Archaeological Thriller

Every Best Gift a tale of the Ages. The Neanderthal materials that Ralph Solecki, Ph.D, (I once worked for Joan Geismar in his lab) excavated in Shanidar Cave in the Zagros Mountains of Iraq are, with included forensics, available on the Smithsonian site. My former professor Elizabeth C. Stone, Ph.D., with whom I took classes and studied the excavations of Nuzi in Kirkuk, near Mosul, Iraq (northern area) that were done by Starr of Harvard (interestingly another faculty member at Stony Brook while I was there who was a social anthropologist who studied in southern Turkey, where George Bass and all those underwater archaeologists go, she helped start mediated legal hearings, i.e., before we get to court, lets see if we can work this out, in Suffolk County) in the 1930's that are known for a quantity of tablets found there, though the translations I've only seen in the Drew University library. There was an article in the NY Times a few days ago where the theft and repatriation of antiquities was edited from the couple of hours down to a printable size that she was in. She has been trying to attract funds to train Iraqi's to work on the collections there but reported to only have been able to get a one year's commitment from any of the large benefactors available for that. Donny George is in charge of the looted museum there under Saddam he was in a "Deep Purple" like cover band to supplement his income the NY Times reported. Anyway, the Empire State Building is lit in yellow and white tonight to celebrate spring.