Iraq: Biblical ‘Garden Of Eden’ Becomes World Heritage Site

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The marshes, which covered 9,000 square kilometers (3,500 square miles) in the 1970s, had shrunk to just 760 sq km by 2002 before regaining some 40 percent of the original area by 2005. Iraq has said it aims to recover a total of 6,000 sq km.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | UK Desk
Source/Credit: The Huffington Post
By Reuters / Edited TOA | July 19, 2016

[Excerpts]

A wetland in southeast Iraq, thought to be the biblical Garden of Eden ... has become a UNESCO world heritage site, Iraqi authorities said on Sunday.
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Fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the marshlands of Mesopotamia are spawning grounds for Gulf fisheries and home to bird species such as the sacred ibis. They also provide a resting spot for thousands of wildfowl migrating between Siberia and Africa.
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The marshes, which covered 9,000 square kilometers (3,500 square miles) in the 1970s, had shrunk to just 760 sq km by 2002 before regaining some 40 percent of the original area by 2005. Iraq has said it aims to recover a total of 6,000 sq km.
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Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday praised UNESCO’s decision, which he said “coincides with the consecutive military victories in the war against” Islamic State.
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The militant group, which has been pushed back from about half the territory it seized in 2014, controls some of the world’s richest archaeological sites in northern Iraq but has not come close to the country’s south.

...[TOA via Wikipedia]
The Garden of Eden (Hebrew גַּן עֵדֶן, Gan ʿEḏen) is the biblical "garden of God", described most notably in the Book of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also in the Book of Ezekiel.

The "garden of God", not called Eden, is mentioned in Genesis 13, and the "trees of the garden" are mentioned in Ezekiel 31. The Book of Zechariah and the Book of Psalms also refer to trees and water in relation to the temple without explicitly mentioning Eden.


(Original reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Helen Popper)


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