And While I'm On The Subject...

What is it with the Britis and their double standard about respect for the cultural property of others? I mentioned earlier that we were treated at the British Museum to a film with an anti-American slant about archeological damage inflicted on the site of ancient Babylon by an American military camp set up there. There was briefer mention of the tremendous damage done by the regime of Saddam Hussein to the site and even less mention of any serious conservation undertaken by Iraquis themselves. The irony of all of this was that we had to listen to British intellegensia condemning American while sitting in a veritable treasure vault of British loot. The British museum owns the largest collection of mummies outside Cairo, many of which were taken under apalling circumstances but there they don't seem to be in any hurry to return them. Nor are they willing to heed Greece's plea for the return of the Elgin Marbles which once decorated the Parthenon. And how about the Rosetta Stone? It wasn't discovered in Surrey. Oh and then there are those marvelous carvings of a lion hunt taken from the palace of an Assyrian king in Ninevah in northern Iraq. I'm pretty sure they weren't removed in a way that was archeologically or culturally sensitive, and I'm pretty sure they are a significant part of the Iraqi heritage and that the Iraqis would like them back. It's part of the British self-image to condemn Americans as hopelessly culturally philistine, but they may want to look into some of those stolen bronze mirrors of theirs and see just who is looking back!