of one person in a matter now considered to be mostly speculative. After 5 millennia, it now seems that “conservation” efforts have completed destroyed its original form.
It would be far more facinating to fund something like the ongoing construction of a true mideval castle in France, where they are re creating the teqcniques used by building and then testing for accuracy, and refining there methods by letting thins weather and be used in daily operations to be able to compare wearmarks and longevity to original archiological evidence, in France there work and workers have directly been used in the rebuilding of the great chapell burned down in paris a decade ago.
So a full on mesoptaimian city on the banks of the Euphraties, and maybe we can find out what on earth "the things of stone" are, among other almost infuriating criptic references that leave us grasping for meaning, like a bunch of dweebs listening to the cool kids talking about getting down with the gods themselves
Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true:
1. Jerusalem would get destroyed with the temple, the Jews scattered, persecuted, then Israel recreated, big exporter of produce, many trees, survives all its enemies, and yet wouldn't be able to rebuild the temple on one piece of land. All came true and it's the only country to ever re-appear like that.
2. Revelation says they will try to build a world government with one currency. They'll financially cut off, or cancel, dissenters. The elites have been repeatedly trying to do that for decades.
3. Society itself would change. People would be godless, apathetic, focus on money/pleasure, disobedient to their parents (family disintegration), violent, etc. People would listen to whoever tickled their ears, or told them what they wanted to hear. Famous preachers would be false teachers, perform fake miracles, and do it for ego and money.
4. Revelation talks of a new Babylon that was a huge, imperialist nation (or religion) that gets most of the world under its influence, is one of the richest in history, and (strangely) exports sexual immorality to other nations. Aside from imperialisma and capitalism, the U.S. exported sexual immorality worldwide through porn industry, Hollywood movies, and funding LGBT promotion. Whatever it is, God destroys the new Babylon likely via the consequences of its own worldviews.
I'll be glad if Babylon is never raised. It deserved to be destroyed for all the cruel things it did which it never repented of. Over there, they still chase the false religions and practices that tore their country to pieces. If the repent, and turn to Christ, we will see a transformation of the nation like the people of Ninevah saw in Jonah's day.
> Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Matthew 24:34–35
Of course when the prediction doesn't fit, the Cirque du Soleil level mental gymnastics come out to explain how "this generation" didn't actually mean that.
Meanwhile, scientists predict solar eclipses with 100% accuracy. Among many other physical phenomena. Much of that knowledge was ascertained despite religion relentlessly persecuting those seeking out answers about our universe.
> Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true...
I can promise you that followers of every religion have made this same claim and also have a list of "proof". They don't look at each other and go "darn, that Christianity keeps getting it right somehow!".
I highly recommend checking out The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan [0]. It is a great way to improve anyone's baloney-detector kit. We all want to understand our world, but some "answers" are pure Grade-A baloney.
You're quoting one that's intentionally vague, likely a double fulfillment. Those have elements of present and future in them with recurring patterns. That genre in Hebrew literature is highly subject to interpretation where even Christians can't agree on what the specific timing of fulfillment would look like. That's often not the point either since times were symbolic for Hebrews.
Proper interpretation starts with the opening, or thesis statement. The chapter you're citing opens with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It had Herod's support. So, it was unlikely Rome would destroy it. It's unlikely not stones would he left given its strength of construction. Yet, that's exactly what happened after they killed Jesus and in the lifetime of some present ("this generation").
Then, the topic changes partly during a private conversation. Now, we have multiple comtexts. Jesus refuses to tell them the timing. Instead, He focuses them on the behaviors of people and key circumstances to watch out for.
He says many false prophets, including fake versions of Jesus, will show up first. Watch out for those. We've since seen many claim to be the reincarnation of Jesus or warped versions of Christianity that elevate mere humans to equal or have priority over Christ and His teaching. Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Prosperity Gospel, Social Gospel... it keeps happening.
