tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/palmyra-17200/articlesPalmyra – The Conversation2021-03-15T12:31:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1545952021-03-15T12:31:24Z2021-03-15T12:31:24Z‘Every day is war’ – a decade of slow suffering and destruction in Syria<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388068/original/file-20210305-17-1cy3igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C1049%2C759&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The city of Homs has been ravaged by war, leaving millions of people homeless and displaced. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abduljalil Achraf</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Abduljalil sent me a photo of his ruined home in Homs, Syria. “It is the third floor”, he told me over WhatsApp. The building still stands but it looks like an empty skeleton. Most of its facade has been destroyed, while piles of debris surround it. Residents have not been able to return, as they fear it could collapse at any time.</p>
<p>For a decade now, conflict, violence and destruction have reshaped the lives of millions of Syrians since the start of the Syrian Revolution in March 2011. Abduljalil is just one of more than <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/syria-emergency.html">12 million</a> people who have had to flee their homes. While 5.6 million people have fled Syria to find refuge in countries such as Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, 6.6 million people have been internally displaced.</p>
<p>Over the past five years, I have been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/xT6AE8RNPymQ9PCNpge2/full?target=10.1080/13604813.2019.1575605">researching</a> the relationship between urban violence and the impact it has on cities. My research has been mainly focused on my home city of Homs where I conducted a series of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13604813.2020.1833536">interviews</a> with local people and examined the way Homs has been transformed in the past decade. The conflict has created a disorientating experience for many Homsis. People have lost some of their most cherished places, as well as many of their loved ones. </p>
<p>I want my research to help people understand how it feels to be forcibly uprooted. What does it mean to see your own country getting destroyed, to see your home – the place that gave you a sense of safety, security, belonging and identity – in ruins? </p>
<p>These questions are personal to me. I too was forced to leave my home in Homs when fighting broke out and tanks entered my city. I have not been able to return since 2011. From afar, I have seen my country crumble into ruins. I have watched the people I love struggle daily, losing their homes, their dreams, their friends and their future. I have lost people – people I coudn’t even say goodbye to.</p>
<p>As a displaced person, my life moves in parallels. Walking in London where I now live, the images of destroyed homes and shattered lives are always at the forefront of my mind. I left Syria, but Syria didn’t leave me. My life, like the lives of millions of us, has been terribly damaged – just like our cities. The past decade has been a story of loss and suffering, a landscape of grief and sorrow.</p>
<h2>Homs as it was</h2>
<p>Before the conflict started, Homs was known as a city of diversity where different communities from different religious and sectarian backgrounds lived together. It had a population of 800,000 people, but yet there was a strong sense of community – it felt as if everyone knew everyone else. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The busy city centre of Homs before the fighting began." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389522/original/file-20210315-13-cxxd32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bustling Homs before the conflict started in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.city-analysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/8.-Homs-before-2011-Source-Ammar-Azzouz.jpg">Ammar Azzouz</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many neighbourhoods were divided along sectarian lines. Some were mostly inhabited by Alawites or Sunnis while others were mixed with Alawites, Sunnis and Christians living together. </p>
<p>It was a city of peace, quiet and simplicity. Its people famous for their sense of humour and generosity. The memory of this thriving and cosmopolitan city, makes the present reality even more difficult to swallow.</p>
<p>Abduljalil said the memories of old times haunt his former home like a ghost. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I remember the stars I put on the roof in my bedroom … but even the stars fell.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abduljalil and his family had no choice but to flee their home in 2013 fearing, for their lives. Their neighbourhood, Jouret al-Shayah, at the heart of Homs, was <a href="https://unhabitat.org/city-profile-homs-multi-sector-assessment">heavily targeted</a>.</p>
<p>Other cities including Mosul, Beirut, Aleppo and Raqqa have suffered too. Cities have turned into battlefields. Wars are no longer fought outside densely populated areas, but in neighbourhoods. The urbanisation of the military has made <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0267303032000087766?journalCode=chos20">everyday life</a> a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5yEOdutixw&t=18s">target</a>. </p>
<p>Even cultural heritage sites have been targeted. The shelling of places such as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyQdng7qsCI&t=37s">Khaled Ibn al Walid Mosque</a> in Homs, the destruction of monuments, cultural artefacts and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34036644">temples</a> in Palmyra and in the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/38303230">Ancient City</a> of Aleppo shocked the world. </p>
<p>But this interest in the ancient monuments has overshadowed the loss people have endured to their way of living that has collapsed in the past decade – the slow suffering. Homes, bakeries, schools and hospitals have been destroyed too. But these “ordinary” spaces have rarely been brought into the conversation.</p>
<p>Everyday life is a battle for survival, even though the fighting in Homs has ended. For many families, food – including sugar and bread – are becoming hard to obtain. Some of the people I spoke to reported long hours waiting to get rice, while many struggle to afford food due to the country’s <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/f3ccc3a7-c697-412a-9b99-18944de5c108">economic collapse</a>. The UN has <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1085722">reported</a> that around 60% of Syrians (12.4 million people) do not have regular access to safe and nutritious food.</p>
<p>One woman I spoke to, who asked not to be identified, lives in Mashta Al Hilu, a town between Homs and Tartus. After finishing her degree in architecture in Homs, she struggled to find a job. She told me how she felt when walking in the ruined streets. In Baba Amr she said she felt as if a “monster” had destroyed it.</p>
<p>Her dream is to improve her violin skills, but these dreams are on hold. She said she felt isolated, as many of her friends had left Syria or had been killed. She asked me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is life after war more difficult than the life at the time of war? … Every day is war.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were hopes for change in 2011. People imagined that the future would be different. Nobody expected that Homs would be destroyed, that entire neighbourhoods would be razed to the ground, that another day could mean yet another loss. </p>
<p>Abduljalil and his family couldn’t rebuild their home. No charity or organisation helped them. They eventually decided to sell the ruins and rent outside the heart of the city. Abduljalil still visits his past life, his lost home. He told me: “I feel as a flower uprooted from its roots and planted in another place”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154595/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ammar Azzouz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After ten years of conflict and destruction, what is left of Syria and what hope is there for its people?Ammar Azzouz, Short-term Research Associate, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072572018-12-12T12:46:55Z2018-12-12T12:46:55ZHow Islamic State’s destruction of ancient Palmyra played out on Arabic-language Twitter – new study<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249275/original/file-20181206-128220-ehjdj1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">h</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Pictures of the destruction of the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23">UNESCO World Heritage site of Palmyra</a> have become iconic images of the conflict in Syria. These have been widely shared around the world as symbols of Islamic State’s barbarism – profiled alongside their extensive human rights violations, such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-who-are-the-yazidis-30280">massacre of the Yazidi people</a>. </p>
<p>But new research from the universities of Newcastle and Milan, published in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/isis-and-heritage-destruction-a-sentiment-analysis/CDABFFEB67F138A6B96AD45EA05A026E">Antiquity</a>, suggests the destruction also received some support from the Arabic-speaking public. </p>
<p>IS is not the first group to purposefully destroy heritage. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31813681">Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas</a> in Afghanistan also shocked the world. but IS’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/socially-mediated-terrorism-poses-devilish-dilemma-for-social-responses-50750">socially mediated terrorism</a>” has far-reaching impacts. </p>
<p>We wanted to understand what the Arabic-speaking world had to say about the issue, so we used “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020025516303917">sentiment analysis</a>”. This is a technique that involves categorising opinions in statements into whether they are positive, negative, or neutral, as well as categorising the reasons expressed to support such sentiments and then analysing the results. Categorisations are usually done manually to catch sarcasm and idioms, but our method allowed us to automatically and accurately analyse 1.5m publicly available Arabic-language tweets explicitly discussing the topic over nine months.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249965/original/file-20181211-76962-mnsczs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tower Tombs in a Palmyrene necropolis, Syria, destroyed by Islamic State in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unknown</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study included widely shared reports of destruction – such as news stories, photographs and videos circulated on social media – as well as incidents that have only been discovered by analysis of satellite imagery. We also included instances of IS’s <a href="http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/asor-cultural-heritage-initiatives-weekly-report-103-104-july-20-2016-august-2-2016/">demolition for construction purposes</a>, and the repurposing of sites (such as <a href="https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/womens-secret-films-from-within-closed-city-of-islamic-state/">turning a church into police headquarters</a>), as we assumed all of these would affect sentiment towards the extremist group.</p>
<p>In general, our research found that a fifth (21.7%) of tweets that expressed an opinion about these IS abuses of heritage actually supported it. Given the widespread Western media coverage of Palmyra, the team then decided to focus specifically on its impact in our study. </p>
<p>We took a subset of our data containing sentiments about attacks to archaeological sites and analysed the amount of positive sentiment. Then we ran the analysis again without Palmyra, to see whether it made any difference to the way people considered IS’s damage. Was there a greater amount of support (positive sentiment) for the destruction Palmyra compared with other archaeological sites?</p>
<p>Below is an example of one such tweet we found with sentiments about the destruction of Palmyra:</p>
<p><em>“The lions of the Islamic State are blowing up the temple (Temple of Baalshamin) in the city of Palmyra, and eventually by God’s will they will blow up the pyramids and the Sphinx”</em></p>
<p>Tweet from August 23, 2018 (translated from Arabic and anonymised).</p>
<h2>Islamic state onslaught</h2>
<p>Our study period ran from August 1 2015 to June 30 2016. Before it, in May 2015, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39133343">Islamic State took control of the town of Tadmur</a> and the adjacent archaeological site of Palmyra. IS then used the ancient theatre for <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-palmyra-syria-executions-islamic-state-retake-city-russia-assad-ruins-roman-theatre-civilians-a7535026.html">mass executions</a>, destroyed the <a href="http://www.dgam.gov.sy/index.php?d=314&id=1731">Al-Lat goddess statue</a>, and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-palmyra-idUSKCN0WZ0KO">mined the site</a>. </p>
<p>Within our study period, IS <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35688943">destroyed the Temples of Bel</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34036644">Baalshamin</a> in August 2015. In October 2015, they destroyed the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/05/middleeast/syria-isis-palmyra-arch-of-triumph/index.html">Arch of Triumph</a>, and then three columns <a href="http://www.dgam.gov.sy/index.php?d=314&id=1846">by tying men to them and detonating explosives</a>. Satellite imagery revealed that 11 <a href="http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/special-report-update-on-the-situation-in-palmyra/">Tower Tombs were destroyed with explosives</a>. IS also beheaded <a href="https://theconversation.com/khaled-al-asaad-the-martyr-of-palmyra-46787">Khalad al-Assad</a>, the former head of Palmyra Antiquities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/khaled-al-asaad-the-martyr-of-palmyra-46787">Khaled al-Asaad, the martyr of Palmyra</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>After the study period, we learned <a href="https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/assessing-the-damage-at-palmyra/">Palmyra’s museum had been heavily vandalised</a>, and IS’s second occupation of Palmyra (December 2016 to March 2017) involved <a href="http://www.unitar.org/unosat/map/2537">additional destruction</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249274/original/file-20181206-128211-1yn7a7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Khaled al Asaad, former head of antiquities at Palmyra, was beheaded by Islamic State in August 2015 at the age of 83.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bombs and tweets</h2>
<p>As you might expect, given its prominence as a World Heritage site, the amount of online discussion increased when attacks on Palmyra were reported – but the overall levels of positive and negative sentiment were unaffected. Reports of Palmyra’s destruction did not attract more support than reports of attacks on other archaeological sites – but the destruction didn’t significantly lessen support for IS, either. </p>
<p>However, it did drastically increase coverage of IS’s actions. In that sense, the destruction at Palmyra was a successful propaganda coup. It could even have contributed to the support for recruitment seen in some tweets. When the reasons for expressing positive and negative sentiments about IS attacks on heritage were categorised, a fifth (21.5%) of the positive tweets related to what we termed as “recruit through the broadcasting of their ideology” – the third-largest category of reasons for support.</p>
<p>Yet, while IS appear highly strategic in their social media actions, the strategy is not coherent or consistently followed. The destruction of the temples was featured in Dabiq 9 (IS’s English-language magazine), and a photograph of al Asaad’s body and a video of the museum damage was released on their social media channels. These were the only events claimed by IS. Other events – including those from their second occupation – were reported by journalists or discovered via satellite imagery analysis, suggesting that IS was not always prompt to capitalise on its destruction of Palmyra. </p>
<p>Although Western media has focused on Palmyra, the most common category of support (34.5%) for heritage attacks from our analysis related to perceived <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/neareastarch.78.3.0170#metadata_info_tab_contents">humiliation of targeted local communities by IS</a>, rather than relating to a specific site or type of site. The highest levels of dislike came not from Palmyra, but from the destruction of Islamic sites and cemetery attacks. </p>
<p>So if we want to protect these important sites it’s important to move beyond the buildings to engage with the communities that have been targeted. Focusing simply on Palmyra’s antiquities fails to see the people behind the heritage – or to understand why they are threatened. And we now know that this understanding is essential to counter a threat that affects not only heritage sites but the social cohesion of the region that created them. As other groups begin to copy IS’s strategies – for example <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/war-savages-ancient-sites-yemen-and-iraq-destroying-archaeological-record">in Yemen</a> where bombing has destroyed many antiquities – this issue can only become more urgent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research for this article was generously supported by Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa, based at Oxford University, who are funded by Arcadia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luigi Curini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a surprising amount of support for the destruction of antiquities in the Middle East.Emma Cunliffe, Research associate, Newcastle UniversityLuigi Curini, Professor, University of MilanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/693462016-12-04T19:08:25Z2016-12-04T19:08:25ZImitation game: how copies can solve our cultural heritage crises<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148209/original/image-20161201-30244-x7zd3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Otsuka Museum of Art in Tokushima features a full-sized replica of the Sistine Chapel. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kzaral/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Visitors to the <a href="http://o-museum.or.jp/english/publics/index/16/0/#page">Otsuka Museum</a> in Japan are offered the chance to see through time. Two life-sized copies of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper are hung on opposing walls, one showing it before the major 1999 restoration, and one as it is today.</p>
<p>Visitors can pivot their view to observe changes in colour on the paintings in front of them. The true-to-scale copies are painted on ceramic tiles, which the Museum claims can maintain their colour and shape for over 2000 years. </p>
<p>The Museum offers visitors the ability to literally walk through the history of Western art’s greatest works. Other recreations include Vincent Van Gogh’s lost Six Sunflowers painting, which was destroyed in 1945 by US airstrikes on Tokyo. Art lovers can view paintings in a manner rendered impossible in real life. </p>
<p>As the world faces ongoing cultural heritage crises – from poverty, to war, to natural disaster – is the creation of copies the answer?</p>
<p>Increasingly sophisticated technology, including 3D printing, offers an alternative to traditional preservation techniques. However, while these new technologies may solve problems of accessibility to precious antiquities they also raise other problems of authenticity and trust.</p>
<p>The New Yorker recently profiled the work undertaken by the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/the-factory-of-fakes">Factum Arte workshop in Madrid</a>, which uses advanced 3D printing technology to recreate ancient artefacts that are being ravaged by time and modern life.</p>
<p>The head of the project, Adam Lowe, describes the new artefacts as “rematerialized” facsimiles. Notable projects include a full sized reproduction of King Tut’s burial chamber, built out of extraordinarily detailed scans. The original tomb is at risk of deterioration due to thousands of tourists breathing on ancient plaster, as well as possible excavations to uncover what could be Nefertiti’s tomb next door.</p>
