Word: assyria
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...world. The author, Anthropologist Alfred E. Crawley, expatiated on the nose rubbing of the Maoris and the Sandwich Islanders, on the billing of birds and the antennal play of insects. "The kiss seems to have been unknown in ancient Egypt," the learned writer noted. "In early Greece and Assyria, it was firmly established." Then, in a gemstone of Victorian scholarship, Crawley remarked, "In abnormal forms [of kissing], some use of the tongue occurs...
...that was bad enough. Iraq's cultural history stretches back an astonishing 10,000 years, to the very dawn of civilization. The first cities, the earliest known legal system and the first written language all arose there--in the ancient Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia. And artifacts from that entire, mind-boggling sweep of time--hundreds of thousands of objects that had survived wars and successive invasions by Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, the Mongols and other marauders long forgotten--might now be missing or destroyed...
...climax of the parade, the residents of Tikrit wheeled out a simple cabin, and people dressed in the robes of ancient Babylon and Assyria prostrated themselves before it. When the cabin split open to reveal a palm tree from which 53 white doves were released, Saddam appeared to a wave of applause...
Much of that gold turned out to be priceless jewelry draped around the skeleton of a young princess named Yabahya, tentatively identified as the daughter of one of Assyria's most renowned and feared kings, Sargon II. Nearby, still more jewelry and gold ornaments were piled. Mingled with the dried bones were dozens of delicately sculpted gold rosettes, scattered like flowers over the body of the dead princess...
Professor Piotr Steinkeller, who, like William Moran, is a specialist in Assyria, was also critical of the sensational nature of the charges. "I'm surprised this was so blown up and received so much publicity," he said...