Thursday, February 26, 2015

Renaming "Nineveh" would not have gotten them any attention

People aren't paying enough attention to the Islamic State, so they smashed a bunch of statues and uploaded the videos to get the world to look at them again. That's my interpretation. The people on the video claim they were smashing statues to wipe out remnants of paganism.

The video was uploaded by the media office of Nineveh state, which is "the Islamic State's name for the Mosul region." But Nineveh was also the name of the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and the word "Nineveh" possibly means "seat of Ishtar"* Ishtar, of course, was a pagan goddess. I guess that's one remnant of paganism they're giving a pass.

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* It might also mean "house of fish."