<p>Despite these successes, there are objections to the practice of creating copies. Critical theorist Walter Benjamin famously argued that art loses its “aura” when it is reproduced: the impact an original artwork creates when it’s <a href="https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/walter-benjamin-art-aura-authenticity/">uniquely present in time and space</a> vanishes as soon as copies are made. </p>
<p>Yet ultimately, the transferral of art into a new medium and context allows entire new audiences to have a brand new – and possibly deeper – connection to our greatest treasures.</p>
<p>Anyone who has battled the crowds in front of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum or the mass of selfie sticks in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, will appreciate how Otsuka Museum affords the visitor the opportunity to experience a painting’s colours, composition and artistic impression.</p>
<p>Of course the experience of these “rematerialized” paintings and artefacts will be different from that of the original pieces. Tutankhamen’s replica tomb, while set near the original in Luxor, is missing the authentic musty smell of the ancient rooms. It also features a digitally restored panel destroyed when the tomb was originally opened. </p>
<h2>Where is the harm?</h2>
<p>But as long as the audience clearly understands that these are replicas, from the perspective of preserving cultural heritage, where is the harm in appreciating these objects in a new medium?</p>
<p>Visitors to the Otsuka Museum and Factum Arte are under no illusion that what they are viewing are originals. These are not fakes, as the attention grabbing headlines claim, but replicas and copies, the distinctive feature being a lack of intent to deceive. Honesty with your audience is of paramount importance. </p>
<p>The issue of restoration and conservation is historically fraught, and intensified now by various economic and cultural tensions. As noted in the New Yorker article, visiting Egypt right now is an unusual experience due to that country’s recent political upheavals. Aside from the chance to visit one of the Seven Wonders of the World without battling hoards of tourists, the issues of preserving of the country’s cultural and archaeological assets are obvious.</p>
<p>The Egyptian Museum in Cairo has limited air-conditioning, with cracked showcases and storage units on display in the main exhibition spaces alongside many priceless relics. They are awaiting the new museum, which has been under construction for many years.</p>
<p>Ironically, the museum collection features a copy of one of the most important Ancient Egyptian artefacts, the Rosetta stone, with the original version found in the British Museum, over 2000 miles away. </p>
<p>In contrast, a different response to cultural heritage concerns can be seen in the vast temples at <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/88">Abu Simbel</a>. Originally carved into the side of a mountain over the Nile, the temples came under threat with the construction of the Aswan High dam in the 1960s. Under the supervision of UNESCO, the temples were cut out and moved 65m up and 210m northwest.</p>
<p>In this case what has been replicated is not the physical temples of Ramses II but the original location and authenticity of the experience as it was originally intended. </p>
<p>The move meant that the temple’s axis is no longer aligned as it was during Pharaonic Egypt. The structure was created so the sun lit up the statues inside the temple twice a year, on February 21 and October 21. The so-called “miracle of the sun” still occurs, just one day later.</p>
<p>Whilst there is no attempt to conceal the relocation, one cannot help ascribing perceived defects to the move. When did Ramses lose his beard? Was it dropped?</p>
<p>Jonathan Jones recently argued in The Guardian that we should leave the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/apr/11/palmyra-isis-syria-restored-3d-printers-vandalism">crumbling remnants</a> of the Isis-ravaged Syrian town of Palmyra alone, and recognise that the destruction of this sacred site forms part of its history and newfound fame.</p>
<p>For Jones, the authenticity of Palmyra is its decay, not the “faked-up approximation” that a <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-3d-print-a-new-palmyra-57014">3D printed version</a> might offer visitors.</p>
<p>But we are constantly battling the push and pull of authenticity and heritage. While Jones may deride the inauthentic replication of Syrian archaeological sites, we must confront the issue of preserving our cultural heritage in manner that is accessible in the future. </p>
<p>When these remnants are no more than dust and rubble, would a future generation really rebuff a “rematerialized” 3D printed version? So long as the creation of a replica does no harm to authentic version, where is the problem in creating a coherent copy?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity Strong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Increasingly sophisticated technology allows us to make close-to-perfect copies of everything from paintings to burial chambers. Can a replica bring artefacts to new audiences?Felicity Strong, PhD Candidate - Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/670712016-10-18T14:33:30Z2016-10-18T14:33:30ZThe ICC’s Al-Mahdi ruling protects cultural heritage, but didn’t go far enough<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141959/original/image-20161017-4735-vbd8m3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A burnt ancient manuscript at the Ahmed Baba Centre for Documentation and Research, in Timbuktu. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benoit Tessier/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first of its kind, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has delivered an important <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/pages/item.aspx?name=pr1242">judgment</a> on the destruction of World Heritage.</p>
<p>International law clearly protects cultural heritage from attack, including during <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">armed conflict</a>. But such crimes are seldom prosecuted and tend to be viewed as secondary to crimes against people. The ICC has partly changed this in the case against Ahmad Al Faqi Al-Mahdi, a local leader in Timbuktu who was appointed as head of the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/mali/al-mahdi">morality police</a> when power changed hands in the city. The case exclusively concerned attacks against <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/mali/al-mahdi">cultural heritage</a>. </p>
<p>This is the first ICC case to examine attacks against cultural heritage. It is also the first to consider the actions of terrorist movements linked to Al-Qaeda. Its findings are likely to affect how the international community responds to attacks on cultural heritage – for example, <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23">the destruction of Palmyra in Syria</a> by Islamic State.</p>
<p>The judgment sends the message that the international community will not tolerate destruction of cultural heritage sites. That is to be welcomed. But in our view the judgment did not go far enough. This is because it also sends the message that the court values the culture that binds a community together less than the toll on human lives. While understandable, we suggest that the court’s reasoning is shortsighted and that it missed a valuable opportunity.</p>
<p>We would argue that protecting cultural heritage sites is equally important and connected to the protection of civilian populations. After all, as the ICC recognised in its judgment, the heritage site was a large part of the social glue that made the individuals living in Timbuktu a community. </p>
<p>Without culture, people are but an assembly of organisms in the same species. Culture makes us a people, a civilisation.</p>
<h2>Cultural heritage in times of war</h2>
<p>The rise of the so-called Islamic State (Isis) in recent years has seen a spike in attacks on and destruction of globally significant sites of cultural heritage. Some of these have included <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23">Palmyra</a> and <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/21">Aleppo</a> in Syria, the <a href="https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/and-now-its-gone-shrine-of-jonah-destroyed-by-isis/">Shrine of Jonah</a> in Iraq and <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119">Timbuktu</a> in Mali, which date back centuries and were internationally recognised as protected sites. </p>
<p>Increasingly, such sites are targeted precisely because of their religious and cultural significance and their value to the international community.</p>
<p>The ancient city of Timbuktu holds a special place in Islamic and world history. It played an essential role in the spread of Islam in Africa during the religion’s early period. Its mosques also made it a commercial, spiritual and cultural centre in the <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gold/hd_gold.htm">trans-Saharan trading route</a>.</p>
<p>Following the collapse of government in Mali in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/world/africa/mali-coup-france-calls-for-elections.html?_r=0">2012</a>, terror groups occupied the power vacuum. These groups include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/mujwa.htm">MUJWA</a>, an offshoot of Maghred Al-Qaeda;</p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/national-movement-liberation-azawad-mnla">MNLA</a>, Tuareg nationalists; </p></li>
<li><p><a href="http://www.trackingterrorism.org/group/ansar-dine">Ansar Dine</a>, Muslim fundamentalists who ordered the destruction of Timbuktu escalating the activities of the morality police led by Al-Mahdi; and </p></li>
<li><p>Al-Qaeda in the <a href="https://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/aqim.html">Islamic Maghreb</a>, a franchise of Al-Qaeda that runs separately from the Saudi Al Qaeda. It was responsible for the 9/11 attacks in the US. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Al-Mahdi was an educated and respected member of the local community in Timbuktu. From April 2012 he was the head of the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/mali/al-mahdi">Hesbah</a>, the morality brigade responsible for enforcing the religious and political edicts of the two terrorist groups, Asnar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The two groups had gained control of Timbuktu. These organisations decided that the mausoleums to the saints and the mosques in Timbuktu were to be destroyed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141958/original/image-20161017-4752-1xjcphj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi on trial at the ICC for destroying historic mausoleums in Timbuktu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Post/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Al-Mahdi initially advised against their destruction, recognising that the sites were an important part of the community’s religious and cultural life.</p>
<p>But the ICC found that in organising and providing the means for the destruction and participating in the destruction of five sites, Al-Mahdi was criminally responsible for total or partial destruction of 10 of the most significant sites in Timbuktu. These included several parts of the World Heritage Site.</p>
<h2>Heritage versus human lives</h2>
<p>The ICC sentenced Al-Mahdi to nine years imprisonment, which was within the range of nine to 11 years agreed by the prosecution and defence. The sentence recognised the gravity of the crime, the significance of the cultural heritage destroyed and the religious motivation for its destruction. </p>
<p>But the judges also highlighted that the destruction of “property” – no matter how culturally significant – is less grave than crimes committed against individuals. In other words, cultural heritage has been relegated to a subset of property offences. </p>
<p>In doing so, the ICC suggests that destroying a cultural heritage site that has stood for centuries, and is an important part of a group’s social glue, is about as bad as destroying a modern hospital. While both buildings play important roles, one is much harder to replace than the other. The ICC does not seem to have taken that fully into account.</p>
<p>This will have repercussions for the future protection of cultural heritage in armed conflict. </p>
<p>The judgment also ignored the connection between acts against cultural heritage and violence against the civilian population, which are often both justified by the same discriminatory religious ideals. This therefore weakens its potential to send a strong signal that intentional destruction of cultural heritage will not be tolerated.</p>
<p>The international community has always been reluctant to acknowledge this reality and turn it into law. There are other historical examples. </p>
<p>During World War II, and in many conflicts since, this realisation was always in the mind of the major war criminals, as witnessed in the <a href="http://www.rapeofeuropa.com/">Nazi policy</a> of destroying Jewish art; the <a href="http://www.icty.org/en/press/full-contents-dubrovnik-indictment-made-public">bombing of Dubrovnik</a> during the Yugoslav wars; and the destruction of the <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/208">Buddhas of Bamiyan</a>.</p>
<p>The ICC had the chance to change the world’s approach to these acts. But it fell short.</p>
<h2>Identifying victims of cultural loss</h2>
<p>Al-Mahdi accepted responsibility and demonstrated remorse for his actions. He pleaded guilty at an early stage and cooperated with the prosecution. Other possible defendants may have taken note of the court’s recognition of this in his sentence. </p>
<p>His guilty plea certainly saved valuable time and resources. And the case has been the most efficient and speedy <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/mali/al-mahdi">ICC trial to date</a>. This is an important win for an institution that has struggled to deliver timely justice and faces serious challenges to its credibility due to the collapse of key trials.</p>
<p>The conviction also opens the door for the ICC to consider suitable reparations to victims for the destruction of the sites. This will be the first time an international court has had to consider how one compensates for the loss of the irreplaceable.</p>
<p>Eight victims participated in the trial process. But the court will have to explore who the victims of destruction of cultural heritage are: individuals, local communities, the state of Mali or the international community? </p>
<p>The ICC prosecutor, and the court itself, recognised that at some level all are victims. Indeed, while the suffering of the local community in Timbuktu is deepest of all, we are all affected by the loss of the treasures that bind us as humankind. </p>
<p>If only the ICC could fully see that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Lixinski is affiliated with the Association of Critical Heritage Studies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ICC sentence against Al-Mahdi for destroying ancient artifacts at Timbuktu sends the right message that the international community will not tolerate the destruction of heritage sites.Lucas Lixinski, Senior lecturer, UNSW SydneySarah Williams, Associate professor, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659572016-10-13T19:11:49Z2016-10-13T19:11:49ZFriday essay: war crimes and the many threats to cultural heritage<p>Recently, the International Criminal Court sentenced a Malian militant to nine years’ jail for his role in <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/icc-convicts-malian-rebel-over-timbuktu-tomb-attacks-20160927-grpvc3">destroying heritage sites in Timbuktu</a>. The conviction was the first of its kind. Will other such cases follow, dealing with the destruction of priceless artefacts at Palmrya in Syria or in other war zones? </p>
<p>And what, more broadly, is the fate of our cultural heritage in an age driven by the imperative of continual global economic growth? Are wartime atrocities the chief threat to cultural heritage? Or is it, in fact, everyday development in a rapacious world?</p>
<p>The ICC case concerned the destruction of World Heritage sites in Timbuktu, Mali, in 2012, by al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist insurgents. The former militant, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, admitted that he had directed the destruction of 14 holy 15th and 16th-century mausoleums considered blasphemous by the Islamists. The presiding judge, Raul Pangalangan, described <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/icc-convicts-malian-rebel-over-timbuktu-tomb-attacks-20160927-grpvc3">targeting Timbuktu’s cultural patrimony</a> as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a war activity aimed at breaking the soul of the people.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141342/original/image-20161012-8411-zbdyvg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/pool</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course since time immemorial, people have been destroying and looting other people’s places and stuff – what we’d now call cultural heritage – through both hostilities and ostensibly peaceful “development”. You can see the evidence all over the world, in cityscapes, museum collections and even whole landscapes as much as in specific archaeological sites. </p>
<p>In recent years, though, the link between extremism and the looting of cultural heritage has become more pronounced. Blood antiquities fund conflict, just like blood diamonds. In April, <a href="https://theantiquitiescoalition.org/">the Antiquities Coalition</a> in Washington DC launched a report Culture under Threat, which contained a set of recommendations to the US Government concerning the nexus between looting and violent extremism. The panel included various heritage professionals, ambassadors and the like, but also people from the intelligence and Special Forces communities. </p>
<p>Some of their evidence was jaw-dropping, such as the ISIS paperwork regarding looting permits for Palmyra. Not only were there the permits themselves, which authorised looting by so-and-so in area such-and-such, but there were also applications for extensions of the permits owing to problems in moving the volume of antiquities flooding the illicit market. </p>
<p>These were not scrappy handwritten notes, but duly notarised printed documents on “official” letterhead. The bureaucratic banality of evil! </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141550/original/image-20161013-16248-gcbaz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graffiti sprayed by IS militants, which reads ‘We remain’, seen at the Temple of Bel in Palmyra in April.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Omar Sanadiki/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The vast scale of the looting revealed was staggering too, with photographs of heavy earthmoving equipment excavating tons of archaeologically-rich deposits to be sifted through for saleable artefacts.</p>
<p>It’s hard to know exactly how much money ISIS and similar groups make from blood antiquities, but it’s substantial. As one of the Special Forces people said: a historically-valuable artefact may now be seen chiefly in terms of the ammunition it will buy for ISIS. </p>
<p>For this reason, governments around the world are starting to clamp down heavily on heritage trafficking. There’s long been some effort in that direction: the Italians, for instance, have had a specialist police unit, now known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabinieri_Art_Squad">Carabinieri Art Squad</a>. </p>
<p>These days, though, in the eyes of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, heritage ranks right up there with arms and human trafficking, as the same extremists and criminals are frequently involved in all three. Monday it’s guns. Tuesday it’s sex slaves. Wednesday it’s blood antiquities. </p>
<p>While this intense focus on crime and security obviously attracts headlines, there is also a compelling link between heritage, identity and wellbeing. For instance, the Australian Government’s recently-released Australian Heritage Strategy points out that the Productivity Commission </p>
<blockquote>
<p>found that reinforcement and preservation of living culture has helped to develop identity, sense of place, and build self esteem within Indigenous communities. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such findings are not restricted to colonised minorities. This year, a department of the <a href="https://www.hlf.org.uk/values-and-benefits-heritage">UK Heritage Lottery Fund</a> released a research review of the “values and benefits of heritage”.
