Knowing more o f our
past can be useful
The only certain way to improve our feel for history is to have been there. If not that then by some other way feel we were there or 'are' there. Since being there is not a present possibility another way must be found. While some may leap to virtual reality as a means of being present, the Civilization Collection and thousands like it keep the 'past' with us.
Every exhibit is an artifact of Man. More than two thousand years ago a living-breathing he/she has carved it, shaped it, fabricated it and has been involved as the creator of it. The reason museums and collectors describe as treasures the bits and pieces we have gathered of the past is the ability to be there - 10,000 years ago as the article was being used, seen or admired. We can hold, touch and feel it. In cases, we can literally hear it. Though inadvisable we can even taste it.. In this presentation of the past I must do all I can to help transport your mind back to the people and situations in which every piece of the collection was present.
Mezopotamia ...
Cultural Artifacts
copyrights 1984 A J Richter
In the six folio pages following are examples of civilization exhibits. Most have been part of the collection for almost 40 years with others longer than that.
Understandably, some exhibits of the collection while important in their place may be visually unimpressive. Happily this is more than made up for by an ability to gaze into faces looking back at you over 4000 years, or listening to a tiny bell unheard, by anyone, for more than 5000 years.
"Treasures of time may be bought but never owned."
A J Richter Private Collector
just some of Anthony Richter's treasures he has borrowed from time ....
the folio ....
a Richter personal favourite the magnificent Western Han Horse
We arrive in ancient Rome ... when without warning - it 'falls'. It didn't crumble. It doesn't explode. It didn't crack - it just fell? Hoping to put this minor setback behind us we hurriedly hop the next camel-train to Egypt and there to find that it's been taken over by the Greeks!
But the insanity doesn't stop there ! One of my ancient relatives needed a visa for Harappa in the Indus Valley and was refused outright! He tried appealing but found that not only had the Harrapan Immigration Minister skipped town - the entire country had vanished along with the whole of Mohenjo Daro, their bestie neighbors in the Indus Valley.
This is nothing less than poor civilization management with fake-truth making things worse. The nonsense about Sumer for instance: It was all a media 'beat-up'! The idea of Mezopotamia being dismantled as a failed Alien experiment is a simple urban myth. A lie first told by the Akkadians, spread by the Baylonians and in their turn the Assyrians and Hittites ad-nauseum.
By all means - call me alarmist, but how could you know that one of my all-time favorite holiday destinations was
Ur in Sumer, Mezopotamia. Sumeria had been voted 'Best Civilization' for nearly 2000 year. As is common with success in civilizations there were those who resented Sumer's 4.9 rating [almost 1 million Google reviews] :It was then that the Akkadians decided Sumer would not be around for next year's 2004 bce vote.
Gilgamesh, a friendly travel agent from Uruk, said rumors about the Best Civilization Contest were true and he also told me about Sumer's 'frenemies' plans i.e. the Akkadians next door. As promised, in 2004 bce, the Akkadians showed Sumer the door . The Babylonians did the same to the Akkadians etc. and the whole thing became boring, predictable and a seriously distressing mess for civilization planners of the day.
Aside from the screwing up of my holiday destinations, the whole thing was quite depressing since Sumer had just started a thing they called 'Writing-Stuff': Something the out-of-towners had no clue about. They couldn't see why scratching in mud or sticking things into clay was any kind of a deal when their kids and chickens back home did it everyday !? By the way ... the Indus Valley Harrapans were a clever bunch themselves: See what I mean? Depressing.
HOLIDAY HELL ... places we can longer stay. ...
In his find, our friendly archaeologist is merely one more of us with a story of self delusion: Perhaps self-delusion refers as much to a case of hope over expectation. The cartoon serves a third and important message about our inclination to see what we want or wish to see. In a scenario where the discovery of a new pyramid would lead to world acclaim it would be a battle with our nature to avoid at least some heightened level of excitement and with it, the dangers of flawed perception.
When contemplating humanity and its nature we do have a stake in the game and without hesitation point always to the positive: Never ignore the heroic and wherever possible highlight the good; Always those aspects of our humanity that we hope, expect or wish to see rather than to reveal your awareness of the abundant evidence of the rapacious predator, (to varying degrees of course), existing in greater than lesser numbers within our species.
Mia Culpa: In this heartless accusation of Man being truly Human I must, by the biological Species-Specific law confess that I too am Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad and Donald Trump et al … but surely, with me, in a much nicer way.
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