Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history.

The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name.

Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King.

"MEL'S RELIGIOUS VENTURE SPARKS ROW" (The Mirror, UK)

Apr 29 2003

Why Gibson is gambling �18m on movie epic about the last hours of Jesus... in Latin

From Kevin O'Sullivan In Los Angeles

ALL Hollywood worships at the altar of the almighty dollar. In the showbiz capital of the world the bottom line is money. Lots of it.

So you have to take your hat off to Mel Gibson for bucking the Tinseltown system in spectacular style.

Throughout his next not-so-eagerly awaited production, the characters speak only in two dead languages: Latin and Aramaic.

"'Scroll' stands again" (StarTribune)

"The Scroll," the sculpture that stood for 40 years in front of the downtown Minneapolis Public Library, was raised again Thursday at the headquarters of Veit Companies, a construction, demolition and disposal company in Rogers. It will be the centerpiece of a new plaza.

Chief Executive Officer Vaughn Veit said the project cost about $15,000. But Veit said that there's value in having a corporate symbol that was originally inspired by the Dead Sea Scrolls, an ancient collection of Biblical and historical writings.

"It's a reminder to our people of what it's all about -- that God is the answer to everything in this world, and that we're only here a very short time," Veit said.

This is to announce a new mailing list:

Iraqcrisis: A moderated list for communicating substantive information on cultural property damaged, destroyed or lost from Libraries and Museums in Iraq during and after the war in April 2003, and on the worldwide response to the crisis:
https://listhost.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/iraqcrisis

IraqCrisis is a heavily moderated list, and traffic is not expected to be heavy. The moderator will not permit discussion or chatter - postings will be limited to items with substantive content. For a sample of the kinds of notices appropriate for distribution on IraqCrisis, please see the publicly accessible archives at: https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/iraqcrisis/

To subscribe, please use the form at the URL cited above.

Please repost this message wherever it might be useful.

-Chuck Jones-
--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Charles Ellwood Jones
Research Associate - Bibliographer
The Oriental Institute - Chicago
1155 E. 58th St. Chicago IL 60637-1569
USA
Voice (773) 702-9537 Fax (773) 702-9853
ce-jones@uchicago.edu
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/Research_Arch.html
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Looters at Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities pillaged and, perhaps, destroyed an archive of more than 100,000 cuneiform clay tablets -- a unique and priceless trove of ancient Mesopotamian writings that included the "Sippar Library," the oldest library ever found intact on its original shelves.

Experts described the archive as the world's least-studied large collection of cuneiform -- the oldest known writing on Earth -- a record that covers every aspect of Mesopotamian life over more than 3,000 years. The texts resided in numbered boxes each containing as many as 400 3-inch-by-2-inch tablets.

The Sippar Library, discovered in 1986 at a well-known neo-Babylonian site near Baghdad, was one of the archive's crown jewels. Dating from the sixth century B.C., it comprised only about 800 tablets, but it included hymns, prayers, lamentations, bits of epics, glossaries, astronomical and scientific texts, missing pieces of a flood legend that closely parallels the biblical story of Noah, and the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian lawgiver.

"This is the kind of discovery that one waits 100 years to see," said Yale's Benjamin Foster, curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection. "And now we'll never have another chance. It's a tragedy of the first order." Foster said only about two dozen of the Sippar Library tablets have been fully analyzed and published.