An interesting article about Iraqi and other antiquities in the OpinionJournal. One point that the author hints at but doesn't push much is that of why certain things from antiquity are and were valued and thus preserved, and why others weren't. For instance, in antiquity and up to about the second half of this century, anything having to do with the lives of ordinary women (as opposed to queens or courtesans) was not valued. Thus very little survived to be dug up, and when it did, it was for the most part plowed over in the search for more dramatic finds. But what we value as a culture has changed, and what we wouldn't now give for more insight into the daily life of an ordinary woman, say, in first century Israel!