Back to Eridu?

[us4-he2-gal2]

Archaeologists promised access to Abu Shahrain

The below newsflash has recently appeared on Jack Sasson's email list "Agade." While this sounds wonderful and no place is more exciting to the enthusiast of Mesopotamian religion than Eridu, one should probable bear in mind that the current crises in Iraq (=Isis) may totally invalidate any hope of this excavation actually happening. The newsflash is as follows:

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With great pleasure, we inform our colleagues that HE Dr Liwaa
Sumaisem, Minister for Tourism and Archaeology of the Republic of
Iraq, and Dr Ahmed Kamil, Director of the Excavations of Iraq,
delivered a signed Permit of Excavations to Franco D’Agostino and
Marco Ramazzotti to excavate at the important and long neglected site
of Eridu (Abu Shahrain).

We plan to survey the site, which Franco D’Agostino has already
visited several times in the last two years, in the first half of
October 2014. Further information and details will follow soon.

It is an honor for us to recognize here HE Dr Habeeb Al-Sadr,
Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the Holy See in Rome. With
conviction and enthusiasm, he has from the outset supported our new
project of excavation in Iraq.

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