Iran: Palace of Darius the Great Discovered, Vandalized

More history destroyed by zombies. They have flattened the area from mecca to pakistan.

No outcry for the destruction of ancient christian artifacts but draw one muhammed cartoon.........

I suppose it's possible that looters have been doing some serious tooling up.

From what I have read, this is standard Islamic practice. Structures sacred to the Zorastians in Iran have been destroyed in the past 25 years. In Saudi Arabia ancient Christian churches, uncovered by the sand, are quickly bulldozed. Last fall, a collection of 20,000 ancient texts in a library owned by Mandaean priest in Iraq was deliberately burned to the ground. Of course, there is the famous destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. The list goes on and on..and yet, in the West, the Muslims demand that everything sacred to them, such as their belief that there cannot be images of Mohammed, must be upheld or else.

Destroyers of culture,
destroyers of reason,
destroyers of peace,
destroyers of freedom,
destroyers of life,
worse than wild beasts,
they drink bitter dregs
of hate and feast on strife.

I weep for Persia,
and pity its people.

Robert Graves mentions something of the same mindset in "The White Goddess":

"Twenty five years ago [written in 1948], when I was Professor of English Literature at the Royal Egyptian University of Cairo, my colleague the blind Professor of Arabic Literature was imprudent enough to suggest in one of his lectures that the Koran contained certain pre-Mohammedan metrical compositions. This was blasphemy and a good excuse for his... students to go on strike. So the Rector called him to task and he was faced with the alternatives of losing his job and recantation. He recanted."

Thus, even poetic forms are not safe from the intellectual bulldozer of Islamic orthodoxy.

Graves must have been referring, slightly confusingly, to Taha Hossein, who had suggested that the Mu'allaqat (the supposedly pre-Islamic "Hanging" verses) were later forgeries. This implied a later date for Arabic as a written language, which as we can now see from the work of Christoph Luxenberg,can be important in figuring out the Syriac substratum, or even the Syriac original, of the Ur-Qur'an.

Planet of the apes.

This doesn't surprise me.
I remember some years back our archaeology lecturers telling us that, working in predominantly Islamic countries, vandalism of archaeological sites was a common problem (for exactly the reason Robert stated re: jahiliyya) with 24 hour guards needing to be set.

These people do not deserve independence. Colonial rule by non-Muslim powers would be by far the best thing that might happen to them.

A modest proposal:

I have a tiny collection of Egyptian antiquities, including some choice scarabs, which I cherish. Perhaps we should change course, and, rather than protecting Muslims from Islam, encourage them all in Dar al Islam into the waiting arms of their filth stained religion.

Instead, we expend great treasure and effort to try and prevent the Muslim nations from backsliding into the cultural void which Islam represents -- I think it's fair to say that: The extent to which any Muslim nation shows itself to resist utter barbarism and backwardness is the extent to which that country has resisted Islam.

But given the diminishing returns which investments in Muslims always represents, why do we continue wasting all this energy on them? We are rewarded with hatred and contempt and venomous snake bites for attempting to aid them.

And I decry the destruction Muslims tend to wreak on humanity's shared pre-Islamic legacies in their entire execrable domain. Priceless Greco-Roman treasures lost forever in Turkey, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan -- everywhere Islam has established itself. Priceless Persian legacies being squandered in Iran. And for me -- the worst of the worst -- the magnificent Egyptian legacy which is being completely squandered in Muslim Egypt. Has any reader here seen the horror of the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo? It is little more than a third world warehouse posing as a "museum". An utter embarrassment. Western archeologists remain mum about the deplorably backward state of affairs in order to maintain accesss -- but the incompetent administration of Muslim officials over this global human legacy continues unabated. Some post-modern scholars (idiots) advocate the idea of returning those treasures which the West has preserved BACK to the cavemen in Egypt -- a post-colonial gesture of contrition designed to return so-called "looted" treasures -- It is INSANE. Muslims have proven themselves unworthy stewards of the archeological treasures underneath them -- they will always destroy that which they are entrusted with, and stand upon the rubble like roosters crowing on dungpiles.

Muslims are squatters in some of the most valuable and important human sites of antiquity.

