Master Thesis rMA Arts and Culture: Artistic Research
From Napoleon to Daesh Through Art:
Destruction and Reconstruction of Ancient Middle Eastern Artifacts
by Lieke van der Made
DGTL_HRTG: Fig. 67/68. Funerary 2006-2016
Student number: 11408138 Thesis supervisor: Prof. dr. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes Second reader: Dr. Jeroen Boomgaard
Index
Preface 3
1. Introduction 5
2. How are ancient artifacts icons of memory? 9
2.1 Material information 9
2.2 Memory and heritage discourse 11
2.3 Destruction of memory 14
3. Colonial demolition of ancient cultural heritage from the Middle East 17
4.1 Lamassu, a protective deity 21
4.2 Rewriting of history 23
4.3 Protection of cultural heritage 25
4.4 Daesh and its motivation for the destruction of ancient 27
cultural heritage
4. (Artistic) Reconstructions of destroyed artifacts in times of war – 32
how and by whom
5.1 Rekrei founded by Matthew Vincent and Chance Coughenour 36
5.2 #NewPalmyra founded by Bassel Khartabil 39
5.3 Material Speculation: ISIS by Morehshin Allahyari 42
5.4 168:01 by Wafaa Bilal 48
5.5 Scratching on things I could disavow by Walid Raad 51
5. La Destruction Du, reflection on my artistic practice 59
6. Conclusion 66
Preface
When my grandmother passed away, I inherited a crystal glass and two silver spoons. They are standing on a tea table in front of me as I am writing this. One spoon has an image of a ship, in the other the word ‘Limburg’ is engraved. Two things that remind me of her. When I was a teenager, I visited the country of birth of my father, the island that my grandma raised her children, and since that moment colonialism became a vivid notion in my head. My father was born in Willemstad, Curaçao. He moved to The Netherlands, the country of birth of my grandparents, when he was twelve years old. I was born and raised in small villages in the east of the Netherlands, and I believe that it was only during my holidays to the Caribics, that I became somewhat aware of my whiteness. But more importantly, the colonial history of The Netherlands. A continued awareness and interest developed during high school, mostly during visual art class, when I became acquainted Edward Said’s Orientalism and discussed artworks of ‘Near’ and ‘Far’ Eastern countries in class.
When in 2014 I was offered the opportunity to live in Jerusalem, while doing an exchange program at the Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design, I did not have to think twice. I believe that my experiences in Israel, Palestine and Jordan (then and in the following years traveling back and forth) set the first base for my current research projects. I became even more interested in these places I have been to, and its neighbouring countries. Soon, I started conducting research on the imperial remains, horrific wars, the uprising of Daesh and its demolishing of ancient cultural heritage in the Middle East.
In response of the destructions by Daesh I started making drawings for the project La
Destruction Du in 2015. Based on the visual and graphic qualities of the etchings in the compilation La Description de l’Egypte, that was made by artists and scientists that accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte during his expeditions to the Middle East, I made drawings of similar landscapes and sites. I had drawn cultural heritage sites that are now destroyed by Daesh.
While I look at the silver spoon, I wonder about the miles it had travelled to Curaçao and back, and how the colonial (material) history, that is so connected. I question the shipping routes and arasp how privileged I am, to study here, behind my computer, memorizing and speculating though a simple physical inheritance as a starting point.
Introduction
When the militant group Daesh (ISIS) destroyed ancient cultural heritage, such as Palmyra and the Mosul Museum, some people claimed to be relieved that similar artifacts remained ‘safe’ in western museums. Yet how did these objects end up there? Through this research, I question the complex relations between the destruction and reconstruction of ancient Middle Eastern artifacts, colonialism and memory. I have chosen case studies from both heritage and virtual art to approach this question.
In 2015, Daesh uploaded videos on the internet, showing their shattering of sculptures in the Mosul museum, the dynamiting of the ancient city of Palmyra, demolishing an Akkadian Lamassu sculpture with a drill hammer and other destructive actions against ancient cultural heritage.
Figure 3: Lamassu, political cartoon. By Ridha H. Ridha.
http://www.ridha.info/cartoon/showimg.php?file=/C-Political%20Cartoons/Lamassu%20.jpg
The outrage following these actions was enormous, although the destruction of artifacts and its looting is as old as the artifacts themselves. Mesopotamia for instance has suffered from plundering of its cultural heritage since the rise of the first cities. However, looting in the Middle East expanded since Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt and neighboring
countries. French and British (among others) governments took objects from this area under1
shady circumstances or in an illegal way, and shipped them to Europe. In both cases, the artifacts are no longer intact and in their original place. But what kind of relationship do these actions have with each other? How can these relationships be comprehended? Can this colonial excavating, looting and destruction be related to contemporary demolishing of ancient artifacts as by Daesh? What motivates for the destruction? And when material remnants of an ancient culture disappear, is thereby a collective memory erased?
Besides violence against objects or cultural sites, many people lost their lives, their families, their beloved ones or homes. Daesh vandalism has extended to the staff working 2 on protecting Palmyra’s museum and buildings. The international audience was shocked when Khaled al-Asaad, former enthusiastic Head of Antiquities in Palmyra for forty years, was beheaded because he refused to lead Daesh fighters to Palmyra’s hidden antiquities. 3
Although the original and physical heritage was destroyed, many people (scholars, scientists and artists) stood up against these actions of destruction by creating reconstructions and replicas of the original heritage. Photogrammetry turned out to be a perfect tool, using a great quantity of crowd sourced (tourist) photographs for the recreation of artifacts in 3D-sculptures and for the use in virtual reality.
