From my backlog: in an e-mail dated May 4 Andy Lowings told me that the 1st playable replica of the famous gold bull's head lyre of the royal graves at Ur is finally finished. It was truly a multidisciplinary and international effort that at times ran into seemingly unsurmountable obstacles. The replica was constructed with reasonably-close-to-the-original materials (gold, lapis lazuli, bitumen, cedar wood, pearl shell, pink limestone, sheep gut). Unfortunately, we don't have sufficient knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian music notation to allow for confident interpretation of the extant "music scores" on cuneiform tablets. Even before the replica's decoration was completely finished, it was already being played in concert, e.g., at the Stamford Harp Festival in 2004 by Iraqi musician Tara Jaff, and at the Live8 at the Eden Project in 2005 by Kenyan musician Ayub Ogada. Click on the video at the end of this post to watch a brief clip of Andy Lowings playing the lyre accompanied by Barnaby Brown on the pipes (also copies of ones found in Ur). A project like this may not by itself bring back any smashed archaeological artifact or protect any archaeological site in Iraq but it is very useful in making the very distant Sumerian past come back to life just a little bit again. In order to rally support for the protection of the archaeological heritage of Iraq, it must after all become more than a few pictures in a text book. The project also involved a lot of people and institutions that otherwise would not have been exposed to ancient Mesopotamia...
Running tally of sites looted and damaged in the course of the Iraq War
(very preliminary and grossly incomplete list based on the articles listed on this web site; modern name followed by possible variants
between square brackets and, if known, by ancient name(s) between parentheses; initial "el-" does not count for alphabeticizing; look up names with
and without an initial "Tell") ($ = looted; # = damaged)
Abbas el-Kurdi $
Abu Shahrain (Eridu) #
Abu Skehr $
Adr el-Sa'id $
'Ana #
Babil (Babylon, Babel) $# → Bavian - see Khinnis
Birs Nimrud (Borsippa) $
Bismayyah (Adab) $ → Chokha - see Tell Jokha
Dahaileh $
Dair Mar Elia [St. Elijah's Monastery] #
Dhahir [el-Dhaara?] (Dubrum) $
Drehem (Puzrish-Dagan) $
Fara (Shuruppak) $
Farwa $
el-Hadr (Hatra) $#
Ishan Bakhriyyat (Isin) $
Khinnis [Khines, Khuns, Bavian] (Khunusa) #
Kirkuk [Kerkük] (Arrapha) #
Kuyunjik [Koyunjuk] (Nineveh, Ninua) $
el-Meda'in [Madaen, Salman Pak, Sulman Pak] (Ctesiphon, Tisfun) $
el-Medinah [Tell el-Meda'in] (Bad-Tibira) $
Nimrud (Kalkhu, Calah) $
Nuffar (Nippur) $
el-Qusair $ → Salman Pak - see el-Meda'in
Samarra (Souma, Sumere, Sumra, Surra Man Ra'a) # → St. Elijah's Monastery - see Dair Mar Elia
From my backlog: in an e-mail dated May 4 Andy Lowings told me that the 1st playable replica of the famous gold bull's head lyre of the royal graves at Ur is finally finished. It was truly a multidisciplinary and international effort that at times ran into seemingly unsurmountable obstacles. The replica was constructed with reasonably-close-to-the-original materials (gold, lapis lazuli, bitumen, cedar wood, pearl shell, pink limestone, sheep gut). Unfortunately, we don't have sufficient knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian music notation to allow for confident interpretation of the extant "music scores" on cuneiform tablets. Even before the replica's decoration was completely finished, it was already being played in concert, e.g., at the Stamford Harp Festival in 2004 by Iraqi musician Tara Jaff, and at the Live8 at the Eden Project in 2005 by Kenyan musician Ayub Ogada. Click on the video at the end of this post to watch a brief clip of Andy Lowings playing the lyre accompanied by Barnaby Brown on the pipes (also copies of ones found in Ur). A project like this may not by itself bring back any smashed archaeological artifact or protect any archaeological site in Iraq but it is very useful in making the very distant Sumerian past come back to life just a little bit again. In order to rally support for the protection of the archaeological heritage of Iraq, it must after all become more than a few pictures in a text book. The project also involved a lot of people and institutions that otherwise would not have been exposed to ancient Mesopotamia...
