Mesopotamian art and monuments are currently at great risk. What was anciently a matrix of images showing fictionally developed ideas, spreading the spirit for an afterlife and by doing so trying to outlive all of us, is partly gone. What is left are digital point clouds, called photographs or 3D digitalisations, mostly in fashion to answer the purpose of saving and reproducing this exceptional heritage. Drawing the line to the deeper intention of mesopotamian art, it is feasible to look into the old epic of Gilgamesh, illustrating a heros quest for eternal life. When he acceptes the impossibility of his project, regarding his physical limitations, he refocusses on immortalizing his name by building the great wall of Uruk. The production of information, embodied in architecture, is Gilgamesh’s tool of choice to keep him alive. This marks a turning point in the importance of human memory and historical writing. Gilgamesh’s reaction to build something big in order to be kept in mind is a recurring phenomenon, characterizing the hubris of the human species. Perfectly bundled up in the epic of Herostrat, where the antihero is destroying something great to be kept in mind, the opposite is able to assure the same urge. Until now the epic of Gilgamesh is alive, but Uruk is in danger because of the ongoing terror in the region. The Mesopotamians went on for the same strategy trying to protect their artistic treasures for the infinite by engraving their walls with curses on people relocating or destroying their heritage. To question the wish of eternity gives an idea of the fear but also the threat layered underneath it. The huge acceptance of reproducing unique artistic treasures that just got destroyed gives an idea on the way how the human species is tightly entangled with the wish for eternity. The other option is to unleash ourselves from our replica mania and to let it go.