The Mosul artifacts: A priceless loss
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/mosul-artifacts-priceless-loss
An image grab taken off a video reportedly released by Media Office of the Nineveh branch of the Islamic State (IS) Group on February 25, 2015, allegedly shows an IS militant destroying the statue of Lamassu, an Assyrian diety, with a jackhammer in the northern Iraqi Governorate of Nineveh. AFP.
It is hard to overstate the historical and archaeological significance of the area extending from Mesopotamia to Egypt. This stretch contains the early stages of human civilization, especially from the Neolithic era (from 8,000 to 4,000 BC). It was during the late Paleolithic and early Neolithic periods that human beings acquired an advanced level of knowledge. We transitioned from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled agrarian existence with major (...)