From the Epic of Gilgamesh wiki:
In the early 2000s, the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet was imported illegally into the United States. According to the United States Department of Justice, the tablet was encrusted with dirt and unreadable when it was purchased by a US antiquities dealer in 2003. The tablet was sold by an unnamed antiques dealer in 2007 with a letter falsely stating that it had been inside a box of ancient bronze fragments purchased in a 1981 auction.[17] In 2014, Hobby Lobby privately purchased the tablet for display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. In 2019, the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet was seized by US officials and was returned to Iraq in September 2021.
Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal started in 2009 when representatives of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores received a large number of clay bullae and tablets originating in the ancient Near East. The artifacts were intended for the Museum of the Bible, funded by the Evangelical Christian Green family, which owns the Hobby Lobby chain. Internal staff had warned superiors that the items had dubious provenance and were potentially looted from Iraq.
Several shipments of the artifacts were seized by US customs agents in 2011, triggering a struggle between Hobby Lobby and the federal government that culminated in a 2017 civil forfeiture case United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand Ancient Clay Bullae.
… American oligarchs are so fucking weird and evil.
Not sure what Anon is waiting for. Shovels are cheap
The most plausible explanation is that the blobs Fassbinder saw in 2003 that he said might be the tomb turned out to be nothing. Magnetometry and ground penetrating radar can be very difficult to interpret. You see it a lot on time team. It can tell you where to dig sometimes but just as often tells you to dig in the wrong place. Could’ve been a tomb they saw in the river bed or could’ve been a patch with a different type of sediment.
Archaeology is going on in the middle east all the time but the discoveries just aren’t very sexy.
This is what wikipedia says:
Media interest was excited in 2003 by a report that the German Archaeological Institute team had discovered something that might be the tomb of the legendary king Gilgamesh. The Sumerian poem The Death of Gilgamesh describes how the River Euphrates parted after Gilgamesh died and he was buried underneath it, before the river was restored to its course. The Euphrates has changed its course since the time when Gilgamesh is supposed to have lived, and the route it followed then is now dry. In an interview, Fassbinder was careful to state that they had no solid proof and that the structure had not been excavated and they would not know unless it was, but said that magnetometric scans had revealed buried structures in the former bed of the Euphrates that matched the description in the poem. He commented that other scans of that part of the site so far were a surprisingly good match for Sumerian descriptions of Uruk as it was in Gilgamesh’s day, making the theory that the poem was also right about the tomb more plausible.
The invasion of Iraq happened shortly after the announcement. The site at Uruk escaped looting during the war, and further investigations have been done there since then, but there has been no further public comment on the possible tomb. When asked about it by an independent researcher, Fassbinder was reticent, saying only that the media coverage had been exaggerated and that he had only said that it might be the tomb of Gilgamesh.
Man get the wool off your eyes boy why do you think we went to war in Iraq? Fuckin gilgamesh’s bones hold arcane power and now dick Chaney is a litch
This isn’t true, you’re spreading misinformation. Dick Cheney is actually a lich*.
Pretty sure he’s a lichen
Remember the good old days, when Dick Cheney was the most evil thing you could imagine?
All wars are secretly about magic bones.
Well oil is made up of pureed dead shit soooo
I don’t know anything about this find, but I do know that the best way to preserve archeological sites is to leave them untouched in the ground.
The problem: When they are known, they will attract looters. And local people will totally have noticed those german guys doing strange stuff on this field near their town or might even been employed as helpers by them. When the word is out in a war zone, the time is ticking.
You’re right ofc, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
There’s the well known chinese emperor who’s name escapes me who’s tomb has been left for exactly this reason - if we were to excavate it would be very difficult to preserve the contents. I doubt that’s what’s going on in this location though - I imagine the taliban or whoever runs the show there would very much appreciate the short term cash flow from opening a site like that.
The Taliban aren’t exactly struggling for cash…
Sure but the local cleric or whoever would alleviate the opportunity for self enrichment I’m sure.
here you go OP
Demigods love it when you disturb their tombs.
I would still take it over the current world situation.
Perhaps this is why the world is like this now.
Demigods destroying the world? That’d be an improvement.
Aliens invading would be so confused by the relief on the invaded’s faces. Shit, we’d send them the right direction.
When you’re famous they let you do it.
People believe this shit
