[blackbrokkoli]

I was there earlier last year, and it was none too impressive.

Pretty shoddy brick walls (just straight blocks), crumbling at many places, constructed possibly along ancient foundations or maybe not, that you sort of walk through. Interesting things here and there. Couple of other tourists.

Walking through Saddam's palace next to it was much more fascinating; extreme grandeur morphed into a typical lost place with graffiti and empty bottles. The nearby town Al7illa certainly offered more to actually experience, like a mini theme park with the main attraction being (artificial) rain.

Anyways I genuinely wish the committed people all the best in the restoration, but I feel like the article is a tad over-enthusiastic and easily convinced.

[hermitcrab]

This site and the nearby Saddam palace were featured in the recent Michael Palin travelogue on Iraq.

https://www.themichaelpalin.com/watch/#section8

The reconstruction looked very bare and empty in the program. But I guess it is a work in progress.

BTW the Assyrian exhibits in the British museum are amazing and well worth visiting. Yes, I know, colonialism is bad and they probably shouldn't be in London. But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.

[jajko]

> But I doubt they would be in anything like as good a state if they had been left in their original locations.

I get it, but thats problem with 'good theft', its still amoral, and well we all know history and how things actually happened. Inability to even properly acknowledge fuckups of one's ancestors leaves little room for moving further and learning hard from that, instead of some shallow blah to not stick out of the crowd.