About 70% of respondents believed that </p>
<blockquote>
<p>heritage sites and buildings play an important part in how people view the places they live, how they feel and their quality of life. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In my observation, much the same would be found in Australia and most other parts of the world. In broad terms, it was concern for such matters that drove the Mali prosecution.</p>
<h2>Heritage destruction as a war crime</h2>
<p>The sites destroyed by the Islamists in Timbuktu included the 16th century mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud, leader of the city’s celebrated Sankore University, and the shrine of Sidi Ahmed ar-Raqqad, a scholar and Sufi mystic who wrote a treatise on traditional medicine over 400 years ago. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141347/original/image-20161012-8385-1yawmyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rubble left from an ancient mausoleum destroyed by Islamist militants in Timbuktu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Penney/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court, war crimes include intentional targeting of historic monuments. Although this is the first time the ICC has prosecuted war crimes on this basis, its action is consistent with the various Hague conventions on war going back to the late 1800s. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=836&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141542/original/image-20161013-16206-rfr0cp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1050&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miodrag Jokić.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">STR New/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Mali trial builds on jurisprudence developed in the Nuremburg trials after WWII and on the war-crimes prosecutions by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of those responsible for destroying cultural property in the Balkans war in the 1990s. As in the case of Mali, the cultural World Heritage status of Dubrovnik’s Old Town was a determining factor in the convictions of Yugoslav People’s Army commanders Miodrag Jokić and Pavle Strugar <a href="http://www.icty.org/x/cases/miodrag_jokic/cis/en/cis_jokic_en.pdf">following their 1991 shelling of the city</a>.</p>
<p>In the Mali case, concern has been expressed that the ICC’s sole focus on heritage “stuff” is misplaced and should be expanded to include matters such as torture, rape and murder. </p>
<p>The International Federation for Human Rights, for example, welcomed the verdict but contended that <a href="https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/mali/first-step-on-the-path-to-justice-icc-sentences-al-mahdi-to-9-years">“this victory does leave something to be desired”</a>. The Federation called upon the ICC prosecutor to continue her investigations and to prosecute the perpetrators of other crimes committed in northern Mali, in particular, sexual and gender-based ones. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141543/original/image-20161013-16238-rx0mn0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A museum guard displays a burnt ancient manuscript in Timbuktu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benoit Tessier/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, as Fatou Basouda, the ICC’s prosecutor, stated in September 2015 in relation to the Timbuktu case:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let there be no mistake: the charges … involve most serious crimes; they are about the destruction of irreplaceable historic monuments, and they are about a callous assault on the dignity and identity of entire populations, and their religious and historical roots… It is rightly said that ‘cultural heritage is the mirror of humanity’. Such attacks affect humanity as a whole. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The importance that the prosecutor places on identity and dignity – in a word, wellbeing – is something that should focus our minds when we are discussing the place of heritage in other circumstances, even in “everyday” situations.</p>
<h2>‘Everyday’ heritage destruction</h2>
<p>The destruction of heritage in the course of “everyday” development, in fact, does vastly more damage than war. This is either through large-scale projects such as mines or dams, or the cumulative impact of industrial expansion and smaller-scale projects such as housing and tourism developments. </p>
<p>One high profile international example is the Ilisu Dam on the upper Tigris River in southeastern Turkey. The project will create a 300 square kilometre reservoir that will force the resettlement of tens of thousands of mostly Kurdish people from nearly 200 villages. The dam will also flood the extraordinary historic town of Hasankeyf, parts of which date back 12,000 years.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141345/original/image-20161012-8385-7wdrhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tigris river, with the minaret of a 14th century mosque on the right, flows through the town of Hasankeyf in southeastern Turkey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Murad Sezer/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite being declared a major national monument by Turkey in 1978, Hasankeyf was identified by Europa Nostra, Europe’s peak heritage organization, as one of Europe’s <a href="http://7mostendangered.eu/2015/12/10/ancient-city-of-hasankeyf-and-its-surroundings-turkey/">“7 Most Endangered”</a> heritage sites in 2016. Early in the long-running campaign to save the site, Turkish government engineers dismissed heritage concerns, stating that the dam was more important to the nation than <a href="http://www.hasankeyfmatters.com/">some old minarets and a few caves</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia, continual damage to the rock art on Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula by the ongoing development of mining infrastructure is a woeful example of heritage seemingly doomed to “death by 1,000 cuts”. </p>
<p>The Burrup engravings are of great cultural significance to local Indigenous people and widely regarded as one of the most important bodies of rock art in the world. As Griffith University’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-rock-art-is-threatened-by-a-lack-of-conservation-32900">Paul Taçon</a> has written, 1,700 engraved boulders were relocated and thus decontextualised from their cultural landscape in the 1980s to make way for infrastructure for the North West Shelf gas project. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141536/original/image-20161012-16242-1uo9l6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ancient rock art coined ‘Climbing Men Panel’ found amongst thousands of drawings and carvings near the Burrup Peninsula in WA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert G. Bednarik/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2007, Woodside Petroleum started extending processing facilities for the Pluto Gas Field, having received permission from the WA Government to destroy a significant quantity of the Burrup rock art, against the advice of the government’s own statutory expert panel. </p>
<p>After international protests, the Burrup was then placed on Australia’s National Heritage List. Federal Environment Minister at the time – Malcolm Turnbull – nonetheless prioritised development and gave Woodside permission to destroy 200 rock art panels. The WA Government subsequently gave permission for an additional 170 panels to be relocated (and thus stripped of their cultural context). </p>
<p>In 2008, another company was fined under Federal law for <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/company-fined-over-rock-art-damage-20100212-nxmi.html">damaging three sites on the Burrup</a> by blasting. As a final gesture of contempt, the WA Government then rescinded the Burrup’s longstanding formal status as a sacred site in 2014. In short, despite global recognition of the value of the Burrup rock art, “everyday development” continues to trump best-practice heritage protection of the site.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141538/original/image-20161012-16233-1oxssdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protestors spell out the words ‘Stand up for the Burrup’ at a rally in Perth in 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicolas Perpitch/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just about every country in the world, including Australia, has legislation of some sort to protect heritage in development contexts. When development is declared imperative, though, as at Ilisu or on the Burrup, or when there are gaping loopholes in heritage legislation, such as with large-scale tree-clearing or housing development in Queensland, the damage continues unrelentingly. </p>
<p>Most of the sites being destroyed in Australia and around the world don’t make the news because they don’t have the monumental scale or romantic cachet of places such as Palmyra, but for the communities who value the heritage in question, the damage is heartbreaking.</p>
<p>While WA is resurrecting its stalled bid to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-19/wa-government-to-proceed-with-controversial-changes-to-aborigin/7182280">water down its heritage legislation</a>, Queensland is reviewing its Indigenous cultural heritage guidelines, in an effort to tighten things up.</p>
<p>At the other end of the spectrum, the World Bank is completing <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/08/04/world-bank-board-approves-new-environmental-and-social-framework">much the same process</a> after some years of deliberation. The Bank has a formal global standard for cultural heritage broadly based on humanitarian considerations. Still, despite its professed concern, the Bank ranks heritage very low in its order of priorities. </p>
<p>This apparent lack of interest notwithstanding, it is not hard to join the dots empirically between cultural heritage and the other environmental and social standards that the Bank takes more seriously. This is particularly true of Indigenous matters.</p>
<p>The impact of development – and the reputational risk it poses – is understood by most major corporations, even if their execution of heritage protection procedures can be patchy. That’s why Rio Tinto worked with an international group of heritage professionals to develop its global corporate heritage protection guidelines. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141343/original/image-20161012-8411-g2ha43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A French armoured personnel carrier with soldiers patrols the area outside the Sankore Mosque, a world heritage site, in Timbuktu January 31, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Benoit Tessier/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Heritage guidelines have also been developed in various parts of the world for use by the military. Peter Stone at the UK’s University of Newcastle has created what he calls “a four-tier approach to the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict”. It is an invaluable framework and has been formally adopted by the International Committee of the Blue Shield, the “Red Cross for Heritage”. </p>
<p>It is one thing, though, to guide the actions of countries that aim to “play by the rules” in war, whether concerning heritage or people. It is quite another, as Stone recognises, to constrain states which have not signed up to the relevant conventions, including the 1954 Hague Convention and the statutes underpinning the International Criminal Court. The situation is even more problematical with non-state actors such as ISIS, which intentionally flout such conventions in the most dramatic and appalling ways, in relation both to people and heritage.</p>
<p>This is sickeningly obvious in ISIS’s approach at Palmyra. Not only is the organisation facilitating industrial-scale looting there, it has also slaughtered numerous people in the site’s amphitheatre and executed Khaled al-Asaad, the site’s 81-year-old archaeological guardian. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"785464522219876352"}"></div></p>
<p>It is highly unlikely that anyone will be brought to justice for these murders, let alone the heritage crimes. The man found guilty for the damage in Mali was surrendered to the court not by Mali, nor the French military (in the country to quell hostilities), but by the neighbouring country of Niger, to where he had fled. </p>
<p>The chances that a similar transfer will occur in relation to Syria or indeed anywhere else are vanishingly small, unless key players see some advantage in making a point of presenting someone to the ICC for propaganda purposes. </p>
<p>Even that would require the ICC to have issued an arrest warrant, which it has not done in connection with Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or any other recent place where heritage war crimes have likely occurred.</p>
<h2>Few clean hands</h2>
<p>Why is this the case? It’s simple: no-one has clean hands when it comes to the destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflict. The politics of heritage are Byzantine at the best of times, but adding the possibility of war crimes convictions to the mix makes matters almost impossibly fraught. </p>
<p>So do I think we shouldn’t waste our time and precious resources pursuing heritage war crimes? Not at all. The lasting significance of the Mali decision (and indeed the earlier cases it builds upon) is that it sets a very useful bar. </p>
<p>We shouldn’t, however, now think the ICC is going to deliver us from evil. Its heritage cases will be few and far between and successful prosecutions will probably be even rarer. So while always keeping open the possibilities of action in The Hague, we should focus our minds on these points. </p>
<p>First, as barbaric as heritage war crimes might seem, far more heritage destruction – and thus inexorable damage to human wellbeing – occurs through everyday development. Except in a few cases, that never makes the news. </p>
<p>Second, as “glamorous” as Palmyra or Aleppo might be – as matters of concern – they are not the only places in Syria, much less the Middle East or for that matter the rest of the planet, where armed hostilities are destroying heritage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141546/original/image-20161013-16217-1iqrgj5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boris Johnson speaks at the unveiling of a 5.5-meter recreation of the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, at Trafalgar Square in London in April 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefan Wermuth/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Highlighting the situation in Palmyra, or even Syria more generally, might help focus government and public attention on the problem of heritage destruction for a while. Yet we have to be extremely careful that such high-profile examples don’t “suck up all the oxygen” and leave other places to their own devices.</p>
<p>Believe me, there’s a lot of them suffering in <em>every</em> part of the world, whether as a result of conflict, criminal looting or “routine” development: from the unobtrusive small-scale places that make up the bulk of cultural heritage right up to World Heritage sites of the scale and grandeur of Machu Picchu or Angkor. The <a href="http://traffickingculture.org/">Trafficking Culture Project</a> and Blue Shield Committee amongst others provide ample evidence of the pressing problem of heritage under threat.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/141537/original/image-20161012-16217-1hahigg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon & Schuster/goodreads</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is local people with local solutions who are usually best-positioned to make the most of our support – whether in Mali, Syria, Iraq or elsewhere. Joshua Hammer’s new book, <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Bad-Ass-Librarians-of-Timbuktu/Joshua-Hammer/9781476777405">The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu</a>, for instance, shows how locals put themselves at grave risk to save priceless ancient scrolls from the same Islamist militants who destroyed the World Heritage tombs there.</p>
<p>What is missing in global responses to local heritage destruction is usually not generous offers to rebuild whole sites. Such offers nearly always entail imported expertise and largely exclude local people. Nor generally do we need the heritage-protection airstrikes recommended by the Antiquities Coalition. In the “fog of war”, they are highly likely to damage the very sites they are supposed to protect.</p>
<p>Most often, we need to recognise that relatively small amounts of money judiciously applied through appropriate local players are the way to create sustainable solutions. There are colleagues doing just that right now, through mostly under-the-radar but highly-effective efforts in war-zones such as Syria but also through programs such as <a href="http://www.sustainablepreservation.org/">the Sustainable Preservation Initiative</a>.</p>
