What Makes Civilization? The Ancient Near East and The Future of the West

摘要

As part of his personality cult, the late President Saddam Hussein of Iraq liked to advertise his powerful affinity for the heritage of ancient Mesopotamia. Saddam launched a grand reconstruction of the site of ancient Babylon as he visualised it at the time of its ruler Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC), using bricks inscribed with the names of Nebuchadnezzar and himself in modern Arabic, rather than the original Babylonian cuneiform. For the International Babylon Festival in 1990, he invited his cabinet ministers, senior officials, diplomats and international reporters to celebrate his 53 rd birthday in his home village. The climax of the festivities involved a wooden cabin, wheeled out before prostrate crowds dressed in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian costume. When the cabin doors opened, inside was a palm tree from which 53 white doves flew up into the sky; beneath them a baby Saddam, lying in a basket, came floating down a marsh-bordered stream.