From the Independent:
The inscription carved some 2,600 years ago inside the world\’s first library was unequivocal: \”May all the gods curse anyone who breaks, defaces, or removes this tablet with a curse that cannot be relieved, terrible and merciless as long as he lives, may they let his name, his seed be carried off from the land, and may they put his flesh in a dog\’s mouth.\”
It was a warning that went unheeded 150 years ago when a British archaeological expedition excavated the ancient library in Nineveh, in what is now Iraq, and transported its 25,000 brittle clay tablets to London as a priceless record of life in the cradle of civilisation.
They have remained there ever since. But now, even as Britain and America ponder military action against Iraq, archaeologists from both sides of the divide are collaborating on a remarkable project to bring the library back to life on Iraqi soil. Undeterred by the rhetoric emanating from Downing Street and Washington, they are planning to send plaster casts of hundreds of the tablets to Iraq as the first step in recreating the library.
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