<p>In short, we need a range of responses. Some will involve “big sticks” wielded by institutions such as the ICC but most will work at the grassroots. </p>
<p>On a day to day level, meanwhile, we should all take an interest in what is happening to the heritage around us. If we do, we can help monitor and mitigate the way “everyday” development continually chips away at heritage places large and small, in ways that frequently go unnoticed until it is too late. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Ian Lilley will be online for an Author Q&A between 6:30 and 7:30pm AEST on Friday, 14 October, 2016. Post your questions in the comments below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65957/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Lilley is an archaeologist with the University of Queensland. He occasionally consults through UQ and privately to Rio Tinto and other clients and through his university superannuation scheme may own shares in Rio Tinto and similar companies. He currently receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and the Swiss government Network for International Studies. He is affiliated with ICOMOS, IUCN, and a variety of archaeological professional bodies which deal with cultural heritage matters, in particular in this instance the Society for American Archaeology's Committee for International Government Affairs. In this last role he coordinated international professional responses to the World Bank safeguards review and participated in the launch of the Antiquities Coalition Taskforce Report on “Culture under Threat”.</span></em></p>It is important to prosecute militants who destroy antiquities. But ‘everyday’ development - from dams flooding towns to the impact of mining on Indigenous rock art – does vastly more damage to heritage than war.Ian Lilley, Professor in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649542016-09-26T04:03:24Z2016-09-26T04:03:24Z‘Syria: Always Beautiful’ – can tourism be a force for peace?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136841/original/image-20160907-25266-unktli.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Death and destruction are a daily reality in Syria as the civil war drags on.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/SANA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month the Syrian government <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2016/09/02/syria-courts-vacationers-amid-bloody-civil-war.html">released a new tourism advertisement</a> to promote its beaches and landscape. </p>
<p>Under the banner “Syria – Always Beautiful”, the video did not mention that the same beach, in the seaside town of Tartus, had recently been the target of a suicide bombing. Nor did it refer to any of the other cruelties that are a daily reality of the civil war in Syria.</p>
<p>It might seem inappropriate to promote tourism in the middle of an unfolding tragedy. Or, at best, it might be called premature. But <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738316301220">in our new paper</a> in Annals of Tourism Research we show tourism can be an effective way to generate peace.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/saXH4yQARqg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The ‘Syria – Always Beautiful’ advertisement.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tourism in Syria</h2>
<p>Tourism was one of Syria’s economic pillars before the war broke out. At its peak in 2010 more than 8.5 million tourists <a href="http://mkt.unwto.org/barometer">visited the country</a>. By way of comparison 7.4 million international tourists visited Australia in 2015.</p>
<p>The World Travel and Tourism Council <a href="https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic%20impact%20research/countries%202015/syria2015.pdf">reports that</a> the direct contribution of visitor spending on travel and tourism to Syria’s GDP in 2014 had decreased to SYP194 billion (4.6% of GDP, or close to A$1.2 billion) from a high of more than SYP600 billion in 2010 (more than 8% of GDP, or just over A$3.6 billion).</p>
<p>Before the war, Syria attracted large numbers of Western cultural visitors. It was <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/business/travel-tourism/syria-sees-tourist-numbers-leap-40">also increasingly popular</a> with luxury visitors from Saudi Arabia and pilgrims from Iran. Only a small amount of religious tourism remains.</p>
<p>Some estimates <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/staffan-de-mistura-400000-killed-syria-civil-war-160423055735629.html">put the death toll</a> from the war at 400,000. It has led to a <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/iraq-jordan-lebanon-syria-turkey/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-syria-crisis">major refugee crisis</a>, and the national economy has been greatly diminished.</p>
<p>The destruction of the country’s cultural and historic treasures is another disaster that will have long-term consequences. All of the six UNESCO-listed World Heritage sites are <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/335619-syria-unesco-heritage-damage/">damaged or ruined</a>. The destruction of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/against-isis-destruction-of-heritage-and-for-curators-as-the-cure-of-souls-46601">archaeological site of Palmyra</a> in 2015 particularly shocked experts.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/136840/original/image-20160907-25279-1hjwiae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The archaeological site of Palmyra was one of Syria’s leading tourist attractions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Mohamed Azakir</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A vehicle for peace</h2>
<p>Peace is generally seen as a precondition for the development of the tourism industry. Yet the possible reverse effect from tourism to peace <a href="http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/book/10.18111/9783854357131">has also been hypothesised</a>.</p>
<p>For instance, visiting different cultures can be a mind-broadening exercise, which has the potential to enhance intercultural understanding and add positively to peace through a two-track diplomacy.</p>
<p>Our study directly focused on tourism’s effect on “civil” war – that is, the armed conflict between two sides, one of which is the government. Civil war is the most frequent type of war today and one of the main obstacles to development in many parts of the world.</p>
<p>Tourism can help reduce the risk and incidence of civil war in several ways. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>First, by creating a more open society and favouring cultural mixing, tourism can contribute to the national reconciliation process.</p></li>
<li><p>Second, by fostering economic activity, it provides valuable opportunities for the population to earn an income. This reduces their incentive to engage in violent conflict.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, tourism can act as a catalyst for co-operation and partnerships between a range of (sometimes previously opposed) groups and stakeholders.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>To prove our argument, we used a dataset covering more than 120 countries over 18 years to estimate empirically the effect that tourism arrivals in a country have on the probability of that country being at civil war in any given year.</p>
<p>Our model, which accounts for a variety of other economic and political drivers of conflict, predicts that the average risk of war (that is, the probability of a country being at civil war in any given year) is 4.1%. When tourism arrivals increase by 20%, this risk of war reduces to 3.6%. The risk of war further reduces to 3.1% when arrivals increase by 50%.</p>
<p>In Sri Lanka, for example, we estimated that 20% more arrivals lowered the risk of conflict from 15% to 13% – while 50% more arrivals brought the probability of conflict down to 11%.</p>
<p>So, while tourism does not in itself eliminate the risk of conflict in countries that are more vulnerable to violence, it does help achieve a sizeable reduction in risk. As a result, tourism is not only important as an economic development tool, but may play a thus far underestimated role in peacekeeping.</p>
<h2>What for the future?</h2>
<p>Talking about tourism in Syria’s case might be premature today. However, tourism will have to be a key element in future peace-building and peace-keeping strategies.</p>
<p>Following this, planned collaboration between international organisations, the public and private sectors and the global tourism industry will assist in catalysing and growing tourism.</p>
<p>The reconstruction of World Heritage sites will have to be a priority to reignite Syria’s tourism industry. This is an investment by the global community that is worthwhile beyond these sites’ cultural significance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fabrizio Carmignani receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a grant on the estimation of the piecewise linear continuous model and its applications in macroeconomics. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susanne Becken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tourism will have to be a key element in future peace-building and peace-keeping strategies in Syria.Susanne Becken, Professor of Sustainable Tourism and Director, Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith UniversityFabrizio Carmignani, Professor, Griffith Business School, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/576792016-04-25T15:24:32Z2016-04-25T15:24:32ZThe Middle East heritage debate is becoming worryingly colonial<p>A six-metre (20ft) model of Palmyra’s Triumphal Arch, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, was last week installed in London’s Trafalgar Square. Some have interpreted this “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/19/palmyras-triumphal-arch-recreated-in-trafalgar-square">as an act of defiance</a>” to show that restoration of the heritage site can be made possible “if only the will is there”.</p>
<p>“When history is erased in this fashion, it must be promptly and, of course, thoughtfully restored,” said Roger Michel, the director of Oxford’s Institute for Digital Archaeology, which is behind the project. Public opinion seems to echo this view. Local and foreign specialists have united to plan the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/palmyra-restoration-isis-syria">resurrection of the ancient ruins</a> in Syria with the help of photography and <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-3d-print-a-new-palmyra-57014">3D printing</a>. </p>
<p>If this goes ahead, it will not be the first time Palmyra has been rebuilt. <a href="http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/khi/mitarbeiter-gaeste/professoren/shaw/">Historians have shown</a> that in the early 20th century, inhabitants were relocated from the ancient ruins to a new site outside of the town under the French Mandate. </p>
<p>This became Tadmur, now infamous for being home to a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33197612">notorious prison and political torture</a>. Once they were out, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35688943">the village inside the ruins</a> was destroyed to make way for the archaeological excavations and the reconstruction of the ruins of the ancient site. What became the famous tourist attraction and world heritage site known as Palmyra started with destruction. </p>
<p>This is an example of an overlooked feature of archaeology: the fact that excavation often demands that buildings and archaeological histories of the strata above them must often be destroyed. This sometimes included sites, such as urban settlements or, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35688943">as it was the case with Palmyra’s previous use of the Temple of Bel</a>, churches and mosques, which are meaningful heritage to some. Regard for the past is intimately tied to ideologies and politics of the present, including nation-building, identity formation and regime validation. In Israel, for example, archaeology and heritage have <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3622177.html">become powerful tools</a> to <a href="http://www.palestine-studies.org/jq/fulltext/192933">legitimise the reclamation</a> of the land of biblical ancestors.</p>
<p>Contrary to what the current debate implies, there not a “Middle East” or “heritage” deemed valuable by everyone and thus in need of saving. The past is not a finite resource: the very definition of “the past” is contestable. But the recent <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/weve-been-here-before/415262.article">discussion on heritage has become increasingly monolithic</a>, often equating “The Orient” with destruction and “the West” with salvage. Such tropes are troubling because they replicate 19th and 20th-century <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berghahn/armw/2013/00000001/00000001/art00005">stances of imperialism</a>, a context in which both archaeology as well as heritage concepts <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/de/academic/subjects/history/european-history-after-1450/rise-heritage-preserving-past-france-germany-and-england-17891914">have their origins</a>. </p>
<h2>Whose heritage?</h2>
<p>Of course, there is no such clear-cut difference between Western and Eastern approaches to “heritage”. Forms of <a href="http://derarchitektbda.de/das-mediale-bild/">iconoclasm</a> in both the East’s and the West’s long history of visual and material demolition bear <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/the-destruction-of-art-and-antiquities-in-our-time">striking similarities</a>. In most recent histories, the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/article/every-statue-tells-story">toppling</a> of statues of Lenin or Saddam Hussein, for example, were clear signs of political dissent. This makes it seem unjustified to <a href="http://www.elliottcolla.com/blog/2015/3/5/on-the-iconoclasm-of-isis">equate iconoclasm with barbarism</a> and the appreciation of artefacts with civilisation.</p>
<p>Equally underrepresented <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/archaeology/archaeological-theory-and-methods/archaeology-and-senses-human-experience-memory-and-affect">are views</a>, which show that preservation can have different guises, beyond the official forms of excavating and the subsequent safeguarding of objects and sites. “Heritage” does not necessarily entail that objects become (Western) museological trophies without a function. </p>
<p>This was the case, for example, when “destruction” of what is now considered heritage was required to reuse (and thus preserve) objects in new urban structures. For centuries, unearthing ancient objects was a widely accepted activity <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1354571X.2014.962256">in Europe</a>. In early Christian times and long after, artefacts, such as those from Roman temples, were removed from buildings or the soil to be recycled in churches, mosques, or other buildings. Rome’s Pantheon, for example, is a Christian conversion of a Roman building. Reworking past material is also preservation. </p>
<p>Successful community projects, such as that at <a href="http://www.ummeljimal.org/en/oral.html">Umm el-Jimal</a> in Jordan, show how communities can be part of ancient heritage, informing analysis of its past and helping improve present conditions. Residents have made valuable contributions to the preservation and study of this site. Preservation, for example, came with the restoration of an ancient water system, which provides a sustainable, secure, and local source of water for the modern Umm el-Jimal’s community.</p>
<p>Such holistic approaches are on the rise in some areas (and they might be in the case of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/mar/02/art-helping-syrian-refugees-keep-culture-alive">Palmyra</a>). But the idea that material forms of heritage in – and from – the Middle East might embrace alternative preservation practices remains a controversial position.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118793/original/image-20160414-2644-ddtdna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monuments from Nimrud, now in the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lastly, we must not forget that objects and artefacts still “preserved” in the grounds at <a href="http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1535646.ece">Nimrud</a> might last forever, whereas those excavated by Europeans in the 19th century and exposed to the elements can be slowly destroyed by nature and humans; the latter quite often precisely because they are considered valuable and worthy of preservation by opposing parties.</p>
