Ultimate Taliban lunacy

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Mar 8 15:32:50 PST 2001


At 06:21 PM 3/8/01 +0000, Justin wrote:
>Actually, there was widespread destruction of many valuable and beautiful
>The Turks are trying to get the Pergamon Marbles (just as awesom as the
>Elgin Marbles) back from the Germans. Those were bought, after the Germans
>dug them out, did the archeological work. Should the Turks get them just
>because there were from settlements on what is now Turkish but was then
>Greek soil?

In this context it is amazing to see how Aya Sophia (aka Hagia Sophia) has been preserved under the Turkish rule (islamic and secular) - to be sure they added islamic symbols to the interior and covered the christian frescos with plaster (now being uncovered) - but the whole thing has been preserved essentially intact. Ditto for other relics of the Roman era in Istanbul aka Constantinople.

Is not that amazing that there are places on earth where people live surrounded by structures created by civilisations that no longer exist? A sharp contrast to the American barbaric capitalism that incessantly levels even its own creations, no matter how magnificent (cf. the Penn Station in Manhattan).

wojtek



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