For the first time, a book detailing the hundred most important pieces of the largest collection of Spain dedicated to the ancient civilizations of the Middle East
Montserrat disclose their Mesopotamian treasures
Coinciding with the difficult political, social and cultural moment living some countries now controlled by the Islamic State and that once formed part of the first great civilization in history, the Museum of Montserrat has decided to value its Mesopotamian background with publication of a catalog that, for the first time to the general public about the main parts of Spain’s largest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities.
And, in fact, few know that the Benedictine mountain treasures such volume of Mesopotamian art, some 1,200 pieces, of which correspond to a thousand cuneiform tablets. “There is in the mind as a collection Montserrat you were not cataloged,” explains Javier Uriach, editor of the Mesopotamian collection of the Museum of Montserrat presented today at the Palau Robert in Barcelona in the presence of Abbot Josep M. Soler.
The catalog has selected a hundred pieces, all brought here nearly a century ago by Father Ubach from the region lying between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. “At present, marked by strife and violence in the Middle East, take a relief and a significant historical importance descriptions and photographs that Father Ubach made in these countries he will soon hundred years when there was peace,” says Father Pius-Ramon Tragan, Scriptorium Biblicum et Orientale of Montserrat. “It should reflect on how, in the 20s of last century there were all kinds of cults in the area of Iraq, and now because of religious intolerance is destroying a irrestituible testimony. Lucky parts of Montserrat are saved, as that are in museums around the world, “said Uriach.
The most relevant findings
The Cover
Among the pieces which includes the catalog, written by the specialist in Sumerian and Akkadian languages and member of CSIC, Ignacio Marquez Rowe, include the weight of a talent as the father duck Ubach acquired in a village outside Baghdad and that the monk was the most valuable work of the Biblical Museum, which he founded to offer a historical and cultural Biblical scripture (embryo of the current montserratino museum) context. Only four similar pieces are known worldwide. “Father Ubach discovered on the door of a humble home, used as nerves,” explains Uriach.
Another relevant findings showing the catalog is a fragment of ‘kudurru’, a kind of monolith Babylonian kings placed inside temples. “It’s a symbolic piece, you can see, carved in elegant relief, symbols of gods or Papsukal Gula, goddess of medicine,” says the editor of the work.
Among the cuneiform tablets catalog collecting herbal notes on a piece of medical science or dedicated to astronomical knowledge, especially relevant in a culture that reached accurately predict celestial phenomena. And as a curiosity, the work also shows a tablet stored within its on clay, no doubt, the ancestor of our paper charts.
Courtesy Car Service Barcelona airport