<p>In the current politically and culturally transformative era, analysing these disputes <a href="https://blogs.eui.eu/maxweberprogramme/2015/01/29/what-we-are-talking-about-when-we-talk-about-tutankhamuns-beard/">from all sides</a> is necessary to create a more realistic, humane and productive model of preservation for the future. A start would be to treat preservation and destruction as phenomena, which were never always exclusive binaries, but often two sides of the same coin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mirjam Brusius receives funding from the A.W. Mellon Foundation</span></em></p>A model Palmyra’s Arch of Triumph, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, has been installed in London’s Trafalgar Square. Is this such a good thing?Mirjam Brusius, Research fellow, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578412016-04-15T10:12:36Z2016-04-15T10:12:36ZOrdinary Syrians are risking their lives to protect their cultural heritage<p>I have spent years documenting damage to Syria’s amazing cultural heritage. I have recorded sites ploughed away by farming, built over by housing, robbed for stone, dug by looters, shelled in fighting, demolished by extremists … the list goes on. As the conflict grew, I was repeatedly asked how I could worry about stones when people were dying. Perhaps as many as <a href="http://scpr-syria.org/publications/policy-reports/confronting-fragmentation/">470,000 people</a> have been killed, and millions have lost their homes and been forced to flee. And besides, I’ve been told, Syrians don’t care about their heritage. They didn’t before the conflict, and now they’ve got more important things to think about. </p>
<p>Given the list of damage to the country’s ancient remains, you might agree. But you’d be wrong. </p>
<p>The depth of Syria’s history is stunning. The country boasts some of the earliest <a href="http://decodedpast.com/ugarit-origins-alphabet-writing-ancient-history/14487">writing</a> and <a href="http://archive.archaeology.org/0801/topten/tell_brak.html">cities</a>, including biblical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXoJnzdZ-6Y">Christian</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Yi55bj2v8">Jewish</a> sites that were still in use before the current war. There are also <a href="http://www.halaltrip.com/other/blog/the-10-oldest-mosque-around-the-world/">mosques</a> founded at sites <a href="https://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Middle_East/Syria/Muhafazat_Dara/Busra_ash_Sham-1815154/Things_To_Do-Busra_ash_Sham-TG-C-1.html">visited by the Prophet Mohammed</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crusader_castles#Syria">Crusader castles</a>, and six UNESCO <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/sy">World Heritage Sites</a> (to name just a few).</p>
<p>Together with the NGO, <a href="http://www.heritageforpeace.org/">Heritage for Peace</a>, my colleagues and I wanted to tell the story of the Syrians protecting this heritage. We’ve reviewed <a href="http://www.heritageforpeace.org/syria-culture-and-heritage/damage-to-cultural-heritage/previous-damage-newsletters/">hundreds</a> of news articles and social media reports since the start of the conflict. We found stories of Syrians negotiating with armed groups and extremists - including Islamic State - to save sites like <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/06/22/syria-archaeology/28977009/">Bosra</a> and <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/31/the-wounded-phoenix-of-palmyra/">Palmyra</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118742/original/image-20160414-2617-1hnk0ak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looted ruins of Ebla.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heritage for Peace</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They’ve gone out to sites – risking snipers, gunfire, mortars, and airstrikes – to check they are safe, record any damage, and make emergency repairs. They’ve <a href="http://www.dgam.gov.sy/index.php?d=314&id=1609">faced down gangs of armed looters</a>, and <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/03/syrias-monument-citizens-taking-risks-saving-the-future-of-our-past/">posed as undercover antiquities buyers</a>. Some are staff of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM). Some are former staff in areas the government no longer control, who receive no pay or official assistance for their work. Others have no heritage background, but care just as much.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://conflictantiquities.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/palmyra-looting-rebels-regime-islamic-state-propaganda/">we also found</a> recirculated, unchecked news stories (churnalism) that were contradictory or inaccurate. This confused the issue, so we decided to talk directly to the Syrians. Over several months on an intermittent phone connection, we carried out standardised interviews with several Syrians protecting heritage in areas outside of government control. Their stories are extraordinary.</p>
<h2>Highly dangerous</h2>
<p>We spoke to former DGAM staff, now unpaid, and others including a former lawyer and a construction worker. They talked of damage to the sites from fighting, from airstrikes, from looting, from stone robbing, and even ploughing, and described the problems they’ve faced to protect them. Even a “simple” task like checking a site for damage involves negotiating with the Free Syrian Army or Islamic groups to get permission to go.</p>
<p>One interviewee said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Photographing and documentation in the archaeological sites is also very dangerous because our group was asked several times by some opposition military groups if we are using those materials to give the coordinates of the archaeological sites to the Syrian regime</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Several interviewees described how heritage sites are used as bases by military groups, turning them into targets and exposing heritage workers to more danger. Others have been forced to negotiate between rival armed factions to secure protection for sites and objects. They have faced armed looters who, in addition to resisting attempts to stop them, ‘try to break our good relationships … with the people in our local communities’ and ‘try to spread false and bad things about us in our community’. </p>
<p>Some even traversed more than 120km of conflict-riven countryside to receive heritage protection training, smuggling themselves through the border since it’s impossible for them to get passports.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118743/original/image-20160414-2631-1qr1poz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Damaged World Heritage site Shinshara.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heritage for Peace</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also asked our interviewees about their views and the local community’s attitudes to heritage before the war and today. The replies suggest local communities now have a raised awareness not only of their heritage, but also of the importance of the work of those protecting it. Many interviewees spoke of the support they received from their local community.</p>
<p>These stories are not unique: they support many of the <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/heroism-in-syria-1.18222">news articles</a> lost in the overload of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17258397">war stories</a>. You may have heard of <a href="https://theconversation.com/khaled-al-asaad-the-martyr-of-palmyra-46787">Khalad al-Assad</a>, the octogenarian former director of Palmyra beheaded by Islamic State. But that group has also executed two <a href="http://dgam.gov.sy/index.php?d=314&id=1850">other</a> members of DGAM staff. In fact, a total of 15 DGAM staff have been killed, in addition to an unknown number of local heritage protectors, by the end of 2015, for example, from <a href="http://www.dgam.gov.sy/?d=314&id=1764">mortar attacks</a> <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/how-to-save-mummies-from-the-egyptian-revolution">or shot</a> when resisting looters.</p>
<p>Ordinary Syrian people are going to extraordinary lengths, risking everything to protect their heritage, despite the horror that has engulfed their country. For them, it is not a question of people or stones. The story of the people is embedded in those stones, a crafted story stretching back millennia. Saving that story <em>is</em> saving Syria.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Cunliffe consults for the NGO Heritage for Peace.
This research is based on a paper by Emma Cunliffe, Greg Fisher and Isber Sabrine, presented at the CBRL / SOAS Past in the Present of the Middle East Conference, 15 April 2016.
<a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/15apr2016-the-past-in-the-present-of-the-middle-east.html">https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/events/15apr2016-the-past-in-the-present-of-the-middle-east.html</a> </span></em></p>Unpaid volunteers are negotiating with Islamic State and facing military attacks as they try to save Syria’s ancient cities.Emma Cunliffe, Research associate, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/572532016-04-05T10:12:46Z2016-04-05T10:12:46ZHow the West could (and should) have saved Palmyra<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117454/original/image-20160405-13564-z4xcr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Palmyra ruined</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-384496564/stock-photo-anceint-ruins-of-palmyra-an-ancient-semitic-city-syria.html?src=WoqlZD_pEhF_gSrt3uAcfA-1-93">ShutterstockAnton Ivanov</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When British politicians such as Boris Johnson start <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/boris-johnson-praises-putin-for-helping-to-retake-palmyra-from-isis-and-says-britain-should-send-in-a3212736.html">urging archaeologists</a> to
return to rebuild Palmyra, they are guilty of staggering naïvety at best, and rank hypocrisy at worst. Aside from the fact that no British archaeologists were active in Palmyra before the war, it is rarely mentioned that members of IS were observed by satellites moving across the desert <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/14/isis-syria-palmyra-iraq">towards Palmyra</a> last spring. And nothing was done.</p>
<p>Anyone who has visited the <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23">city</a> will know that it sits in the middle of the Syrian desert, the roads leading to it running through an open landscape of scrubby, sandy land broken only by the odd thorny bush or isolated hut. Any convoy will have been easily visible from above and, since Palmyra is several hours away from both Raqqa and Deir ez Zor, there would have been ample time to call in air strikes to at least severely disrupt the progress of the IS advance. </p>
<p>The fact that this did not happen, especially given the international outcry when the archaeological site fell into Jihadist hands shortly afterwards, now seems inexplicable. </p>
<p>So what was really going on? And could Palmyra have been saved? The answer is: yes, it could have been spared this destruction, but sadly there was no political will to do so. An intervention by the US and her allies would have helped the forces of Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, hold the city from IS, but would have meant aiding the Syrian government – a situation deemed too politically unpalatable to contemplate even if it meant risking the very existence of a UNESCO World Heritage site. </p>
<p>It isn’t clear whether the Syrian army really was overwhelmed by IS or whether their failure to protect Palmyra was politically calculated by the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/21/assad-president-excluded-syria-peace-negotiations">Assad regime</a>. When Palmyra fell, after all, the Syrian government was able to use the capture of the city by IS to highlight the brutality and nihilism of the jihadis and argue that theirs was the more palatable form of rule. </p>
<p>In any case, the fall of the fabled city enabled the Syrian regime and their allies the Russians to argue that only they were really fighting terrorism, providing a pretext for Russia to send planes and other military hardware to assist Damascus. It is also clear that Palmyra could have been retaken far more quickly had there been the political will to do so in Damascus and Moscow. </p>
<p>Indeed, reports from agencies such as the <a href="http://www.syriahr.com/en/">Syrian Observatory for Human Rights</a> have highlighted the fact that a concerted air campaign was waged in the west of the country in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, areas with the largest number of moderate Syrian fighters and secular activists trying to build a civil society. It was only when these areas were on the verge of collapse that attention was turned to the IS presence in Palmyra.</p>
<h2>Assad’s gain</h2>
<p>It is now painfully clear that the West has been comprehensively
outflanked in propaganda terms by the Syrian regime and her Russian friends. Not only can Assad argue that it was his men who fought and died attempting to save the city, but the story has a new “glorious” chapter in which the valiant Syrian army, supported by Russian air power, has managed to vanquish the evil jihadis and regain this unique and iconic symbol of Syria. It has all worked out rather well for President Assad.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ae6MPLgcC5Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ancient destruction.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And the West? Well, for all the weeping and wailing over Palmyra,
the bottom line is that a UNESCO listing means absolutely nothing. UNESCO is an empty vessel and we should ask serious questions about what such an enormous, unwieldy and prohibitively expensive organisation actually achieves in real terms. Governments pay lip service to issues of international culture, but they condemn destruction of cultural heritage largely because the people who destroy the monuments are always groups who are considered enemies for other reasons. Iconoclasts are generally fanatics in all areas of life.</p>
<p>Funding cultural heritage schemes always looks good. However, that cultural heritage is ultimately disposable when it comes to a tricky political situation. Last year, there was a clear choice. Those IS trucks could have been stopped. The Temples of Bel and Baalshamin, the Triumphal Arch, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34150905">the Tomb Towers</a> and the
lives of many inhabitants of Palmyra, including its most famous resident <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1bd84ace-47f1-11e5-b3b2-1672f710807b.html#axzz44wKvlODr">Khaled al-Asaad</a>, could have been saved. But that would have meant “helping” the Assad regime. </p>
<p>And the new offers to help rebuild the city? Who will they actually help? Ultimately, only Assad and the Russians will benefit from this situation. Whatever the promises of money and technology, Palmyra will never again be the same and the world should wait until peace is restored in Syria before we even begin to contemplate the best way forward for the city and her inhabitants.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Loosley Leeming does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Political will could have rescued Palmyra. Here’s why it didn’t.Emma Loosley Leeming, Associate Professor of Archaeology, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/569482016-03-29T14:53:31Z2016-03-29T14:53:31ZExplained: strategy behind the battle to rescue the ruins of Palmyra<p>Syrian Army units have taken back the ancient city of Palmyra from Islamic State. The units are now also trying to extend their control to include al-Qaryatain, to the south west of Palmyra, and Sukhnah, to the north east.</p>
<p>There are indications that the damage done to the ancient world heritage site which lies just outside Palmyra has been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35912302">much less than feared</a>. It may even have been limited to the destruction of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35912302">two or three individual ruins</a> – certainly important in their own right but just a small part of a huge complex that stretches over scores of hectares.</p>
<p>It is already becoming clear that the entire operation would not have been possible without considerable air support from Russia. It also gives the lie to president Vladimir Putin’s claim that the Russian air force has largely completed its operations.</p>
