Nineveh’s art in good hands

Austen Henry Layard stealing art from Nineveh in 1851, for transport to the British Museum.

The remains of the 8,000-year-old city of Nineveh in northern Iraq have fallen into the hands of Isis thugs. While I feel for the people, I am relieved that the British removed most of Nineveh’s art during its colonial heyday. Thanks to their looting efforts, most of the city’s treasures are now safe and sound in the British Museum instead of at the mercy of Isis. (The destruction of the Bamiyan statues showed us how many of the militants feel about pre-Islamic art.)
Thanks to this ignorance on matters un-Islamic, we can also have good hope that the new rulers of Nineveh aren’t inspired by Sennacherib, who ruled the city around 700 BC and apparently bragged: “Its inhabitants, young and old, I did not spare, and with their corpses I filled the streets of the city.”
He said this after destroying Babylon, whose ruins are located 85 kilometers south of Baghdad ...