The looting of Iraq continues apace

[rory_20_uk]

Apologies, NICE is the National Institute for Clinical Excellence. It assesses the value of new treatments.

A "person" as an undefined object has little more than a utilitarian "value" to me. So of course my family has far more value than this, but I understand that few others would bias their worth in this way.

I would agree that using soldiers to protect antiques is not what they are for. So get the antiques out of the country! Since we are protecting the precious people, they can give us the pottery in return, and they even have the chance to appreciate it or its copies in future - something that is not possible if its full of bullet holes.

[Husar]

Before you all start talking about ancient pottery being worth so and so many lifes, what amount of pottery would be needed for you to give YOUR lifes?
Would you like to lose your life just so that some professor at a university has something nice to show his students? In what way do ancient findings help us get a better future? It's all nice and interesting to know what life back then was like, but in what way does it help us today?
I seriously wouldn't want to get shot for a bunch of old pottery.

[RabidGibbon]

In Archaeological excavations the method of extraction is key. Every find needs to be logged in its exact place, and carefully checked to see what it was or might have been, to find out its overall place in the scheme of things.

As the article mentions its likely that much more 'knowledge' is being destroyed than is being recovered, and what is being recovered when sold to collectors in an 'out of context' situation then it loses much of its value to educate us about these ancient cities of which not very much is known.

The value of whats being lost is certainly worth more a few pottery cups, but not worth dying for, but then the Government seems to think that a lot of things are worth risking soldiers lives for that I wouldn't have thought were worth dying for. I guess these ancient sites and whatever they might have been able to tell us about the ancient mesopotamian civilisations will just have to be written off as another casualty of war.

[Lemur]

Before you all start talking about ancient pottery being worth so and so many lifes, what amount of pottery would be needed for you to give YOUR lifes?

Why do you hate Indiana Jones?

[master of the puppets]

beginning of civilization, who woulda guessed it would be the beggining of the end of it.

[rory_20_uk]

Currently the choice is: items out of context or rubble.

Any argument that places oneself as one option is pointless. People value themselves far higher than most things.

[Shahed]

Looting is part of the spoils of every war. This war is no different. With all the facade of civillisation and ethical ideology, the warring factions are no different than any other in history.

Something should be done about it, but I'm sure with Iraq Total Chaos going on the coalition has got their hands full. So there is a valid excuse !!! (joke)

[Husar]

Any argument that places oneself as one option is pointless. People value themselves far higher than most things.

And maybe they're right.

[KukriKhan]

If the world allows the argument: "I am an educated and respected archeologist from Europe, so I will take these objects so that they don't get broken."

How is that different from: "I am an educated and respected oilman from Texas, so I will take this oil so that it isn't wasted." ?

[ajaxfetish]

Why do you hate Indiana Jones?

My first thought reading this thread was that we have the makings of a new Indiana Jones movie on our hands here.

Ajax