What kind of barbarian defaces an ancient artifact?

"Vandals used a hammer and screwdriver to vandalise the Stonehenge ancient monument, the first such incident for decades, officials said Thursday.

The night-time attack by two men last week involved the central megalith in the 5,000-year-old ring of standing stones, with English Heritage saying the vandals could have been looking for a souvenir."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080522/wl_uk_afp/britainarchaeologyhistoryheritagestonehenge

WTF is wrong with people? In the grand scheme of things (i.e., war, genocide, natural disasters,etc.) this is not that huge of a deal but I'm astounded that someone would vandalize a monument. My brother always says we're just animals who happen to wear clothing. I think he's right after all.

Of course plain old greed works too. Yes your brother is absolutely right. It took a while for most people to accept that we descended from apes. That misses the point since the real revelation is that we ARE apes.

Dynamiting and destruction, March 2001

Photograph of a statue being destroyed with dynamite on March 21, 2001.The statues were destroyed by dynamite over several weeks, starting in early March, carried out in different stages. Initially, the statues were fired at for several days using anti-aircraft guns and artillery. This damaged them but did not obliterate them. Then the Taliban placed anti-tank mines at the bottom of the niches, so that when chunks of rock broke off from artillery fire, the statues would fall and be blown up again. In the end, the Taliban tied ropes around some local Hazara men, lowered them down the cliff face, and forced them to place explosives into holes in the Buddhas.<9>

On March 6, 2001 The Times quoted Mullah Mohammed Omar as stating, "Muslims should be proud of smashing idols. It has given praise to God that we have destroyed them." He had clearly changed his position from being in favor of the statues to being against them. During a March 13 interview for Japan's Mainichi Shimbun, Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel stated that the destruction was anything but a retaliation against the international community for economic sanctions: "We are destroying the Buddha statues in accordance with Islamic law and it is purely a religious issue".

And I'll also never forget foreign leaders all over the world, particularly Kofi Annan, begging, PLEADING with them not to destroy those statues and they did anyway.

It's like people who tip over headstones - what in hell kind of satisfaction do you get by destroying things that mean a great deal to other people? Especially when they have historic significance as well. :grr:

We had a bunch of little assholes here in Milwaukee spray paint grafitti all over a bunch of them this week.

I'm a genealogist. This ENRAGES me. How would they like someone to walk over and pee on the tombstone of someone they love? It's the same thing to me.

As is defacing a monument. It's put up to HONOR something or someone. Connonym's right. Animals.

5 more months till Halloween, Halloween, Haloween...

that's for sure!:P

...and a defacing-an-ancient-artifact twofer as well:

But the little-known backstory is that McCain rented the uniform from Ye Olde Rental Shoppe and commissioned it on the sly.

and it IS that huge of a deal.

I agreed with the brother's comment about animals but you're more right. There is no animal I don't respect, and I don't feel that way about humans.

to form. I refer to the Crystal Butterfly in Caverns of Sonora, now only has one wing.


http://www.cavernsofsonora.com/index.php?id=104

some asshat broke off one of its wings last year

http://wildtexas.com/talk/caving-spelunking/caverns-sonora-vandalized-1414.html


(edited to add second link)

what the fuck is wrong with people?

I have my own photos of it though they are not as good as the ones in the link. That may be the most famous cave formation in the world, certainly it has been published in a brazillion books on caves, geology, mineralolgy (sp) etc.

The cave is still gorgeous, if you are ever tooling across Texas on I-10 be SURE to stop and see it. It is amazing, and I can be pretty jaded when it comes to caves, having seen many

It pisses me off. :grr:

Doesn't it go without saying that vandals vandalise?

When I was a kid you could walk right up to it. Hug the stones, crawl on them, whatever. Then someone spraypainted the stones and they roped it off, so you could see it but not get close. I don't get some people! It's beautiful, historical, mysterious - why try to destroy it? Some people are just sick in the head.

We should preserve our history. "If you don't know where you came from, you don't know where you are or where you're going."


Khash.

Napoleon's troops used the Sphinx for target practice when he invaded Egypt. The Turks blew up the Parthenon - purely by accident, but they didn't do squat to prevent it. A farmer used a stack of early Christian gospels he found buried for firewood. Granted, he was illiterate, but he found a jar of them carefully sealed and buried in the desert - shouldn't that have been a clue they might be valuable?. Even the supposedly "civilized" Byron and Shelly carved their names on ancient Greek monuments. And gods know how many priceless Pre-Columbian artifacts got melted down by Europeans for the gold.

And let's not get started on the Great Library of Alexandria.

Some people are just jerks.

Now true, if everyone were to do this, there'd be no stonehenge left, but to compare this with trying to blow the thing up is confusing entirely different magnitudes of vandalism.

Ugh. I remember reading a story several years ago about some rock climbers who'd spent months (years?) working on a particularly challenging problem at a famous bouldering area in France. Some jerks showed up and chipped the freakin' holds off the rock!! I mean, that's not an ancient monument, but it's just being an asshole to prevent them from being able to work on something that can't be recreated!

Sometimes, I really hate people. I'm with ya.

we are animals.. people who try to think we're better are usually the worst ones.
And in the scheme of things it really won't make a difference I guess, but I think it's really disrespectful to the people who spent all their time carving the stones and moving them x( There IS a fricking gift shop at Stonehenge, they could get a fridge magnet, show some real respect.

'Cause * deals wholesale.

can someone remind me again why he hasn't been prosecuted as a war criminal? I mean one of Hitler's generals even stood up to Hitler and refused to destroy the art and architecture in Paris (unless I grossly misremember history). On either scale, as a personal act of vandalism or an organized loot/destroy, it's sickening. And you know I'm just thinking that I should go see Indiana Jones* this weekend because I'm sure he'd kick some ass if someone did that.

*not a paid advertisement