Somehow this paragraph didn't post above -- this is the conclusion of my proposal:

Let's help Muslims become more Islamic rather than less -- Their innate lack of curiosity, if pushed to its logical conclusion, would mean that all feigned attempts at archeology in their domains would more or less cease. This might be the best preservative for those treasures which they have not yet destroyed.

Or better yet -- since two of the main exports from the Muslim world are:

1. Terrorism.
2. Things they get out of the ground and sell.

we may see them willing to dig these artifacts up (or, more likely, watch WESTERNERS dig these artifacts up) to sell for more of those things they can't produce themselves: you know the list -- food -- arms -- medicine -- technology.

It would be a win win for everybody -- we get to preserve the antiquities -- the Muslims get to watch a bunch of infidels climb into holes (what a thrill) and wallow in the dirt below them, they also get to be true and faithful slaves of Allah with our eager encouragement -- And think of how delighted they'd be with the stupid infidels paying cold hard cash for a bunch of worthless pre-Islamic trash -- trash which the infidels dug up themselves and then paid for (how stupid are we, after all!?!)

They would get to laugh all the way to the bazaar with the lucre we paid for all that dusty dirty old junk. Perhaps they'd concentrate on annihilating each other for a spell... Perhaps they'd be so amused by our stupidity that they'd no longer perceive us as a threat... It's worth a try -- it seems very humane to me too. Avoids all that killing and such...

I have dug in the Arab Middle East, and have never encountered any deliberate effort to destroy or cover up pre-Islamic sites. My principal experience was with a Christian church in Jordan, and the Jordanian government was thrilled with what we found and planned to make it a new tourist attraction. I'm sure that deliberate destruction does happen, but I don't think there is any widespread desire to rid the Arab nations of these sites. Most people there don't give ancient history much, if any, thought at all.

That said, theft is a huge deal at sites in the ME. Most locals don't understand why anyone would be interested in digging anything up, unless it involved gold or something valuable that could be readily sold. So you've often got to post guards to make sure nobody gets into your trenches at night to rummage around for coin hoards or whatever they think is there.

This could very well be because of the cultural disdain for anything pre-Islamic, although most Arabs don't take much care with artifacts of Islamic history, either. Inshallah fatalism is the biggest culprit for all of this, IMO. There really is a huge, overwhelming attitude in the Arab nations that things will take care of themselves, and this has is the biggest factor in creating what are essentially dead-end societies. If not for the violence and insanity of so many Islamic beliefs and practices, it'd be damned sad.

OutofAqaba-

I've schmoozed with some archeologists of the ME at a prominent university which concentrates on that region and they remark that the indifference of the locals is to everything, Islamic or pre-. The government-sponsored destruction of "the prophet's house" a few years back, in Saudi Arabia, demonstrated this "iconoclasm" (bulldozed for new hotel space in the Mecca area if memory serves).

The Muslims say it is to "avoid making idols" of these sites, or objects.

Meanwhile, they rotate around the Ka'aba and kiss the Black Rock with all of the "idolatrous" fervor of a cargo cultist building a B-25 out of bamboo to encourage more goodies to fly in, or an Aztec tossing trinkets into a sacrificial well so that Tlaloc might be placated.

Giving ancient items "back" to Egypt would merely send priceless antiquities into the hands of those who conquered the Egyptians and erased their culture. The same goes for any land under Islamic domination.

P.C. blindness at its best: Give the rescued loot back to those who failed to obliterate it the first time.

Destroyers of archaeological site are the new vandals of history and the assassins of truth.

We all hear about their supposed iconoclastic reasons for both the apathy about and the destruction of historical sites, but it is the truth that they are attempting to efface.

It really makes one wonder about the stability of the foundation to their beliefs if they are so scared of the truth. You could almost think that secretly they all know, deep inside, what we here know, but that they are so indoctrinated and so "accustomed" to the lies that to live a life in the true light of reason fills them full of terror and like rats forced out into sunlight. they will attack rather than think as it is more simple and it is allowed.