<p>Despite very public proclamations that Russian pilots have been withdrawn from Syria, the reality is that operations continue. Only about a third of Russian front-line strike aircraft have been withdrawn so far – and the size of the <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2016/03/28/syria-air-power-russia-pullout-israel-putim/82338892/">Russian helicopter force</a> has actually been increased.</p>
<p>There is clear <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-strikes-idUSKCN0SF24L20151021">evidence</a> that Russia has been directing its most recent airstrikes at opponents of the Assad regime in north west Syria, rather than targeting IS. This is not surprising given that IS has scarcely been involved in the opposition to Assad. One major effect of the Russian campaign has been to strengthen the regime as a prelude to a negotiated settlement. This would have significant Russian involvement which, from Moscow’s standpoint, would ensure that post-war Syria would have considerable Russian influence.</p>
<p>Now that Putin has seen that policy reasonably on track, the Russian forces have had time to turn their attention to supporting Assad’s advance on Palmyra, an IS outpost since <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32820857">May 2015</a>. </p>
<p>Its loss was a major symbolic blow. Within a short time, IS fighters made a great show of wantonly destroying ancient ruins in the town.</p>
<p>In taking the city back, Putin can now claim to be doing the west’s job for it. The Palmyra triumph is further proof of Russia’s power and influence – a message that will go down very well with domestic audiences. <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/337497-palmyra-damage-restoration-challenge/">Russia Today</a> is already reporting that experts from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg have offered their services in the restoration process.</p>
<p>Assad, meanwhile, will now say that he has been right all along in his claim that he has been facing a terrorist threat for the past five years. He will remind the world that he has been fighting terrorists rather than genuine protesters and that he, and only he, can defeat IS in Syria. What makes it even sweeter for him is that western capitals, including Washington, have welcomed the retaking of Palmyra from IS.</p>
<p>This is an extraordinary change for the west to digest. Less than four years ago, Barack Obama was on the point of <a href="https://theconversation.com/obama-blithely-sells-out-his-allies-and-millions-of-syrians-in-legacy-interview-56224">bombing</a> the Assad regime, and now he is giving a guarded welcome to the Syrian advance. </p>
<h2>Where next for IS?</h2>
<p>The loss of Palmyra is a setback for IS – particularly since it also has had to cede control of the important city of Ramadi in Iraq. But we should be careful about saying that IS is beginning to face defeat.</p>
<p>For one thing, it took five months for Ramadi to fall, and there are reports that IS paramilitaries are still active in and around the city, harrying Iraq troops. The Iraqi government has done little to engage with the country’s Sunni minority, meaning there is still support for IS. The radical group appeals to people who fear the consequences as the largely Shi’a national army and its Iranian-backed militia associates take over large Sunni towns and cities. </p>
<p>IS now also has at least <a href="http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers_and_reports/intervention_libya_why_here_why_now_what_next">5,000 paramilitaries in northern Libya</a>, and is preparing to expand its war with western states with the influence gained there.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the west mistakenly assumes that recent attacks in Europe are a sign that IS is <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/03/23/brussels-bombings-are-a-sign-of-islamic-states-panic/">facing defeat in the Middle East </a> and suddenly feels the need to show force. But it is now becoming clear that these attacks had been <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/after-brussels-isiss-strategy">planned</a> for some time. They may even have been developed as a tactic as long as <a href="http://nyti.ms/1RoWDOD">two years ago</a>. </p>
<p>The idea that IS was fixated on controlling territory to establish a caliphate may have been a misreading of its strategy. A second element as important as territorial presence seems to be its determination to take the war to the “far element”, a determination reinforced by the 20-month coalition air war in Syria.</p>
<p>Brussels, Paris and probable future attacks – which will almost certainly include incidents in Russia – are aimed at exacerbating community tensions and heightening anti-Muslim bigotry to Islamic State’s advantage. As the group is restricted in Syria and Iraq, so it expands the war elsewhere, seeking to weaken its enemy from within.</p>
<p>With all this in mind, the retaking of Palmyra is still significant, but it is part of a much more complex process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56948/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Rogers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>News from Syria that the ancient town has been taken back from Islamic State is good news – but especially for Putin and Assad.Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/462852015-09-08T15:16:01Z2015-09-08T15:16:01ZHow 3D objects and pictures of heritage can connect children worldwide<p>Details are still emerging of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/25/islamic-state-images-destruction-palmyra-temple-baal-shamin-isis">scale of destruction</a> on the heritage site of Palmyra in Syria. Now <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1543050/3d-cameras-to-stop-is-wiping-the-slate-clean">work is beginning</a> by archaeologists at Oxford and Harvard, determined to create a digital record of the ancient sites that remain. They are planning to get thousands of 3D cameras into Syria and Iraq that can be used by people on the ground to take 3D images of the countries’ cultural heritage.</p>
<p>This work is part of a growing trend to create heritage archives that can be used to support young people learning about world cultures. Online photo banks of heritage artefacts are growing. In the UK, there are quite a few heritage–based visual resources that can be used in the classroom, such as <a href="http://www.teachinghistory100.org/">The British Museum’s project</a> “teaching history with 100 objects” and the Wessex Archaeology <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wessexarchaeology/collections/">collection</a>. </p>
<p>Recently, special attention has been placed on <a href="https://theconversation.com/please-touch-the-artefacts-3d-technology-is-changing-museums-28724">3D heritage visualisations</a>, especially in the emerging area of 3D printing for education. The start-up project <a href="http://www.museofabber.com/">Museofabber</a> aims to 3D-print museum collections and use them in the classrooms, inviting teachers to send in requests for objects to be printed. Other 3D printing initiatives include 3D miniatures made by the <a href="https://vcuarchaeology3d.wordpress.com/">Virtual Curation Laboratory</a> and <a href="http://uwf.edu/cassh/departments/anthropology-and-archaeology/spotlight/uwf-archaeologists-3d-scanning-and-printing/">3D printed bones</a> at the University of Western Florida. </p>
<p>Alongside 2D visual artefact collections and 3D printing, educational 3D games have also incorporated heritage artefacts, such as the Danish company <a href="http://www.seriousgames.net/">Serious Games Interactive</a>’s game for Danish school children featuring Viking heritage and artefacts in the city of Odense. </p>
<h2>Using heritage to forge connections</h2>
<p>Yet a question remains around the extent to which these educational projects can help connect children of different nations. In order to care for and understand heritage, we need to start with understanding and caring for people around the globe. The idea of using heritage in education to <a href="https://books.google.com.cy/books?id=XdCvAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">act as “connective tissues”</a> among children and people around the world is especially important for nations that do not belong to the same geographical or cultural realm (for example, East and West). It’s also very pertinent for regions and nations that have experienced a history of conflict, or where heritage may have been destroyed. </p>
<p>Such inter-cultural exchange can challenge particular discourses about heritage, such as those that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/682302?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">foster</a> a single, nationalistic interpretation of history, national identity and artefacts or those that include negative images of other people and cultures as a whole. The scholar <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Identity_and_Violence.html?id=srCsbXDejd0C&hl=en">Amartya Sen argues</a> that a singular, pure identity of any kind is an illusion, connected to many conflicts and barbarities in the world. </p>
<p>I am not calling here for uniformity in the way that heritage artefacts are interpreted, but rather tolerance and reconciliation through human diversity, emphasising more what nations have in common rather than what differentiates them. In line with these ideas, <a href="http://www.oxfam.org.uk/education/teacher-support/tools-and-guides/images-and-artefacts">Oxfam GB has called for initiatives</a> that use heritage artefacts in education to promote “positive images of people, places and artefacts”. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-list-of-world-heritage-in-danger-15679">article</a> on The Conversation showed a list of world heritage sites in danger. In order to protect and cherish this and any other world heritage, we, educationalists around the world, first need to support children’s understanding about heritage sites in a way that provides multiple interpretations of the significance of artefacts and care for other human beings. </p>
<h2>History and culture you can visualise and touch</h2>
<p>That is why it is critical to incorporate heritage artefacts in teaching around the world. Children need to learn that the past is always subject to different interpretations, depending on who interprets it. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/94165/original/image-20150908-4342-bbqt94.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pitoti: prehistoric Italian rock art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Cambridge</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131881.2015.1058098#.VaKInkZWKiw">study</a> I undertook with colleagues at the University of Nottingham asked a selection of teachers in the Midlands region of England to consider the educational potential of Italian heritage artefacts using 2D and 3D visualisations. The artefacts were named “pitoti” by locals, meaning “little puppets” – a fascinating collection of rock art representing humans, animals, objects and abstract symbols <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/94">engraved in the rock</a> from prehistory to medieval times in Valcamonica in Italy’s Lombardy region. The British teachers we interviewed thought there was considerable potential in using pictures and 3D visualisations of international heritage across different subjects and activities in the curriculum. </p>
<p>Our research showed that education supported by pictures or 3D technology can help any heritage to cross national borders. Any artefact can be digitised and its history translated into many languages so that language does not act as a barrier for teachers and students in different countries. However, the real challenge is to reach and connect teachers and education systems that may have a limited access to technology or have different political and cultural views around heritage. But we need to start somewhere. </p>
<p>Only time can tell whether 3D technology will become globally accessible and affordable. However, photographs and illustrations can serve this purpose well if access to 3D technology or its cost is an issue. If educationalists around the world are supported to develop initiatives that embrace a more connected and pluralist way of using heritage artefacts in education, they can help connect children around the world. Such an education that fosters intercultural collaboration and dialogue around human artefacts is a small step towards world peace. Perhaps a distant dream, but hopefully an achievable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasa Lackovic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Using technology to recreate heritage items can help connect nations.Natasa Lackovic, Lecturer in Education, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/471122015-09-04T15:07:19Z2015-09-04T15:07:19ZThere are echoes of Palmyra around the world – is that all that will be left?<p>The grainy <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/isis-is-systematically-destroying-palmyra-top-antiquities-official-says#img-1">satellite image</a> is harrowing. Where the inner area (cella) of Palmyra’s first-century AD Temple of Bel can be made out clearly on the older picture, only a chalky, smudged outline remains on the new. The portal in front of the western entrance can just be seen still standing. But the inner sanctum — with its exquisitely carved Zodiac ceiling — has been razed to the ground.</p>
<p>In a fusion of zealous iconoclasm and cynical propaganda the militants of Islamic State have destroyed one of the most treasured artefacts of the ancient Near East. Its ongoing assault on the ruins of Palmyra, evidenced by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/04/isis-destroys-ancient-tombs-palmyra">recent revelations</a> about the demolition of three tower tombs and aptly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/isis-is-systematically-destroying-palmyra-top-antiquities-official-says">described</a> by Maamoun Abdulkarim as “the destruction of a civilization”, bodes ill for the remaining splendours of the ancient city.</p>
<p>Across the globe digital images of Palmyra proliferate. The destruction of our shared “cultural heritage” is sorely lamented; the fanatical intolerance of Islamic State contrasted with the culturally eclectic polytheism of the ancient world. </p>
<h2>Centuries of discovery</h2>
<p>Suspended above a doorway in the Allard Pierson Museum on the Oude Turfmarkt in Amsterdam is a <a href="https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/images/199612">much older depiction of Palmyra</a>. The painting sheds light on the meaning of this shared “heritage” and the importance of Palmyra. </p>
<p>This late 17th century oil painting by the German artist G Hofstede van Essen depicts a vast panorama of ruins, amid which the Temple of Bel stands prominently to the left of the picture, at the end of the colonnaded street. This is, in fact, the first surviving image of Palmyra. It dates from an early expedition to the ruined city undertaken by a group of European merchants who had trekked across the Syrian desert with an Arab guide in 1691.</p>
<p>Among these early travellers was an English clergyman called William Hallifax, who was in Syria serving as a chaplain to the small community of English merchants who then lived and worked in the city of Aleppo. Hallifax’s account of his voyage provides us with a perceptive account of the Temple of Bel as it stood in the late 17th century. At this point, the temple was still inhabited (this remained the case until 1929 when the locals were resettled in the new town by French archaeologists). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93894/original/image-20150904-14656-qoc77e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Temple of Bel ceilings, Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tedmor, in the Desert (London, 1753).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Entering the temple compound, Hallifax was confronted by “thirty or forty families, in little hutts [sic] made of dirt”. Surveying the site, Hallifax noted correctly that the outer walls had been rebuilt from older fragments for defensive purposes by the Mamlukes. Passing through the portal into the cella, he was struck by the ornate carvings which amazed him as they would another three centuries of visitors:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I never saw Vines and Clusters of Grapes cut in Stone so Bold, so Lively, and so Natural, in any place. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hallifax interpreted the Arabic inscriptions on the inner walls — “wrote in flourishes and wreaths, not without art” — as evidence of the building’s reuse as a mosque (The IS demolitionists may be unaware that they have also destroyed some of the oldest extant Islamic inscriptions, dating back to 728-9 AD). Above all, he was awed by the Zodiac ceiling (“a most exquisite piece of workmanship”) before which he paused in the quiet of the inner sanctum of the temple. It was here that the ancient Palmyrenes worshipped their trinity of deities — Bel, Yarhibol, and Aglibol — so odious to the uncompromising monotheism of IS.</p>
