First page, no problem. It downloaded rather quickly. The background wasn’t meant to display on a resolution as high as the one that I use, but that happens quite frequently. Not many people surf at anything higher than 1024*768, anyway.

When I clicked on the link of the Temple of Astarte, I was offended. Horribly offended. It says flat-out that Muslims, Jews, and Christians aren’t welcome, and then goes on to say that, to enter the temple, you must click a button to curse the monotheistic god. WTF? Yeah, I find that highly offensive. I find the legal disclaimer at the bottom of the page to be offensive, as well. If you want to spread hatred of the monotheistic religions everywhere, fine. But don’t be a coward. Own your f***ing words. And that’s not even touching the design of the page.

So, for the sake of curiousity, let’s click the obnoxious, disgusting little curse button. I can’t properly review a site without looking over the whole of it.

Eh, crap about “spiritual preparation” required to read a web page. The next page is more of the same. Four pages of preparation to view a web page. Whatever. And when I finally got to the “temple”, I must say, I was really disappointed after all that effort.

The pantheon section is okay. It’s pretty basic, but since I know very little about the Mesopotamian pantheons, that’s not a bad thing. Still, you have to click on links to get to individual descriptions that are less detailed than my own descriptions of the Hellenic deities in the Greek section of this site. No way I’d want to browse this on my old 26.6 connection back in Florida. It would take all day for too little info.

The texts are a good thing, except for the fact that there’s a horizontal scroll on my super-high resolution view.

In the museum, there are images used that I’m concerned about. There are photographs of the Venus of Willendorf and other items that I *don’t* think he’s got permission to use. His world history also strikes me as heavily flawed. (So, I’m a Pagan against bad history. Sue me.)

All in all, I wouldn’t suggest that anyone go there unless it’s to read the Mesopotamian texts. And, even then, I imagine that those works are available at Sacred-Texts, thus eliminating any need to see this delightful work of bigotry.

Link: Virtual Temple City of Astarte
Score: 2/10
Reviewed by Enyo Perseus