Of course they know their utter inferiority! On some level at least - several mental disorders seem to play a central role in Islam:

Pathological denial of both internal and external realities.
Projection of personal and social failures onto 'the other'.
Pathological and completely irrational adhesion to a hopelessly dysfunctional system.
Malignant Narcisim.

There are degrees of indoctrination in Islam, to be sure -- as well as different 'flavors' of Islam. But boil it down to the nub, and what seems to lurk below the surface is the fulminating hatred of Islam -- the intolerance of Islam -- the bigotry of Islam -- the supremacism of Islam -- and the soul robbing mind shackled cage of Islam.

And, of course, nearly everyone in the West is aware of Islam's obvious inferiority -- why else do so many take such pains to avoid (in their minds at least) causing 'offense' to the inferior Muslim -- Why else would so many go to such lengths to state so relentlessly what clearly isn't true about this sewer system of belief? In the face of such staggering mountains of evidence that Islam sucks, why keep repeating those tired out turds: One of the World's 'Great' 'Religions'? The 'Religion of Peace'. Muslims share the same goals as we do...?

It's all so blatantly false -- yet these things get repeated over and over again. On some level we are also guilty of projecting onto them how humiliated we would feel if the shoes were on the other feet -- how completely humiliated, and also how insanely rage-filled we'd be if our 'religion' and 'culture' and 'political system' were as abominable as the various permutations of Islam.

My understanding, though I may be wrong, is that about 80% of the world's Muslims worship variants of Sunni Islam, and that the Shiites represent nearly the rest of the total.

Now let's look at Saudi Arabia -- the epicenter of global Islam, and the top of the heap in Sunni Islam -- to see 'the best' that Sunni Islam can offer... It all starts with Islam, of course, but throw in unlimited unwarranted wealth and a nearly ironclad protection pact from the US to clinch the deal) and what have you got? The exact same cultural wasteland of totalitarianism, hatred, and revenge as the worst regimes on earth. The Saudis have the exact same "enforcement of virtue and prevention of vice' gestapo that the Taliban had -- only they're better equipped -- they're better trained, and perhaps a they're little cleaner. But the same terror storm troopers impose the Sunni version of hell on earth as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

Now let's look at Iran -- the epicenter of global Shiite Islam -- to see 'the best' that Shiite Islam can offer... It all starts with Islam, of course, but throw in unlimited unwarranted wealth and what have you got? The exact same cultural wasteland of totalitarianism, hatred, and revenge as the worst regimes on earth. The Iranians have the exact same "enforcement of virtue and prevention of vice' gestapo that the Taliban had -- only they're better equipped -- they're slightly better trained, and perhaps a they're slightly cleaner. But the same terror storm troopers impose the Shiite version of hell on earth as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

Notice anything? I barely had to change the verbiage to describe the zenith of the main branches of Islam on earth -- both cesspools of hatred, mega-terror, and both dreaming the same dark nightmare of domination and global terrorism.

Sounds to me like it's time to take out the trash...

Poor Darius I. First he loses the battle of Marathon, then his dynasty gets ended, then his country becomes Islamic, and 2 millenia later, his palace is dug up and damaged. What were they doing - drilling for oil? Oh no, by now, it's probably plutonium.

Carolyn2, I'd say it's more like the Religion of the Apes.

jsla-

Don't you mean "...Saudi Arabia, the sphincter of global Islam..."?

It used to be the 'omphalos' in more positive religions in the ancient world.

Mohammad replaced anything positive with grovelling.

One of my favorite words for obvious and not so obvious reasons:

OMPHALOOOPHERECTOMY --

As for terminology -- I already used the "F-bomb" elsewhere today on this site and for the first time... My term "epicenter" was an attempt to be polite -- clean up the act -- give 'em the benefit of the doubt. But in truth, they are worse than a crotch, worse than an armpit, and even worse than an anus. They are a putrescent tumor which is sloughing and metastasizing. But let's face it: even this is an insult to carcinomas and pustules everywhere....