<h2>The Palmyrene puzzle</h2>
<p>Hallifax’s description prompted a wave a interest in Palmyra in late 17th and early 18th-century Europe. In the pages of learned journals scholars conjectured on the dating of the monuments recorded by Hallifax and puzzled over the mysterious Palmyrene script — a cursive version of Aramaic then unknown in the West. In England and the Netherlands, books about Palmyra began to appear, fusing Hallifax’s brief observations with the tales of the legendary <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Zenobia">Queen Zenobia</a> that had been passed down to early modern readers through classical and Byzantine sources.</p>
<p>It was not long before another expedition to Palmyra was undertaken. In 1751 a party of English and Italian explorers led by James Dawkins and Robert Wood returned to Palmyra (a feat memorialised in a <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/h/artist/gavin-hamilton/object/james-dawkins-and-robert-wood-discovering-the-ruins-of-palmyra-ng-2666">painting</a> by the Scottish artist Gavin Hamilton). For 15 days the party surveyed the ruins and inscriptions, while their draftsman, Giovanni Battista Borra, produced meticulous drawings of the site. One view of the Temple of Bel shows the dwellings seen by Hallifax, with the soaring columns of the peristyle towering above them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93895/original/image-20150904-14617-1m2rnrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tedmor, in the Desert (London, 1753)</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wood’s The Ruins of Palmyra (1753) reproduced these illustrations as a series of fine prints. The book was a huge success, and inspired the Neoclassical movement in architectural design. Details from the Temple of Bel were reproduced on the ceilings of country houses across England. There is a sad irony now in reading Wood’s observation — to which Palmyra was the exception — that “it is the natural and common fate of cities to have their memory longer preserved than their ruins”. </p>
<h2>A shared heritage</h2>
<p>Hallifax, Dawkins, and Wood were the forebears of teams of historians, artists, and archaeologists — Russians, Germans, Americans, and French — who would pass through Palmyra during the 19th and 20th centuries, uncovering more of its temples and mapping its tombs and inscriptions with even greater precision. Following Syrian independence, this mantle passed to scholars such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/khaled-al-asaad-the-martyr-of-palmyra-46787">Khaled al-Asaad</a>, the head of antiquities at Palmyra, brutally murdered by Islamic State while attempting to prevent the destruction of the antiquities he had spent his life studying and conserving.</p>
<p>All of this work was undertaken for different reasons — among them, certainly, personal ambition and the accrual of prestige to the emergent imperial powers across the Middle East. But it would be cynical to see these endeavours solely in an imperial light. Explorers of and writers on Palmyra over three centuries have been united by a desire to understand the past and by a sense of the haunting beauty evoked by Palmyra’s unique fusion of Hellenistic and Eastern artistic styles.</p>
<p>More than 300 years of enquiry have forged a shared heritage — a deep sense of value common to generations dead, living, and to come. It may well be that the memory of these sites now outlives the ruins. But the destruction of the ruins is a tragedy, which betrays the past and will impoverish the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Mills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ongoing destruction of Palmyra is a tragedy, a betrayal of the past and an impoverishment of the future.Simon Mills, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/468392015-09-02T14:50:29Z2015-09-02T14:50:29ZAfter Palmyra, what can the world do to protect cultural treasures?<p>There has been much public condemnation of the destruction of the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34111092">Temple of Bel</a> at Palmyra by Islamic State (IS), as well as the wider devastation being inflicted on the cultural heritage of Syria and Iraq by both IS and its opponents in Syria’s civil war.</p>
<p>Both Syria and Iraq are party to all relevant treaties protecting cultural heritage, but this has not stopped the rampant violations. This implies that the problem doesn’t lie with inadequate laws, but rather with compliance and enforcement.</p>
<p>This is not just a matter for states involved in conflict. A major problem with the international law on pillaging, looting and smuggling is that a number of prominent states, including the UK, are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/18/lord-renfrew-iraq-nimrud-hague-isis-islamic-state">yet to ratify key treaties</a> in this field.</p>
<p>That’s a grave shame – especially since the international laws that protect antiquities and cultural treasures are actually fairly strong, at least on paper. </p>
<h2>In black and white</h2>
<p>International humanitarian law clearly prohibits the destruction or damage of cultural property in armed conflicts, in particular under the 1954 <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict</a> and its two protocols. Pillage is also prohibited in international humanitarian law, and <a href="http://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf">constitutes a war crime</a> under the Statute of the International Criminal Court both in international and non-international armed conflicts.</p>
<p>In a separate branch of international law, regulations such as the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-trafficking-of-cultural-property/1970-convention/">1970 UNESCO Convention</a> ban illicit trade in stolen cultural property, whether in peacetime or in the thick of armed conflict.</p>
<p>While these laws may be difficult to enforce in these uncontrolled areas, the world could still be doing a lot more to secure compliance wherever possible – especially by those parties to armed conflicts who, unlike Islamic State, could be stopped from doing these things.</p>
<p>There are a number of workable ideas. Italy has <a href="http://www.agi.it/en/italy/news/italy_proposes_task_force_to_protect_cultural_heritage-201508011839-pol-inw0001">proposed a specialised international rapid response force</a> tasked specifically with defending cultural property from any abuse. Another way to ensure greater awareness and protection of cultural heritage would be to write its protection into the mandate of international peacekeeping missions, <a href="http://www.betterworldcampaign.org/un-peacekeeping/missions/mali.html?referrer=https://www.google.co.uk/">as has been done in Mali</a>. </p>
<p>Some have suggested embedding <a href="http://www.presentpasts.info/articles/10.5334/pp.31/">cultural property specialist officers</a>, akin to World War II’s “<a href="http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org/the-heroes/the-monuments-men">monuments men</a>”, alongside deployed military forces participating in hostilities.</p>
<p>Both looting on the ground and illicit international trading demand not only laws, but serious international policing. Any effort with a chance of success must involve both war-torn states that provide the supply and the states that provide the demand, which often include Western countries. </p>
<p>Those states should be able to dedicate resources to recover stolen antiquities and hold those implicated responsible.</p>
<h2>Emotional survival</h2>
<p>The most crucial missing piece of the puzzle is support for the people these artefacts actually belong to, especially those who risk their lives to protect artefacts and cultural sites in their neighbourhoods. </p>
<p>This can be achieved by providing training on preservation methods, as well as by supplying the resources and means needed to safeguard and record protected objects, including <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/islamic-state/63683/archaeologists-use-3d-cameras-to-save-palmyra-from-islamic-state">3D imagery and printing</a> to replace originals removed for safekeeping, or to recreate them if destroyed.</p>
<p>Not everybody can be expected to be as committed as <a href="https://theconversation.com/khaled-al-asaad-the-martyr-of-palmyra-46787">Khaled al–Asaad</a>, the prominent Syrian archaeologist who was beheaded by IS for refusing to reveal where Palmyra’s mobile artefacts had been hidden. But as was made clear by the efforts to secure Palmyra’s and Timbuktu’s antiquities, people all over the world have more than enough enthusiasm and determination to save their own cultures. They must be given the help they need to do so. </p>
<p>Above all, it must never be forgotten that, as is written outside the National Museum of Afghanistan, “<a href="https://dfid.blog.gov.uk/2012/11/21/a-nation-stays-alive-when-its-culture-stays-alive/">a nation stays alive when its culture stays alive</a>”. This is in large part what made the destruction of Palmyra so <a href="https://theconversation.com/palmyra-islamic-state-layers-grief-upon-grief-for-syrians-42210">devastating</a> for Syrians. </p>
<p>Cultural heritage has a crucial role to play in reconciliation and unification of the nation in the aftermath of conflict, and in the emotional survival of people during it – and it’s the world’s responsibility to preserve it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Agnieszka Jachec-Neale is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House.</span></em></p>The robust international laws meant to protect cultural heritage are worth little without real international action.Agnieszka Jachec-Neale, Visiting Lecturer, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/467872015-09-01T05:03:05Z2015-09-01T05:03:05ZKhaled al-Asaad, the martyr of Palmyra<p>A second ancient temple at Palmyra has been razed, with a satellite image <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34111092">appearing to confirm</a> the destruction of the Temple of Bel, previously one of the best-preserved parts of the ancient city.</p>
<p>The revelation follows the release of images by Islamic State last week <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/islamic-state-temple-destruction-palmyra-represents-everything-isis-would-destroy-2069761">showing</a> the Baalshamin temple had been blown up. </p>
<p>IS militants seized control of Palmyra in May, sparking fears for the 2,000-year-old World Heritage site. Ancient ruins are not all that has been lost.</p>
<p>Khaled al-Asaad, the 81-year old former director of the world-renowned archaeological site at Palmyra in Syria, was <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33984006">beheaded in August</a>. His body was hung on a street corner by Islamic State for everyone to see. </p>
<p>Prior to his death, al-Asaad and his son Walid, the current director of antiquities, had been detained for a month. They had been tortured as their captors tried to extract information about where treasures were to be found. </p>
<p>Walid’s fate remains unknown.</p>
<h2>Early career</h2>
<p>Al-Asaad had worked at the archaeological site for more than 50 years, spending most of that time as its director. He never really retired and was always very active, sensing that he had a kind of mission in Palmyra, the ancient city to which he had devoted his life.</p>
<p>He was interested in archaeology from a very young age, even though it was a relatively new field in Syria at the time. When France took on its post-World War I mandate as administrator of Syria, Palmyra was a road junction between Homs and Deir ez Zor – a well-known stop where the Zenobia Hotel, run by a French intelligence officer, welcomed travellers who were in transit between the Euphrates, Homs and Damascus.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"634279842737987584"}"></div></p>
<p>There was French airfield in the region and a squadron of French troops was stationed there. The garrison chaplain, <a href="http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/943.html">Jean Starcky</a>, was so interested in the monuments of the site and in the Palmyran inscriptions that he became a world expert on them. It was he who published the first archaeological guide of Palmyra.</p>
<p>In 1930, Henri Seyrig, a young scholar who had been appointed director of antiquities in Syria the year before, had organised for the people who lived in the ruins of Palmyra to <a href="https://www.persee.fr/issue/crai_0065-0536_1993_num_137_2">relocate to a new city</a> to the north of the site – the current Palmyra.</p>
<p>Seyrig then organised the archaeological dig of the Temple of Bel with fellow archeologist Robert du Mesnil du Buisson, who worked on the site and then led the dig at the Temple of Baalchamin.</p>
<p>But when France’s mandate ended on <a href="http://www.syriatoday.ca/Independance-Syria.htm">17 April 1946</a>, the French soldiers departed. The scientists went with them.</p>
<h2>The new Palmyra museum</h2>
<p>At that time, Khaled al-Asaad was studying in Homs. In 1960, he enrolled to study history at the University of Damascus. With his degree in his pocket, he became a civil servant at the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums in Damascus. Then, in 1963, the young al-Asaad was named as chief curator of the new museum in Palmyra and director of the site.</p>
<p>His numerous excavations in Palmyra included temples and religious monuments, but also living quarters and tombs. He cleared some parts of the stone and marble fortifications that had been constructed at the time of the Roman emperor <a href="http://www.ancient.eu/Diocletian/">Diocletian</a> around the monumental centre of the city.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93298/original/image-20150828-19933-7ool0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Temple of Bel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temple_of_Bel,_Palmyra_01.jpg">Bernard Gagnon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More recently, he excavated and restored the main street after evidencing the ancient paving buried under soil and a tangled network of pipes.</p>
<p>Khaled al-Asaad had an archeologist’s sense of responsibility and his excavations have always been followed by effective, discreet and smart restorations. He also wanted to bring Palmyran civilisation to the general public and sought to make the site welcoming for visitors.</p>
<p>But he was, above all, a scientist. Since the first year of his appointment to the Department of Antiquities, he began publishing a number of books on the history of Palmyra and its surrounding region. He wrote a guide to ancient Palmyra and a book about the famous queen Zenobia. He helped organise exhibitions on palmyran antiques, the first of which took place at the Petit Palais in Paris in 1974.</p>
<h2>A hero and martyr</h2>
<p>Khaled al-Asaad had an open mind and always actively supported French missions in Palmyra, as well as those lead from Germany, Poland, Japan and Switzerland.</p>
<p>He recently collaborated with a mission of the German Institute of Damascus in a geomagnetic exploration south of the torrent valley of Palmyra. This led to the discovery of a major residential area that nobody knew existed.</p>
<p>Until the end, he remained approachable to everyone. This is especially true of the workers in Palmyra, who appreciated and respected him deeply because they recognised in him a generosity above and beyond what was required by his job.</p>
<p>Even after his notional retirement, Khaled al-Asaad remained a valuable expert. He remarkably read the Palmyran language and knew a remarkable amount about Palmyran civilisation. The directorate always consulted him when police discovered stolen statues to appraise.</p>
<p>Upon hearing of his death, Maamoun Abdel-Karim, director general of antiquities and Museums of Syria, <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2015/08/19/palmyre-le-groupe-ei-a-decapite-l-ancien-directeur-des-antiquites_1365672">said</a> IS had “executed one of the foremost experts of the ancient world”.</p>
<p>Among the five reasons given to justify his execution, Khaled al-Asaad was also accused of being a supporter of the Syrian regime. Like nearly all the leaders and employees of the Syrian archaeology sector, Khaled al-Asaad was keen to remain at his post. In doing so, he did not see himself as being at the service of the Syrian regime, but at the service of his country. And in Syria, where patriotism is perennial, being at the service of the state is not an empty sentiment.</p>
<p>Abdel-Karim <a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/international/syrie-daech-decapite-l-ancien-directeur-des-antiquites-a-palmyre-19-08-2015-5020247.php#xtref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.fr%2F">said</a> after Khaled al-Asaad’s death: “We begged Khaled to leave the city, but he always refused, saying, ‘I’m from Palmyra and I will stay even if they have to kill me’.”</p>
