Ottawa Citizen

TABLETS TELL ANCIENT TALE

Treasures help spark thorny debate

- DANIEL ESTRIN

At first glance, the ancient Babylonian tablets on exhibit for the first time at a Jerusalem museum look like nothing more than pockmarked lumps of clay.

But the 2,500-year-old treasures from present-day Iraq have become part of a thorny archeologi­cal debate over how to handle historical­ly significan­t relics thought to have been dug up in the fog of war by Mideast antiquitie­s robbers.

Experts in cuneiform writing, one of the world’s earliest scripts, say the collection of 110 crackersiz­ed clay tablets provides the earliest written evidence of the biblical exile of the Judeans in what is now southern Iraq, offering new insight into a formative period of early Judaism.

The tablets, though, also tell a murkier story, from the present era, according to scholars familiar with the antiquitie­s trade — a story of the chaos in Iraq and Syria that has led to rampant pilfering of rich archeologi­cal heritage and a rush of cuneiform tablets on the internatio­nal antiquitie­s’ market.

The collector who owns the tablets on display this month at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, insists they were purchased legally, decades before that looting began. However, a history scholar familiar with the artifacts disputes that.

Leading U.S. museums have pledged not to exhibit unprovenan­ced artifacts that have surfaced in recent decades, as part of an effort over the last decade to discourage illicit antiquitie­s traffickin­g. But cuneiform inscriptio­ns have emerged as a notable exception, with some arguing these relics would be lost to history if they did not make it into scholarly hands.

“We are not interested in anything that is illegally acquired or sneaked out,” said Amanda Weiss, director of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem.

“But it is the role of a museum to protect these pieces,” she added. “It’s what we are here for.”

The plundering of antiquitie­s in the war-torn Middle East has become a primary concern for the archeologi­cal community, and some archeologi­sts even compare satellite images of sites in Iraq and Syria to moonscapes, after antiquitie­s robbers went through them.

Archeologi­sts claim Islamic State extremists and militants from other groups are funding their activities in part through illegal traffickin­g of antiquitie­s, and authoritie­s worldwide have been taking action to try to stem the flow.

What first sparked awareness of the issue, archeologi­sts say, was a deluge of cuneiform artifacts on the Western antiquitie­s markets after the first Gulf War in 1991.

In the years that followed, archeologi­sts estimate hundreds of thousands of small clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptio­ns made their way into the hands of dealers. Many contained encrustati­ons, indicating they were “fresh out of the earth,” said Robert Englund of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative.

An American scholar of ancient Jewish history familiar with the tablets on display in Jerusalem said they were purchased on the London antiquitie­s market at the time when cuneiform artifacts were flooding the market, a strong indication that the items were looted. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a potentiall­y illegal activity.

London-based Israeli collector David Sofer, who loaned the cuneiform collection to the Bible Lands Museum, denied any foul play. He said he purchased the tablets in the United States in the 1990s from a person who obtained them in public auctions in the 1970s.

As common as cuneiform tablets are, few have been as celebrated as those on display in Jerusalem.

The tablets fill in a 130-year gap in the history of the Judeans exiled to Babylon after the Babylonian destructio­n of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C., said Laurie Pearce, a cuneiform expert from the University of California, Berkeley.

The earliest of the tablets, which have dates inscribed on them, is from just 15 years after the destructio­n of the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, and the inscriptio­n suggests the displaced Judeans were more quickly absorbed into the Babylonian society than previously thought, said Pearce, who studied the collection.

The tablets include administra­tive documents such as land agreements, showing the Judeans were “integrated almost immediatel­y,” she added.

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 ??  AVI NOAM/BIBLE LANDS ?? Cuneiform tablets, one of the world’s earliest scripts, are shown on display at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem. The tablets provide the earliest written evidence of the biblical exile of the Judeans in what is now Iraq, offering new insight into a...
 AVI NOAM/BIBLE LANDS Cuneiform tablets, one of the world’s earliest scripts, are shown on display at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem. The tablets provide the earliest written evidence of the biblical exile of the Judeans in what is now Iraq, offering new insight into a...

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