We will see some dramatic increase in wars, famines, and earthquakes. That's vague. In the past 100 years, we have seen the world go to war, famine in the richest nation during COVID, and scientists speculating about why earthquakes increased.
He says that's "the beginning of the birth pains." So, these happen before other things. In Hebrew and Greek styles, this also tells us Jesus is describing a process more than a specific event in time. At any point, His words might be referring to some aspect of the process or a specific event. Be careful of that if interpreting.
He says "you" will be delivered up to tribution, be hated for His name's sake, and betray and be hated by one another. This happened in the Apostle's time. It also happens today where Christianity is illegal in many countries, censored in many more, and mocked in others. The Gospel is persecuted more than any other religion. In my area, rap songs about dumping women you use for sex or murdering people in your neighborhood are played openly in stores but they ask us to quiet down about Jesus to not offend people. "Or leave."
And then the Gospel will be proclaimed to all nations "and then the end will come." There's a specific criteria where all people groups, which is what the Greek word meant back then, must hear the Gospel to cause or finish what He is saying.
Then, the rest references more details of the overall process. That generation did see the process begin with some fulfillment. He said people standing there would see Him come in glory. The next chapter or soon after is The Transfiguration where people saw Him in glory. So, that happened already.
Evangelicals want the rest to happen. We're doing our part. Of 7,000 people groups, we have gotten the Gospel to around 4,000 with 3,000 left. The Bible was translated to 2,000+ languages. Even Facebook AI team used it for mass-multi-lingual since no other book is as widely translated as the Bible (as predicted).
The one work God said was His proved to be the most inclusive and globally impactful with same positive changes, answered prayers, anf miracles happening. As before, even enemies of Christ persecuting Christians met Him and were transformed. It keeps proving out.
Their idea of preservation and repair leaves a lot to be desired IMO, although the same is true for some parts of Europe. Sadly Palmyra and so many places have been destroyed in the last decade or so.
Screw the tourists, bring in the archeologists, maybe start by resuming excavations at Eridu. 99% of our history is buried or looted. And the one or two Assyriologists in the world need new material to study.
After several years, Iraqi Hezbollah recently released their Princeton researcher hostage (granted, she is a dual Israeli citizen). Maybe that will encourage more archeologists to visit.
That is so sad.
Iraq, Uruk, Mesopotamia, Babylon...
The birthplace of so many nations and cultures in the region.
The cultural and commercial hub for centuries.
Tourism is such a wasteful tax on society. I met an Egyptologist who had been leading tours for two years so he could feed his family but he longed to go back to Egyptology and go and study the ruins even though it didn’t pay well
Hate to break it to you, but every other tour guide in Egypt will tell you that they actually are an "Egyptologist". It's a common scam. Of course I don't know the situation of your specific tour guide though, they might have been genuine.
He could read hieroglyphics. And we asked him much more technical questions which he was able to answer.
We had a second tour guide for a different area. He was not an archaeologist. But he was like one of those nerdy guys who study the subject really well and then explain it. His passion and tour guiding was very different than the first, more academic in nature.
> He could read hieroglyphics. And we asked him much more technical questions which he was able to answer
He took the mandated guide courses. They call themselves Egyptologists after that. That doesn’t make it a scam. Just that he wasn’t equipped for academia.
It is notorious that almost all the well-paid and serious positions in Egyptology are with the government in Cairo or at a foreign universities and museums.
lol. Sure I felt happy that he had something else to keep his family fed. But I as a tourist with more valuable cash come into this country with an artificially low value cash, take up the very resources of that country to … give me a tour! This guy is probably a skilled archeologist who made a huge effort to learn history of an ancient civilization and was actually able to translate whatever we asked him to translate.
And here he is could be doing something so much more valuable … than giving this idiot (me) a “tour”.
I am appreciative that I met him. And that he was my guide. But my money didn’t give him an income. It took away the finite resources of his country.