<p>His courage was fatal to him. He died a hero and a martyr.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pierre Leriche ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Khaled al-Asaad was a world renowned scholar before his death at the hands of Islamic State.Pierre Leriche, Directeur de Recherche émérite au CNRS, École normale supérieure (ENS) – PSLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/422672015-05-26T01:37:09Z2015-05-26T01:37:09ZIslamic State may finally efface the traces of lost empires at Palmyra<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82792/original/image-20150525-32578-10nsnlq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">After witnessing the rise and fall of many empires, the ancient site of Palmyra is under threat from Islamic State. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phillip George</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Surpassing disaster” is a term the Lebanese artist, writer and film theorist <a href="http://www.jalaltoufic.com/">Jalal Toufic</a> coined as Lebanon emerged from years of catastrophic civil war in the early 1990s. When I asked him for the meaning of the term, he said it was when there is a disaster then things get much worse. “Surpassing disaster” is embodied by the surviving population of Syria.</p>
<p>News outlets in recent days have been <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/just-days-after-seizing-palmyra-isis-massacres-400-people-in-the-ancient-city-10272934.html">reporting</a> that the archaeological site of Palmyra – some 215 kilometres north-east of the Syrian capital Damascus – is under threat from Islamic State. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-25/is-executes-at-least-217-near-palmyra-in-9-days-monitor-says/6493932">News</a> continues to mount of civilian casualties, conflict deaths and executions.</p>
<p>Before looking at the prospect of the destruction of this World Heritage site, however, the disaster the Syrian people endure every day must be acknowledged. </p>
<p>One of the most compelling images of the Syrian civil war so far is the photograph below credited to the United Nations and Associated Press. The image of Palestinian refuges lining up for food aid in the bomb-ravaged neighbourhood of Yarmouk, a refugee camp housing the largest Palestinian population in Syria, opens a small window into the nightmare that is contemporary Syria. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82787/original/image-20150525-32589-iv4d95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Palestinian and Syrian residents of Yarmuk Palestinian Refugee Camp crowding in a destroyed street as food is distributed, in Damascus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/United Nation Relief and Works Agency</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Militarised factions from the Free Syrian Army to Islamic State have fought to claim the camp. As the disaster continues, these Palestinian refuges have now become Palestinian/Syrian refuges.</p>
<p>In Syria and across the Middle East histories have overlapped in this way for thousands of years. This cradle of civilisation is rich in landmarks, artifacts and the cultural traces of empires past and present. The citizens of Yarmouk, for example, find themselves in their current predicament thanks to a set of consequences set in train by the end of the second world war. </p>
<h2>Ancient Palymra</h2>
<p>Palmyra bears the traces of many histories. It is now witness to an attempt by Islamic State to establish the next empire, a 21st- century Caliphate. </p>
<p>In 2005 I travelled to Palymra, which is located adjacent to the modern city of Tadmur in the Homs province of Syria. One of the images I made then documents these traces of history: in the foreground, the rubble of multiple empires is mixed together and ground into dust. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=182&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82794/original/image-20150525-32558-1u2nsfm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=229&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phillip George, Trace #1 (2005), Medium C type print, size 70cmx230cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phillip George</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To the left of frame, the fusion between the local and Greco-Roman colonnades, to the right on top of the steep hill, the Mamluk Castle named Fakhr-al-Din al-Ma'ani. On the hill to the left of the castle there is a Syrian Army communications tower, which was controlled by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad and is now in the hands of Islamic State. </p>
<p>Occupation of the oasis of Palmyra can be dated from Neolithic settlements; nomadic tribes made the area a station for trade. Later it became a caravanserai. The city is located on the major trade routes that ranged from Europe to China, north to the Black Sea and south to Yemen. </p>
<p>To list the peoples that passed through the area is to list half of humanity. Amorites, an ancient Semitic speaking tribe, were located in the area. The Assyrians, Hebrew tribes, the Seleucid Empire, the Sassanid Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantines, Crusaders, the Rashidun Caliphate, Ummayad and Abbassid Empires, the Maluks, the Ottoman Empire, Arameans and Amorites. Arabs, Jews, Greeks and Persians have all left their marks in Palmyra.</p>
<p>A second image (below), made from the vantage point of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakhr-al-Din_al-Maani_Castle">Fakhr-al-Din al-Ma'ani Castle</a>, offers a panoramic vista over much of the extensive site. </p>
<p>In the far distance, left of the frame, are the famous Palmyra palm trees. Just to left of those are the colonnades and the agora, to the right of the agora excavation holes left by tomb robbers and archaeologists. To the right of frame are the towering tombs of the necropolis. </p>
<p>Standing at Fakhr-al-Din al-Ma'ani Castle it is easy to imagine the vast sweep of tribes, traders, invaders, pilgrims, colonisers and empire builders as they swept through the area. The view back in time stretches for millennia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=197&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=197&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=197&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82793/original/image-20150525-32586-a149mh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phillip George, Palmyra (2006), Medium C type print, size 110cmx300cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phillip George</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Palmyra today</h2>
<p>The site is now once again witness to an invasion – and this one could be its last.</p>
<p>American historian Robert D Kaplan argued in his 2013 book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Revenge-Geography-Conflicts-Against/dp/0812982223">The Revenge of Geography</a> that geography really matters. The mountains of Afghanistan neutralised American technological power. By contrast the vast flat lands of the Arabian Peninsula, according to Kaplan, need a “strong man” to rule them. </p>
<p>At Palmyra great empires sweep past and hold on for a time until they are supplanted by a stronger, more brutal empire. </p>
<p>Saddam Hussein was such a strong man. He was liquidated by Paul Bremer, George W. Bush’s man on the ground in Iraq – who also sacked almost everyone in the Iraqi Ba'ath party, including the Army of Iraq and its Ba'ath party leaders. </p>
<p>History overlaps. The military leaders of the Ba'ath party are back – and now they lead Islamic State and are fighting the military wing of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Ba'ath party. </p>
<p>Palmyra is a desert town easier to capture than hold. The disaster for human history is that to take back Palmyra, it may well be destroyed in the fighting.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82795/original/image-20150525-32562-lmu3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke rises after a rocket attack near the ancient oasis city of Palmyra.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/STR</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond Palmyra</h2>
<p>The Northern Sinai is a site that is home to another Islamic State franchise. </p>
<p>Far from the control of Cairo, it’s the location of a site significant to all the Abrahamic traditions: Mt Sinai, the place where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments. Located at the base of the mountain is St Catherine’s Monastery. </p>
<p>Among its many treasures is the Achtiname of Muhammad, the testament of the Prophet Muhammad granting protection and other privileges to the Christian monks of Saint Catherine’s. One wonders if or when Islamic State reach this place they will take notice of the Prophet’s testament.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Phillip George does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conflict involving Islamic State has raised the prospect of the destruction of Palmyra, a World Heritage site in Syria. It’s not the first time the region has been invaded, but it may well be the last.Phillip George, Associate Professor, UNSW Art & Design , UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/422102015-05-21T16:58:18Z2015-05-21T16:58:18ZPalmyra: Islamic State layers grief upon grief for Syrians<p>Ancient Palmyra, sometimes called the Venice of the Sands, has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32820857">fallen to the forces of the so-called Islamic State</a> (IS). The group is now expected to systematically destroy this World Heritage site on video, just as it has devastated other famous archaeological sites such as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11530967/Isil-video-shows-destruction-of-3000-year-old-Assyrian-city-of-Nimrud.html">Assyrian Nimrud</a> and the city of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31779484">Hatra</a> in Iraq. </p>
<p>A woeful tide of plunder and destruction of museums, ancient artefacts and sites has flowed across Syria since civil war broke out there, and with IS exploiting the chaos to claim more and more territory, the destruction has extended into Iraq.</p>
<p>The fate of stones and pots might seem to pale into insignificance alongside the colossal human tragedy overtaking the region. Yet these survivals from the past represent far more than just lost tourist revenue. They are a testament to the societies which generated the three great Abrahamic religions and the histories of the diverse modern peoples of the region, deeply precious parts of global cultural heritage.</p>
<p>And for many Syrians and Iraqis, they are a core part of their identity and sense of place in the world. </p>
<h2>Anguish</h2>
<p>Some, such as the now-ruined <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19775530">great medieval souk of Aleppo</a>, were still-functioning places of work or trade. The Aleppo souk was part of a beloved urban landscape, providing a sense of place and rootedness in much the same way that, say, Covent Garden might for Londoners, or Montmartre for Parisians. </p>
<p>The destruction of cities such as Aleppo adds to grief over lost family members, or the bitterness of exile. Now, those who survive face the anguish that even the familiar historic landmarks of home no longer stand.</p>
<p>For many Syrians, ancient Palmyra is a source of national pride. This oasis city in the parched steppelands between Damascus and the Euphrates was built by ancestors of the modern Arab population, from the proceeds of their trading acumen which brought Chinese silks to Rome—hence comparison with the Venetian Republic. </p>
<p>Under its famous queen <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01snjpp">Zenobia</a>, this city-state even briefly defied Rome, and has bequeathed to us the exquisite architecture of its great temple and streets, and remarkable tomb sculptures portraying its citizens. </p>
<p>This is much more than mere stones. It is such a part of modern Syria that Zenobia and the city’s ruins feature on banknotes.</p>
<h2>Beyond collateral damage</h2>
<p>Destruction of archaeological heritage is often part of the “collateral damage” of war, but the Syrian Civil War and wider IS-led chaos have seen it put to grotesquely instrumental use.</p>
<p>This is, after all, part of a grim political project. Alongside its shocking <a href="https://theconversation.com/second-execution-video-shows-that-islamic-state-has-a-grim-strategic-plan-31256">videos of horrific violence</a>, IS’s campaign to create a brutal new monocultural reality relies on ostentatiously obliterating all artefacts of a different, multicultural and largely tolerant past in Syria and Iraq, a pattern established in antiquity and continued through the Islamic period. Hence the videos showing IS’s forces smashing “ancient idols” and dynamiting monuments. </p>
<p>And alongside this crude theatrical vandalism, archaeological heritage is also being systematically looted simply for money. Archaeological remains are priceless parts of our world, like surviving pristine natural ecosystems. But whereas an ecosystem can be restored if part of it survives, as is being attempted in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22706024">marshlands of Iraq</a> following Saddam’s destruction, archaeological remains cannot regenerate. Once disturbed, if not carefully recorded, their testimony is lost forever.</p>
<p>In the Middle East, as elsewhere in the world, opportunity and sheer poverty have for millennia driven people to reuse stones from forgotten buildings, or to dig up ancient tombs for valuables. And today, developed countries are host to a voracious antiquities market, partly visible through expensive auction houses but much of it <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/brendan-pittaway/mobsters-museums-and-the-_b_2175442.html">clandestine</a>. </p>
<p>This market has fuelled destruction of archaeological remains around the world – a fundamental motivator of the cultural catastrophe in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<h2>Torn fabric</h2>
<p>Before IS began its singularly devastating rampage, most if not all of Syria’s warring factions were getting in on the heritage-looting act. This was horribly apparent in another ancient site closely linked to Palmyra: <a href="http://www.le.ac.uk/ar/stj/dura.htm">Dura Europos</a> on the Euphrates. </p>
<p>In AD 165, this constitutionally Greek city with a majority Mesopotamian population passed from Parthian to Roman rule, acquiring an imperial garrison and Jewish and early Christian communities. It has been nicknamed the “Pompeii of the East”, since scientific excavations there have given us astonishingly vivid glimpses of the ancient multicultural nature of the region. </p>
<p>And it is now being systematically destroyed. <a href="http://eca.state.gov/cultural-heritage-center/syria-cultural-heritage-initiative/imagery-archaeological-site-looting">Satellite imagery</a> has confirmed reports that Dura has been looted on a truly nightmarish scale. Machines have been used to tear hundreds of huge holes in its fabric in search of anything saleable. This destruction started before IS seized control of the area, though the group will now be conducting or taxing the continuing looting. </p>
<p>Huge plundering operations of this kind, also seen at sites beyond IS control such as Apamea in Western Syria, are apparently being bankrolled and organised from outside the war zones. Well-equipped gangs enter from surrounding countries to retrieve antiquities and smuggle them back out across the borders to feed the international market.</p>
<h2>Ruthless</h2>
<p>To professional plunderers, archaeological remains are simply something to steal and sell to the highest bidder, and this mindset matches IS’s utter ruthlessness in procuring resources to fuel its campaign. </p>
<p>The group has embraced everything from <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/islamic-state-was-making-1million-a-day-from-oil-sales-before-airstrikes-began/2014/10/23/34e1b0c4-5ae8-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html">illegal oil</a> sales to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30573385">enslaving Yazidi women</a>. </p>
<p>And just as we have long since outlawed slavery and learned to see environmental crime for what it is, it’s time to crack down far harder on heritage destruction – not least on the unscrupulous dealers and collectors who fuel it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The destruction of Iraq and Syria’s cultural heritage is more than wanton vandalism – it’s a grim political project.Simon James, Professor of Archaeology, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.