There is a prophecy in the Bible that says Babylon will never successfully be rebuilt. Isa 13:19, 20.
t0lo · 1h ago
It's amazing we're living in a time again where we have to know the bible to predict government policy
eth0up · 3h ago
Screw the tourists, bring in the archeologists, maybe start by resuming excavations at Eridu. 99% of our history is buried or looted. And the one or two Assyriologists in the world need new material to study.
roshin · 2h ago
After several years, Iraqi Hezbollah recently released their Princeton researcher hostage (granted, she is a dual Israeli citizen). Maybe that will encourage more archeologists to visit.
Thanks for the info and please pardon my previous ignorance of it. I'm grateful for her release.
breppp · 1h ago
Lovely place to be kidnapped
nashashmi · 2h ago
Tourism is such a wasteful tax on society. I met an Egyptologist who had been leading tours for two years so he could feed his family but he longed to go back to Egyptology and go and study the ruins even though it didn’t pay well
bcraven · 1h ago
And after meeting that person you thought, "wow I wish this person didn't have an alternative income stream that allows them to feed their family"?
Many people in this world wish they could do something different with their lives, but to blame the activity they're currently doing is shortsighted.
nashashmi · 1h ago
lol. Sure I felt happy that he had something else to keep his family fed. But I as a tourist with more valuable cash come into this country with an artificially low value cash, take up the very resources of that country to … give me a tour! This guy is probably a skilled archeologist who made a huge effort to learn history of an ancient civilization and was actually able to translate whatever we asked him to translate.
And here he is could be doing something so much more valuable … than giving this idiot (me) a “tour”.
I am appreciative that I met him. And that he was my guide. But my money didn’t give him an income. It took away the finite resources of his country.
AlotOfReading · 29m ago
People generally become tour guides because alternative jobs don't exist. It's extremely common for the local workers who help with excavation to become tour guides for the areas they've helped excavate. Many of these people are more knowledgeable (in certain respects) than the archaeologists they're helping.
I'm fairly certain you weren't taking him away from something more valuable that he would have been doing in your absence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Tsurkov
Many people in this world wish they could do something different with their lives, but to blame the activity they're currently doing is shortsighted.
And here he is could be doing something so much more valuable … than giving this idiot (me) a “tour”.
I am appreciative that I met him. And that he was my guide. But my money didn’t give him an income. It took away the finite resources of his country.
I'm fairly certain you weren't taking him away from something more valuable that he would have been doing in your absence.