People generally become tour guides because alternative jobs don't exist. It's extremely common for the local workers who help with excavation to become tour guides for the areas they've helped excavate. Many of these people are more knowledgeable (in certain respects) than the archaeologists they're helping.
I'm fairly certain you weren't taking him away from something more valuable that he would have been doing in your absence.
In Egypt, archaeology is funded by foreign governments and universities who use the discoveries to write papers. Before they would also extract the treasures until a law was made that prohibited that.
Tourism is one of the best “products” a country can produce. It’s almost all a service industry which doesn’t strain natural resources, doesn’t cause physical health issues for its employees, incentivizes a higher level of education, and brings in large amounts of foreign currencies, helping to stabilize their own currency. The positives FAR outweigh the negatives. Countries like Saudi Arabia have embraced tourism as a great way to diversify. A country like Thailand is able to “thrive” relative to its neighbors because it derives far more economic power from its tourist trade.(20% of GDP compared to Cambodia’s 9%, Malaysia’s 15% and Myanmar’s 3%)
I was there earlier last year, and it was none too impressive.
Pretty shoddy brick walls (just straight blocks), crumbling at many places, constructed possibly along ancient foundations or maybe not, that you sort of walk through. Interesting things here and there. Couple of other tourists.
Walking through Saddam's palace next to it was much more fascinating; extreme grandeur morphed into a typical lost place with graffiti and empty bottles. The nearby town Al7illa certainly offered more to actually experience, like a mini theme park with the main attraction being (artificial) rain.
Anyways I genuinely wish the committed people all the best in the restoration, but I feel like the article is a tad over-enthusiastic and easily convinced.
This site and the nearby Saddam palace were featured in the recent Michael Palin travelogue on Iraq.
https://www.themichaelpalin.com/watch/#section8
The reconstruction looked very bare and empty in the program. But I guess it is a work in progress.
BTW the Assyrian exhibits in the British museum are amazing and well worth visiting. Yes, I know, colonialism is bad and they probably shouldn't be in London. But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
> But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.
I get it, but thats problem with 'good theft', its still amoral, and well we all know history and how things actually happened. Inability to even properly acknowledge fuckups of one's ancestors leaves little room for moving further and learning hard from that, instead of some shallow blah to not stick out of the crowd.
> thats problem with 'good theft', its still amora
You may have meant immoral. But amoral puts it better.
From the perspective of common heritage, it’s better at the British Museum. From the perspective of ethnonational self determination, it should be returned to its origin even if that means its destruction.
I personally tend towards the latter for newer artefacts and the former for older ones. (The logic for the people living somewhere today having exclusive domain over something made millennia earlier falls apart if the present occupants may be barely more related to those forerunners than someone on another continent.)
But everything old was new at some point. If it can’t survive it’s youth then there is no real dilemma.
> everything old was new at some point
We live in the present. In the present, some things are old and others are new.
And an inability to acknowledge the ongoing fuckups of strangers(eg: see Taliban and ISIS destruction of archaeologically significant sites) that very well could have resulted in the same fate if they had been left in situ. None of us knows what would have actually happened, but at least standing out of the crowd earns some points.
I do agree that this is a complex topic but it is worth noting that the looting of Iraq was done by the British both times, making the argument a little circular.
Like good thing the British saved the relics from what might have happened from the aftermath of the invasion the British also engineered.
Not to mention that both Taliban and ISIS are Western-funded and supported terrorist groups.
The ancient history of this region is fascinating, and the politics of that time were not so different from today. I highly recommend the “Fall of Civilizations Podcast”, episode 8. High quality work.
https://fallofcivilizationspodcast.com/2019/10/25/episode-8-...
Seconded. The “Fall of Civilizations” Podcast is a masterpiece.
There is no way to restore the most precious sites which were destroyed intentionally. Some a perfectly preserved sites. It simply gone and will never returned.
Just look at the map in page 7 in the report below:
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/C...
What they are doing here is "rebuilding"
Sounds more like "reconstruction" than "restoration". I appreciate many original parts may be too damaged, but it risks becoming an archeological Disneyland.