"My principal experience was with a Christian church in Jordan, and the Jordanian government was thrilled with what we found and planned to make it a new tourist attraction."
-- from a posting above

The well-known English archeologist Kathleen Kenyon, who uncovered evidence of Christian churches in land controlled by the Jordanians, had quite a different experience, and was forced to quit digging. Perhaps the Jordanian government, having no oil, or other sources of income save what Infidels at the moment provide (including the preferential treatment of Jordanian textiles by the American government) has set its sites on increasing tourism, and perhaps that explains the enthusiasm you describe for the "tourist attraction" that was uncovered. But there are many people in Jordan, as elsewhere, whose sole interest in preserving such evidence of non-Muslims has nothing to do with the desire to preserve such a heritage save in order to obtain those tourist dollars. Look at what happened to Roman ruins in Lebanon; look at the indifference to Babylonian ruins in Iraq; look at how all of the archeological discoveries were the result of Westerners, not indifferent or hostile Muslims; look at the treatment of the Sphinx by Muslims in Egypt (the face vandalized long before Napoleon's soldiers, who are sometimes blamed, arrrived), or the Elgin Marbles on the Parthenon Frieze (deliberately damaged by Turkish Muslim soldiers), or the threats made in the past by Muslim Brotherhood members to destroy the Pyramids and other evidence of the pre-Islamic past; the destruction of the Hindu temples all over India (and one destroyed within the past year in Kuala LUmpur), the destruction of Joseph's Tomb by "Palestinians," the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas becuase, with the help of Pakistani and Saudi engineers, and dynamite, at long last those monumental structures could be destroyed. Shall I go on?

I don't think it necessary.

We need to give a thought for what will happen to the great artistic heritage of Europe, if they get their hands on all of it.

We should call our Congressmen to initiate conversations and contingency plans for the swift movement of as much art as we can move.

It doesn't need to be moved yet.

But plans should be made, and the Curators and guardians of Europe's artistic heritage should begin to make plans, in case the worse, does indeed come to the worse.

Much we won't be able to move, the buildings, the libraries, the palaces, the Cathedrals. But much we can secure, and we need to initiate contingency plans. NOW. Even though it will be decades before such contingency plans may be needed.

Besides, were the United States State Department, along with the Japanese Foreign Ministry, and the Foreign Ministry of New Zealand, Canada and Australia were actually to broach the subject with Europe, the PSYCHOLOGICAL SHOCK WAVE in Europe might be something of a catalyst, for them to take a GENUINE, SERIOUS LOOK at their futures.

It might serve to forestall the dread and dire future, that so many of us see descending upon all of Europe.

outofaqaba:

Arabs are a despised ethnic minority in Iran and probably didn't have much influence on this "dig", outside of the very damaging one they exerted on Persian culture after the initial Muslim invasions over a milenia ago. This incident just wreaks of the Islamic obsession with destroying anything related to competing beliefs. Most of us recall the Taliban's destruction of the Bamayan Bhuddas. Many are also aware of the desecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by "militants" escaping capture by the Israeli Defence Force for attacks on Israeli civilians. And some of us are aware of the razing of Joseph's and Rachel's Tombs by "upset" Palestinians who otherwise claim reverence for the all of the prophets, etc..

Recent accounts from Saudi Arabia actually suggest that they don't even have a lot of respect for their own "built heritage". As I recall, one of Mohammed's reputed homes was demolished to make way for urban redevelopment. I understand the Sunni rationale for such an act is that shrines are a form of idolatry and therefore a bad thing.

I love your post Dan. I began writing to offices of J. Chirac in 2004 suggesting that the relocation of the Louvre and all its contents to the middle of a red state in the USA is extremely urgent.

I'm sad to disagree with your assertion that "Much we won't be able to move, the buildings, the libraries, the palaces, the Cathedrals." I suggested to Mr. Chirac that the Palace of the Louvre itself can be dismantled and reassembled by numbering each stone and item within its structure... the truth is: we CAN move every Cathedral, library, palace, museum... in addition to the loot therein. I suggested that planning should start immediately!

Mr. Chirac has not responed yet to any of my emails...

Hugh, all I can do is report on what I personally witnessed.

