..I was made in 2400BC from the following exquisite materials:
alabaster, mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli and bitumen. I am 52.5cm tall and used to live peacefully in our royal capital city, Mari, until I was savagely kidnapped by a pillaging Frenchman with a parrot's name who took me to his tiny museum in Paris (by comparison, the whole of Mesopotamia is one giant live museum) where I have been kept prisoner since 1934. I hope Mr. Parrot rots in hell!
Update: DONATE YOUR SAND TO SAVE MARI
My dear Fans,
Thank you for supporting my great escape with your discrete messages of encouragement. I am now alive and buried in the great depths of the Temple of Ishtar in my great home city of Mari, while a clone (or should I say clown?) is currently resident in my sad glass cage in The Louvre. Mr. Parrot must be turning in his own box!
I know that right across the museum many statues are whispering in secret behind their keepers' backs, dreaming of following my example. However, I would like to warn them that they should think twice about ever wanting to come queuing up outside the Temple of Ishtar... Should they ever make the long journey to Mari, they will not even be able to locate this most sacred Temple, as all traces of it were tragically washed away in a storm some time ago. But for my part, how could I not have been drawn to Area 20 (as recorded by Parrot) just outside the Temple wall, where Hammurabi's vandals had hurled me to the ground, causing my head to break from my body (writing about it still makes me shudder all over).
However, even Hammurabi's hooligans did not manage to fully destroy the Temple, which survived over 5000 years of the ups and downs of history - until that cunning little git Mr. Andre Parrot had a brainstorm and decided to dig it out of the ground...
Five thousand years ago we used to repair our dried mud walls each year as a matter of course, unlike Mr. Parrot who thought he could just dig them out once and for all, and that they would remain intact for future generations to see... What a fool!
When I made my great private entrance in Mari eight days ago, its walls were still muddy from the rain that had fallen in previous days, and so was the ground. Each modern step that anyone may now take is immediately imprinted into our ancient mud floors... Thanks to Mr. Parrot's great idea, our unique city is rapidly being washed away, with each passing shower. Please do not blame climate change for our new demise - the responsibility weighs squarely on the shoulders of that parrot who should have known better.
You will now realize that, far from me being the only one here to bury myself into the ground, the whole city is in the process of being buried with me. The only way to save it from this worst destruction in 7000 years (my ancestors first settled here around 5000 BC, but Parrot did not dig deep enough to find out) would be to cover the whole site with sand, thereby preserving it for more enlightened future generations (?) to care for it properly.
Here is my cry for help: Mari is the only Babylonian city whose walls are still standing, having been left exposed in such a vulnerable state. The only way to prevent rampant erosion and the whole site being washed away in the rain within 15 years is to bury it with sand for posterity. Any donation of sand, whether great or small, will be highly appreciated.
Ebih-il
City of Mari
Mesopotamia
11 January 2009