Reconstruction is great provided archaeologists are done with the site and at least some of the tourism revenue generated is put towards archaeology.
Ancient Mesopotamia is, in my view, one of the most exciting fields out there, simply because their written records are imperishable. There's thousands of years of history, not pre-history, there. Much of it has already been discovered but, for want of money, not yet fully studied. Not yet deciphered. Not yet understood.
We know the approximate locations of important cities that have yet to be found. We know roughly where they are, but they're not in easy places to access due to remoteness as well as political instability and violence. We currently only have records from other places to tell us they exist, but we could find entire libraries and hear from these ancient people in their own words.
There are few other frontiers in all of archaeology that offer such potential for gaining intimate knowledge of ancient human societies. Anything that can inject a little much-needed funding into the field is welcome.
I don't see the problem. If a building is damaged we should not reconstruct it? I'd much rather see the Colosseum in its original state, covered in marble, than the current state, after centuries of neglect and looting from the italians.
That's still not the original state. In addition to not always knowing what exactly it was supposed to look like, using non-authentic materials and methods (power-tools) will effect the final outcome. If people are more interested in the experience than the genuine artifact, full-scale replicas can be created offsite without damaging ancient artifacts (BTW there's a 1:1 Parthenon replica in Tennessee, ive never been but I hear its impressive).
Also, the article barely mentioned this but the biggest source of damage to these specific ruins actually isn't being adjacent to major battles in two modern conflicts, it's Saddam-era "restorations". The reason why the zigguraut looks so much more pristine than any other ancient ruins is that what you're looking at was built in the 80s on top of the actual ancient ruins. It wasn't a particularly accurate restoration either; they used concrete and Saddam even made them stamp his face on some of the bricks so future generations would associate him with nebuchanezzar.
The value of ancient buildings is in what we learn from whatever survives. How can we rebuild the Coliseum to its original state without first learning what that state was? The Coliseum was operational for centuries and underwent constant modification. Which period should it be restored to, and to what end?
"Which period should it be restored to, and to what end?"
Rome at peak power around year 100. And why? To finally see the gladiators Zuckerberg vs Musk celebrity deathmatch obviously.
I suspect it would end like the gladiator match in 'The Life of Brian', with Musk having a heart attack before he could even get in striking range.
>To finally see the gladiators Zuckerberg vs Musk celebrity deathmatch obviously.
NGL, would love to see techbros battle to the death for our entertainment.
Hey, if we're already near the fall of the empire, we might as well get some bread and games out of it.
Though Suck and Bezos would easily kill Musk since Zuck is a martial arts expert and Bezos is roided out of his mind, while Musk is kinda doughy like a human slug monster.
I really hate the “end of the empire” or “late stage capitalism” attitudes. They’re ignorant and self-fulfilling.
If you really believe it then please go out in the world and engage people in a positive way. Go do some volunteering. Not to make a change in the world but in yourself.
If you don’t believe this and are just repeating a meme for clout or whatever then just stop. It’s toxic and unfunny. Like “locker room talk” or whatever other lame justifications are offered for people to say gross things nobody needs to hear.
What worries rather me to be honest, is people refering positive to the thought of being an empire in the first place and just negative that the empire is in decline.
What worries me even more, is that people end up missing the entire point of an argument because they can't seem to be able to pick up on uses of figures of speech within a context, so when they see the word 'empire' they think you mean literal empires, get fixated on that one thing turning it into the main issue, and then the rest of the argument and discussion goes above their head becoming pointless. Even LLMs are better than that.
>I really hate the “end of the empire” or “late stage capitalism” attitudes. They’re ignorant and self-fulfilling
When you put down all the dots and they form a line that trends in one direction, it's just reality. Ignoring it and calling it "self fulfilling" as if it's a thing that you personally have control of, IS what's ignorant.
>If you really believe it then please go out in the world and engage people in a positive way. Go do some volunteering. Not to make a change in the world but in yourself.
