Newsgroup: it.hobby.viaggi
Titolo: [ARCHEO-NEWS] Diga irachena minaccia scavi di Assur

E' in inglese lo so... buona lettura a chi lo capisce
AP World - General News
Archaeologists warn Iraqi dam threatens ancient Assyrian city
Wed Feb 5,10:44 PM ET
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES - An Iraqi dam under construction on the Tigris River
threatens to submerge the remains of the spiritual capital of the
ancient Assyrian empire in an act archaeologists liken to flooding the
Vatican.
Much of the city of Ashur, which thrived for more than 1,000 years
until the Babylonians razed it in 614 B.C., could vanish under a lake
to be created by the Makhoul dam, U.S. and European archaeologists
said.
More than 60 outlying historical sites are also threatened.
Ashur, or Assur, was of such importance that it lent its name to the
Assyrian civilization itself.
"Losing it would be like, I guess you could say, losing the Vatican,"
said Mark Altaweel, a Baghdad-born doctoral student at the University
of Chicago who is using satellite data to study the ruins-rich region
surrounding Ashur.
Ashur sits on a bluff about 130 feet (39 meters) above the Tigris
between Mosul and Baghdad. Most of the city, including the lower
portions most vulnerable to flooding, have never been explored in the
century since the first archaeological teams visited the site.
The city was the spiritual center and trading hub of one of the
world's first great empires that at its peak stretched from Egypt to
Iran and northward into Turkey.
Estimates of how much of the city would be submerged vary from half to
the entire site.
The dam, slated for completion by 2007, is the result of economic
sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, said John
Malcolm Russell of the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.
Iraq has been pushing toward greater self-sufficiency in food
production, which has led to the development of massive irrigation
projects of which the dam is part, said Russell, an art historian and
expert in ancient Assyria.
In the past, dam building projects have threatened other
archaeological sites throughout the Middle East. Typically each case
sparked an international salvage effort, most notably in Egypt, where
the great temple of Ramses II and several other temples and colossal
statues were moved to spare them from the lake created by the Aswan
dam on the Nile.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
is now assisting Iraq in assessing the Makhoul dam's impact on Ashur
and what, if any, measures can be taken to prevent its destruction,
said Giovanni Boccardi, chief of the UN organization's Arab states
unit. A report detailing its recommendations has not yet been made
public.
Iraq has also submitted a draft nomination to UNESCO to have Ashur
named a world heritage site, which would add it to a list of 763
locations around the world, including China's Great Wall and the ruins
of ancient Pompeii.
But a plan to protect and manage the site must be devised before that
status can be granted.
"The possibility for the site to be inscribed on the list will
obviously depend on our capacity to identify ways and means of
ensuring the conservation of the outstanding universal value of
Ashur," Boccardi said.
In Iraq, antiquities officials have dispatched 10 teams of
archaeologists to the Ashur region, said Peter Miglus of the
University of Heidelberg in Germany, who last dug at the site in 2001.
Since then, no international teams have been asked back.
"There has been no invitation issued, as they euphemistically call it,
to rescue these sites," Russell said.
Overall, the situation for archaeology is not much better elsewhere in
Iraq since the end of the Gulf War. Thousands of looted objects,
including Assyrian reliefs purloined from museums and storehouses at
archaeological sites, have appeared for sale at auction and on the
Web.
"I have become so depressed by the flow I have stopped looking at
eBay," Russell said.
Archaeologists, including members of the Archaeological Institute of
America, fear the situation will worsen if there is war.
"It will be a mess if we go in again," said Samuel Paley, professor of
classics at the State University of New York, Buffalo. "Who knows what
will happen. You balance what we consider the political needs of today
with the heritage of antiquity: What comes out on top?" 
-- 
Marco Z.
-------------------------------
http://members.xoom.it/marquito
 

Caro Marco, mo' ci pensa Bush a proteggere Assur , una bombetta qui, un
missilino là  e via la cattiva e brutta diga ! :-(((
Steve
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Steve
se leggi in fondo all'articolo, pure gli scienziati si preoccupano
ancora di più della guerra che della diga, per le sorti di Assur...
certo, per come la vedo io, se l'Iraq potesse godere di pace e
benessere VERI (per il popolo iracheno) la butterei giù pietra dopo
pietra, Assur, ma non credo che andrà così! :-(
