Word: mesopotamians
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Though the celebrations in Beijing look proudly toward the future, this sort of martial spectacle has deep roots in the past. Generations of rulers have projected their power through displays of strength and awe, going back to humanity's first civilizations. Ancient Mesopotamian kings lined their cities and citadels with friezes depicting glorious conquests - often using the common visual theme of a giant potentate in front of his army, literally stomping on the heads of his foes. The effect was to boost a monarch's prestige and cement his political authority. Through the sacred Gate of Ishtar in Babylon, returning...
...extraordinary first step. The Iraq museum is home to the single finest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities the world has ever seen: The Vase of Warka, the first naturalist depiction of human life in stone; The Mask of Warka, the first naturalist depiction of the human face; The Bassetki statue, the first known lost-wax method of copper casting. On and on and on. Every step you take in the Iraq museum, you get to say "the first." If there were truly a cradle of civilization, you can't get closer to it than the Iraq museum. Its opening proclaims...
...gloomy state of Baghdad's national museum comes as no surprise if you know its recent history. During the lawlessness following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the museum, which once housed the world's largest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities, was looted and ransacked beyond recognition. The event saw thousands of artifacts lost to international smuggling. For Iraqis the museum had been a showcase of their country's 7,000-year old heritage and its fate was felt with great bitterness...
...Velden, who plans to organize a sophomore excursion to Spain next year, says the focus of the seminar, and therefore the location of the trip, will change annually. Depending on what the class studies—the HAA department teaches on broad artistic subjects from Mesopotamian archaeology to Japanese woodblock prints—students will be able to view works from relevant sites abroad.This year, the excursion program will take sophomore HAA concentrators to Turkey. Highlights include Ephesos, Troy, and Istanbul, according to the course Web site. The trip will take place during the two weeks between...
...have it in for the museums. So do archaeologists, who complain that simply by providing a commercial market for ancient objects, museums and private collectors encourage looters who vandalize archaeological digs, removing the artifacts from surroundings that hold clues about the culture that made them. To most people, a Mesopotamian cult figure or a Maya stela, before it's anything else, is a work of art. To an archaeologist, it's first a crucial piece of a much larger puzzle, the puzzle that is history itself. And theft breaks the puzzle into pieces that can never be put back together...