Being a decent human being does not undo the politically induced global economic issues related to the "late stage capitalism" you mentioned. It's two orthogonal things that are unrelated.
As long as they're done faithfully; there's reproductions of old ships too for museum purposes, since the old ships just rotted away over time (I assume). Rebuilding them with modern knowledge of e.g. wood / rope / sail preservation will be valuable.
It also makes me think of a reddit question the other day - why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets? The answer is that they didn't have epoxy sealants and the like back then so it was maintenance heavy.
"As long as they're done faithfully"
You mean they need to be true believers of Anu, Enlil and Istar? Yeah, that would likely help the spirit of restoration efforts..
"why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets?"
Don't carpets also provide good insulation? When you are cold and do not have automatic heating build into the ground ... most people appreciate warm feed over aesthetics.
> As long as they're done faithfully
The entire history of this exercise is basically one in which it’s never done faithfully. Not due to bad faith. But because we don’t know everything yet.
Better than reconstructing in situ is rebuilding elsewhere, as in your ship analogy.
> why did people cover up their beautiful wooden flooring with carpets
For a minute there i thought you were talking about the 70s.
Considering the Greek's love of what modern people consider garishly colored statues, my first instinct would have been that it's for decorative reasons.
Like Newgrange in Ireland. “Reconstructed” in the ‘60s and ‘70s based largely on the opinions of one person in a matter now considered to be mostly speculative. After 5 millennia, it now seems that “conservation” efforts have completed destroyed its original form.
It would be far more facinating to fund something like the ongoing construction of a true mideval castle in France, where they are re creating the teqcniques used by building and then testing for accuracy, and refining there methods by letting thins weather and be used in daily operations to be able to compare wearmarks and longevity to original archiological evidence, in France there work and workers have directly been used in the rebuilding of the great chapell burned down in paris a decade ago. So a full on mesoptaimian city on the banks of the Euphraties, and maybe we can find out what on earth "the things of stone" are, among other almost infuriating criptic references that leave us grasping for meaning, like a bunch of dweebs listening to the cool kids talking about getting down with the gods themselves
Yeah, meanwhile what happened to Gilgamesh's tomb? What is left to see in Iraq/Uruk is less than a shadow of what was excavated.
There is a prophecy in the Bible that says Babylon will never successfully be rebuilt. Isa 13:19, 20.
It's amazing we're living in a time again where we have to know the bible to predict government policy
I'll settle for what came long before it.
Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true:
1. Jerusalem would get destroyed with the temple, the Jews scattered, persecuted, then Israel recreated, big exporter of produce, many trees, survives all its enemies, and yet wouldn't be able to rebuild the temple on one piece of land. All came true and it's the only country to ever re-appear like that.
2. Revelation says they will try to build a world government with one currency. They'll financially cut off, or cancel, dissenters. The elites have been repeatedly trying to do that for decades.
3. Society itself would change. People would be godless, apathetic, focus on money/pleasure, disobedient to their parents (family disintegration), violent, etc. People would listen to whoever tickled their ears, or told them what they wanted to hear. Famous preachers would be false teachers, perform fake miracles, and do it for ego and money.
4. Revelation talks of a new Babylon that was a huge, imperialist nation (or religion) that gets most of the world under its influence, is one of the richest in history, and (strangely) exports sexual immorality to other nations. Aside from imperialisma and capitalism, the U.S. exported sexual immorality worldwide through porn industry, Hollywood movies, and funding LGBT promotion. Whatever it is, God destroys the new Babylon likely via the consequences of its own worldviews.
I put more of these up here:
https://gethisword.com/signsofthetimes.html
I'll be glad if Babylon is never raised. It deserved to be destroyed for all the cruel things it did which it never repented of. Over there, they still chase the false religions and practices that tore their country to pieces. If the repent, and turn to Christ, we will see a transformation of the nation like the people of Ninevah saw in Jonah's day.
> Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Matthew 24:34–35
Of course when the prediction doesn't fit, the Cirque du Soleil level mental gymnastics come out to explain how "this generation" didn't actually mean that.
Meanwhile, scientists predict solar eclipses with 100% accuracy. Among many other physical phenomena. Much of that knowledge was ascertained despite religion relentlessly persecuting those seeking out answers about our universe.
> Unlike other religions, it said a lot of things that have come true...
I can promise you that followers of every religion have made this same claim and also have a list of "proof". They don't look at each other and go "darn, that Christianity keeps getting it right somehow!".
I highly recommend checking out The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan [0]. It is a great way to improve anyone's baloney-detector kit. We all want to understand our world, but some "answers" are pure Grade-A baloney.
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[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_...
You're quoting one that's intentionally vague, likely a double fulfillment. Those have elements of present and future in them with recurring patterns. That genre in Hebrew literature is highly subject to interpretation where even Christians can't agree on what the specific timing of fulfillment would look like. That's often not the point either since times were symbolic for Hebrews.
Let's look at it real quick:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024&ve...
Proper interpretation starts with the opening, or thesis statement. The chapter you're citing opens with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It had Herod's support. So, it was unlikely Rome would destroy it. It's unlikely not stones would he left given its strength of construction. Yet, that's exactly what happened after they killed Jesus and in the lifetime of some present ("this generation").
Then, the topic changes partly during a private conversation. Now, we have multiple comtexts. Jesus refuses to tell them the timing. Instead, He focuses them on the behaviors of people and key circumstances to watch out for.
He says many false prophets, including fake versions of Jesus, will show up first. Watch out for those. We've since seen many claim to be the reincarnation of Jesus or warped versions of Christianity that elevate mere humans to equal or have priority over Christ and His teaching. Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Prosperity Gospel, Social Gospel... it keeps happening.
We will see some dramatic increase in wars, famines, and earthquakes. That's vague. In the past 100 years, we have seen the world go to war, famine in the richest nation during COVID, and scientists speculating about why earthquakes increased.
He says that's "the beginning of the birth pains." So, these happen before other things. In Hebrew and Greek styles, this also tells us Jesus is describing a process more than a specific event in time. At any point, His words might be referring to some aspect of the process or a specific event. Be careful of that if interpreting.
He says "you" will be delivered up to tribution, be hated for His name's sake, and betray and be hated by one another. This happened in the Apostle's time. It also happens today where Christianity is illegal in many countries, censored in many more, and mocked in others. The Gospel is persecuted more than any other religion. In my area, rap songs about dumping women you use for sex or murdering people in your neighborhood are played openly in stores but they ask us to quiet down about Jesus to not offend people. "Or leave."
And then the Gospel will be proclaimed to all nations "and then the end will come." There's a specific criteria where all people groups, which is what the Greek word meant back then, must hear the Gospel to cause or finish what He is saying.
Then, the rest references more details of the overall process. That generation did see the process begin with some fulfillment. He said people standing there would see Him come in glory. The next chapter or soon after is The Transfiguration where people saw Him in glory. So, that happened already.
Evangelicals want the rest to happen. We're doing our part. Of 7,000 people groups, we have gotten the Gospel to around 4,000 with 3,000 left. The Bible was translated to 2,000+ languages. Even Facebook AI team used it for mass-multi-lingual since no other book is as widely translated as the Bible (as predicted).
The one work God said was His proved to be the most inclusive and globally impactful with same positive changes, answered prayers, anf miracles happening. As before, even enemies of Christ persecuting Christians met Him and were transformed. It keeps proving out.
Why do you have to stray so far away from the topic related to this article?
Their idea of preservation and repair leaves a lot to be desired IMO, although the same is true for some parts of Europe. Sadly Palmyra and so many places have been destroyed in the last decade or so.
Do we really want ancient buildings to be restored? I think I would prefer original ruins over modern reconstructions.
