April 24, 2008
Good & bad news
Thanks to Dr. Jack Sasson, I just saw an article in the Iraqi newspaper Azzaman. It dates back to mid March and is indicative of the state of archaeology in Iraq nowadays. On the good side, some excavations are going on by local archaeologists. They discovered a Neo-Babylonian town in Diwaniyya protectorate, with some interesting finds such as a duck weight that weighs in at an unusual ca. 30 kg as well as some burials of what looks like people who were executed. "The head archaeologist Mohammed Yahya said the town is more than 20,000 square meters in area and includes administrative quarters, temples and other buildings of 'magnificent and splendid design.' Yahya, who is the head of the provincial Antiquities Department in the Province of Diwaniya, where the new Babylonian town was discovered, said he still lacks evidence on the town’s ancient name. The locals call it Shamiya after a provincial district nearby, he said." However, on the bad side, he also notes "that his team has come across several cuneiform tablets but 'there is no one to read the ancient writing because Iraqi experts with the knowledge to decipher Mesopotamian script have fled the country.'" Sigh.
April 21, 2008
RSS syndication
Unfortunately, this switch to a Blogger-hosted blog means that those who are subscribing to the blog's RSS feed will have to redo this. Just use the new hyperlinks at the top left. I appreciate your understanding :-)
temporary solution to ftp problem
I have the IW&A Blog (not the rest of the site) up at http://iraqwararchaeo.blogspot.com. At least the archives and stuff work on that server. Sorry for the inconvenience! The normal IW&A Blog address still works too but remember that anything beyond the main page of the blog on that server is flaky...
still trying to fix the ftp publishing problem
This is basically a test. Blogger techs: helloooooo!
