The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFatherhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

"Lost Treasures from Iraq" Web Site

The University of Chicago has introduced an interesting new Web site for those of you keeping track of the chaos post-"Operation Iraqi Freedom". It's called Lost Treasures from Iraq and, given that it's about treasures that were looted and are now presumably available on the black market, it'll be interesting to see if UC can keep the site politics-free.

According to the news release at my friend Eric Wards' URLwire:

In the world of Mesopotamian archaeology, no other museum could rival the collections from the Iraq Museum. Spanning a time from before 9,000 B.C. well into to the Islamic period they included some of the earliest tools man ever made, painted polychrome ceramics from the 6th millennium B.C., a relief-decorated cult vase from Uruk, famous gold treasures from the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Sumerian votive statues from Tell Asmar, Assyrian reliefs and bull figures from Assyrian capitals of Nimrud, Nineveh, and Khorsabad, to Islamic pottery and coins--an unrivaled treasure not only for Iraq, but for all of mankind.
In the days following the conquest of Baghdad the Iraq Museum was looted. Reports on the damage vary--the number of lost or stolen objects varies between 50,000 to 200,000. Irrespective of numbers, the losses not only to the world of a archaeology but to mankind in general are tremendous .

Very interesting, and well worth a few minutes of poking around. It's a surprising application of the cliché that "history is determined by the winners."

Posted by Dave Taylor at May 9, 2003 8:54 AM

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