The Taliban and other theocratic totalitarian regimes should take notes.
57% of taliban are illiterate, so I don’t think they’ll be taking too many notes
'Building yesteryear's history today' for tourism, like so many "historical" sites.
Screw the tourists, bring in the archeologists, maybe start by resuming excavations at Eridu. 99% of our history is buried or looted. And the one or two Assyriologists in the world need new material to study.
After several years, Iraqi Hezbollah recently released their Princeton researcher hostage (granted, she is a dual Israeli citizen). Maybe that will encourage more archeologists to visit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Tsurkov
Thanks for the info and please pardon my previous ignorance of it. I'm grateful for her release.
no worries. There's a whole lot of news happening. No need to be up to date with everything.
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Lovely place to be kidnapped
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That is so sad. Iraq, Uruk, Mesopotamia, Babylon... The birthplace of so many nations and cultures in the region. The cultural and commercial hub for centuries.
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/C...
Tourism is such a wasteful tax on society. I met an Egyptologist who had been leading tours for two years so he could feed his family but he longed to go back to Egyptology and go and study the ruins even though it didn’t pay well
Hate to break it to you, but every other tour guide in Egypt will tell you that they actually are an "Egyptologist". It's a common scam. Of course I don't know the situation of your specific tour guide though, they might have been genuine.
He could read hieroglyphics. And we asked him much more technical questions which he was able to answer.
We had a second tour guide for a different area. He was not an archaeologist. But he was like one of those nerdy guys who study the subject really well and then explain it. His passion and tour guiding was very different than the first, more academic in nature.
> He could read hieroglyphics. And we asked him much more technical questions which he was able to answer
He took the mandated guide courses. They call themselves Egyptologists after that. That doesn’t make it a scam. Just that he wasn’t equipped for academia.
It is notorious that almost all the well-paid and serious positions in Egyptology are with the government in Cairo or at a foreign universities and museums.
And after meeting that person you thought, "wow I wish this person didn't have an alternative income stream that allows them to feed their family"?
Many people in this world wish they could do something different with their lives, but to blame the activity they're currently doing is shortsighted.
lol. Sure I felt happy that he had something else to keep his family fed. But I as a tourist with more valuable cash come into this country with an artificially low value cash, take up the very resources of that country to … give me a tour! This guy is probably a skilled archeologist who made a huge effort to learn history of an ancient civilization and was actually able to translate whatever we asked him to translate.
And here he is could be doing something so much more valuable … than giving this idiot (me) a “tour”.
I am appreciative that I met him. And that he was my guide. But my money didn’t give him an income. It took away the finite resources of his country.
People generally become tour guides because alternative jobs don't exist. It's extremely common for the local workers who help with excavation to become tour guides for the areas they've helped excavate. Many of these people are more knowledgeable (in certain respects) than the archaeologists they're helping.
I'm fairly certain you weren't taking him away from something more valuable that he would have been doing in your absence.
If there was less tourism there would be even less demand for archeologists and the guy would have likely been forced into an even lower skilled job
In Egypt, archaeology is funded by foreign governments and universities who use the discoveries to write papers. Before they would also extract the treasures until a law was made that prohibited that.
Nothing stops you from giving the guy a donation.
What stopped him from doing his work? A more lucrative alternative field. Only one of the works is more worthwhile.
Tourism is one of the best “products” a country can produce. It’s almost all a service industry which doesn’t strain natural resources, doesn’t cause physical health issues for its employees, incentivizes a higher level of education, and brings in large amounts of foreign currencies, helping to stabilize their own currency. The positives FAR outweigh the negatives. Countries like Saudi Arabia have embraced tourism as a great way to diversify. A country like Thailand is able to “thrive” relative to its neighbors because it derives far more economic power from its tourist trade.(20% of GDP compared to Cambodia’s 9%, Malaysia’s 15% and Myanmar’s 3%)
You can fund a full time Egyptologist for the amount of money a turned receives in a year.
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