The Winged Bull in the British Museum

As I watched in sickened horror as the devils who denounce devil-worshippers destroyed museum pieces in Mosul yesterday, I thought back to the time when I saw the winged-bull in the British Museum. Its power and unsurpassed strangeness were unforgettable. But I most loved a humanist detail — almost two  thousand years ago, soldiers guarding the gates had scratched a form of tic-tac-toe into the stone base of the statue. Protected by sand, it had endured until now. An idle afternoon, stretched into the ages.