Destroyed Partho-Sassanid Archaeological Site Believed to be Lost City...

**mountaingoat** · 07-26-2009, 08:28

corporations only concern is with profit margin.

**keravnos** · 07-26-2009, 10:44

Not if a strong govenment which realises that ONLY when preserving the Past can your people be PROUD for it and HOPEFUL for the future.

Not much of hope in present day Iran, there just isn't.

**Ibn-Khaldun** · 07-26-2009, 11:13

This reminds me Taliban in Afganistan. Especially this one time when they destroyed those two Buddha statutes(Can't remember how they were called) while cameras were recording everything.

**Reality=Chaos** · 07-26-2009, 13:21

Originally Posted by Ibn-Khaldun

This reminds me Taliban in Afganistan. Especially this one time when they destroyed those two Buddha statutes(Can't remember how they were called) while cameras were recording everything.

That was criminal imo... but for a completely different reason, namely a religious one (a demented twisted religious one though).... From what I can gather from the article the destruction of the sites hsa not so much to do with the fundamentalist nature of the government, but because of widespread corruption. From what I know from Iran Iranians are rather proud of their heritage in general.

**king of thracia** · 07-26-2009, 18:06

Originally Posted by Reality=Chaos

From what I know from Iran Iranians are rather proud of their heritage in general.

So we've heard. But there is that whole Islam thing..

and the Iranians we hear from are probably Westernized and out of the ordinary, different from the run of the mill guys who elected the Ahmad

**A Terribly Harmful Name** · 07-26-2009, 20:29

There is a non-religious reason as well as a religious one. The Islamic power players fear that the association of Iran with a pre-Islamic ideal will generate contempt for their fundamentalist government as much as they despise the fact that "previously" people lived and prospered in a non-Islamic way.

The non-religious reason is the fact that were it not for King Oil Iran would be a fifth rate power instead of a fourth rate one. Someone has to feed the mouths of the proud Iranian peasants and Ahmadinejad voters so they keep backing the regime.

**Ibrahim** · 07-27-2009, 01:51

Originally Posted by A Terribly Harmful Name

The non-religious reason is the fact that were it not for King Oil Iran would be a fifth rate power instead of a fourth rate one. Someone has to feed the mouths of the proud Iranian peasants and Ahmadinejad voters so they keep backing the regime.

people are actually supporting the SOB? I was under the impression that there was much voter fraud involved in this election, hence the recent riots.

honestly, I think Iran needs to get another revolution going: they already kicked far worse people out of power before, and made a few others age faster, why not kick this dunce from power again? mind you in both cases Iran was governed by either foreign invaders or police states from within...

*apparently the only exception was hajjaj ibn yusif, but let's face it, even arabs hate the guy.

look, if you want to know why the government doesn't give a crap, its not really down to religion, as much as it is down to power: twatdinejad and his supporters want a power base with which to exercise authority*, so they will pull the religion card, by saying that destroying things is good for the lord. why destroy ancient iranian stuff? because, being preislamic, and a source of pride, it will allow the iranis to have pride in something other than shiism, thus undermining the theocratic authority of the government. in other words, the government sees it as a threat.

taaliban did it for essentially the same reason: they don't want anyone having pride in Afghanistan's preislamic past, undermining their myopic bastardized version of the faith (and power), so they tore the bhudda's down.

*y'know, if they really are faithful, why lie or fudge the votes? a muslim can't be a liar.

**Andy1984** · 07-26-2009, 13:50

Originally Posted by Ibn-Khaldun

This reminds me Taliban in Afganistan. Especially this one time when they destroyed those two Buddha statutes(Can't remember how they were called) while cameras were recording everything.

It made me think about the musea of Kabul and Bagdad...

**Ibn-Khaldun** · 07-26-2009, 14:01

Artifacts from National Museum from Kabul actually were never destroyed. They were kept hidden about 20 years. Bagdad however is another story. Locals looted that museum and took away everything that was valuable - that means everything in that museum.

**antisocialmunky** · 07-26-2009, 14:25

They got much of it back and it wasn't nearly that bad. The main losses were from the looting of the archeological sites across Iraq at the beginning of the ground invasion.

Only 7%-10% of the artifacts were looted from the museum and around 40% were recovered since then.

**Reality=Chaos** · 07-26-2009, 14:29

yeah that was pretty terrible too....

I think we would be wise not to implicate religion as a cause for this though...

**Aemilius Paulus** · 07-26-2009, 17:39

Originally Posted by Ibn-Khaldun

Artifacts from National Museum from Kabul actually were never destroyed. They were kept hidden about 20 years. Bagdad however is another story. Locals looted that museum and took away everything that was valuable - that means everything in that museum.

Heh, nothing unusual or especially heinous about that. I would have looted it too, if I lived there during that time. The heck I would. Without a slightest problem with my conscience. Carpe diem. One single artefact can make a person wealthy for a lifetime by their standards. So why not?