I don't dispute any of your examples, and I'm certainly not trying to apologize for the Arab disdain for history, or the active attempt by some lunatics to destroy pre-Islamic artifacts and sites. But this disdain does apply to all history in Arab lands, not just what came before Islam. Visit the Arab ME for yourself and you'll soon realize that pretty much every historical site or museum or whatever is in general disrepair, even the Islamic ones.

The Arab nations are largely intellectually bankrupt, and the disregard of history across the board is the best example of this, IMO. But thinking that there is some grand conspiracy to destroy pre-Islamic history in the Arab ME is, well, nuts. There are some fanatics who believe this, but, honestly, man, it's 95% sheer neglect borne out of inshallah. If the desire to rid the region of pre-Islamic history was really widespread, sites like Petra, Palmyra, and even the Great Pyramid and Sphinx would have been razed to the ground centuries ago. And terror groups would be making the monuments targets today -- especially in countries like Egypt and Jordan, as the historical sites are mainly soft targets, and the only real attractions there for Western tourists.

"But thinking that there is some grand conspiracy to destroy pre-Islamic history in the Arab ME is, well, nuts."

I don't think that's necessarily what's being alleged. But you're being presented with irrefutable evidence that there's a linkage between the fervency with which persons adhere to Islam and the systemic disrespect and destruction of archeological legacies.

You said it yourself:

"And terror groups would be making the monuments targets today -- especially in countries like Egypt and Jordan, as the historical sites are mainly soft targets, and the only real attractions there for Western tourists."

So are YOU nuts? Sounds like a sytematic conspiracy to destroy pre-Islamic history in the Arab ME by someone for some reason. So what's your theory?

If many or even if most Muslims honor Islam in the breach, that doesn't mean the religion itself doesn't inculcate the slovenly state of affairs across Arabdom (and all of Islam, for that matter) or the hostility and violence towards history (which you also allude to.) The indifference and the acts of destruction all occur on a continuum. And while it is reasonable to posit other motives that Islam for this demonstrable behavior across the Muslim world, it seems silly to dismiss out of hand the notion that Islam isn't at the root of this deplorable state of affairs. In fact, it seems to me to be nuts to not begin with that broad assumption and then set about finding out if it's right or wrong, rather than summarily dismissing it out of hand.

Waterdragon, About ten years ago, arafat had his men in the waqf [Muslim body controlling mosques and other Muslim communal property] encroach on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. They took over a dormitory room used by monks [sealing it off from the church] and also built a men's toilet over part of the church from an adjacent mosque [both reported in Jerusalem Post]. The church that was taken over by terrorists was that of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where they made a mess while using the church as a refuge from Israel's army [2002]. Rachel's Tomb is under very heavy Israeli guard and has been attacked many times since the present war started in 2000. At least one Israel soldier was killed there. It used to be a small, cozy sort of structure, but since Shimon Peres gave up Bethlehem to the palestinian authority in December 1995 [at Clinton's urging], Israel has built a new, protective structure over the tomb for necessary protection.
Arabs in Sh'khem [Neapolis > Nablus] were taking Joseph's tomb apart stone by stone, using even crowbars as I saw in a TV film, but apparently this wrecking work made a bad impression on Western public opinion, so the palestinian authority had it stopped. What's dangerous and typical in the case of Joseph's tomb is that Muslims typically claim that a disputed shrine was always a tomb of one of their saints, in this case, a little known Shaykh Yusef. I have traced back references to Joseph's tomb to the 4th century. See link:
http://ziontruth.blogspot.com/2005/07/josephs-tomb-in-shkhem-pas-big-lie.html

I also have photos of happy little jihadis dancing around on Jewish holy writings in Hebrew inside Joseph's tomb.

Eliyahu, Shalom, do you have a URL for those photos?

Thank you.

Ozi, I believe that these photos were published in Biblical Archeology Review in early 2001. I have copies somewhere but I can't find them now.

Thanks Eliyahu,

Don't trouble yourself with the photos, I thought they may have been on the Internet somewhere. I saw a video clip recently of Joseph's Tomb in flames, the usual Moslem celebration ceremony. Can't remeber where I saw that now, may have been from Honest Reporting. It appears that Joseph's original resting place in Egypt has been discovered, see http://www.levitt.com/essays/joseph.html