In this thesis, I chose five case studies, to investigate their relation to destruction and colonialism of ancient heritage and to the significance these sites can have today. These case studies are IT-led, archaeological or they belong to contemporary visual art. Furthermore, I reflect on my own artistic practice.
The first project using these techniques is Rekrei, now on show in the Nineveh exhibition in the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden. Rekrei collects photographs of damaged monuments, museums, and artifacts damaged by natural disasters or human intervention, and to use those data to create 3D representations (by using photogrammetry) and help to preserve our global, shared, human heritage. Does this project show that 4
heritage is more than a material object?
Secondly, I will reflect on the open source platform #NewPalmyra, founded by developer, artist and activist Bassel Khartabil. The platform is in some ways similar to the previous project Rekrei, and is as well a collection of 3D-reconstructions of lost heritage.
1 Rothfield, Lawrence. The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2009), 4.
2 Please be reminded, if at any time this thesis seems distanced, I keep in mind all victims of the
ongoing war and my respect goes to everyone who put their life in danger for the protection culture.
3Munawar, Nour. A. (2017). Reconstructing Cultural Heritage in Conflict Zones: Should Palmyra be
Rebuilt? Ex Novo - Journal of Archaeology, 2, 35.
However, #NewPalmyra focuses on the heritage that was destroyed by Daesh in Palmyra. The project aims to digitally preserve Palmyra’s heritage and its memory.
The next case study is Material Speculation: ISIS by visual artist and researcher Morehshin Allahyari. For her project Allahyari modelled twelve sculptures in 3D-software that were destroyed by Daesh, these sculptures were then 3D printed. Within each printed sculpture a memory card is hidden with store information on the research of the destruction and reconstruction of the artifacts. The project is not only a method for preserving and archiving the digitized artifacts, it is even more an activist response on the demolition, as can be read on the website of the artist: “ Material Speculation: ISIS creates a practical and political possibility for artifact archival, while also proposing 3D printing technology as a tool both for resistance and documentation. It intends to use 3D printing as a process for repairing history and memory.” 5
Furthermore, I analyse the work ‘ 168:01’ by Wafaa Bilal. After the looting and destruction of the Baghdad University library in Iraq in 2003, the artist decided to recreate this library in a gallery. However, in the beginning of the exhibition, it consisted solely out of empty white books. Later, through Kickstarter, new books were added to this library, that would eventually be sent to the Baghdad University to restore their library. This project does not reflect directly on the demolishing of artifact by Daesh, however, it does reflect both on a long history of knowledge production in the Middle East, as well as the destructions of other cultural heritage in the modern history of Iraq, thereby making a political statement by criticizing the regime of Saddam Hussein and its project of rewriting history.
The fifth project that I will investigate is the work Scratching on things I could disavow
(2007-) by Walid Raad. In this project, the artist conducted extensive research on the effects that violence and war have on art and culture in the Arab world. The project is an ongoing and extensive research project that Raad started in 2007. I will focus on a few parts of this project in which Raad is critically reflecting on the opening of The Louvre Abu Dhabi. Typical for the artist he combines in his work fact and fictional events or, as Raad would say: ‘different types of facts’.
Lastly, I reflect on my artistic project that I created simultaneously with this theoretical thesis, as part of the theoretical part of rMA graduation. This art project is an installation that consist out of seven pieces, that all reflect in different ways on destruction and reconstruction of art. The aim of creating a visual work, is both to investigate through materiality, as well applying the theoretically researched material in a visual manner.
In short, I question the complex relations between the destruction and (artistic) reconstruction of ancient Middle Eastern artifacts, colonialism and memory. I will examine these questions through different research based artworks. Among these are accurate virtual and 3D reconstructions made out of crowd sourced photographs ( Rekrei and #NewPalmyra), modelling objects that visually closely resemble the ‘original’, that stores information about the past on a memory-card ( Material Speculation: ISIS), a reconstruction of the Bagdad library that contains empty white books (168:01) and the creation of objects and narratives that are fictional or ‘different types of facts’ (Scratching on things I could disavow ). Furthermore, I will analyze the different artworks to examine what their motivations are, whether the projects are more artistic, scientific and/ or activistic biased. I question how the artists contributed to the debate and encompass multi-layered states of affairs. I will debate how art works can challenge understandings about media attention, politics, memory making and (colonial) history and also relate my artistic project to these understandings.
How are ancient cultural artifacts icons of
memory?
The destruction of cultural heritage can have many intentions, it has been done as an act of terrorism, as propaganda tool, religious iconoclasm, and conquest. and is Sometimes destruction is even conducted, or regarded as, a means of (cultural) genocide. The executor of the ruination of heritage is usually well aware of the impact this has on a community, buildings or monuments are carefully selected for destruction. In the active demolition of an enemies’ architecture the goal is often to erase a community’s collective memory, history and identity that is attached to architecture. Therefore material cultural heritage is often a target in conflicts and times of war. Doing so, by for example bombing a library that contains documents of a historical memory. Certainly not only written documents can have the value of containing a (collective) memory, in this paragraph I argue that ancient cultural artifacts, buildings, monuments and other material objects can be considered as icons of memory.
Material information
Whether a building, monument or site of heritage has an intrinsic memory, is discussed by many scholars. Academic Adrian Forty for example, rejects the idea that architecture is capable of embodying memories. Instead, he suggests that “memories formed in the mind can be transferred to solid material objects.” On the other hand, a 6 material object, be it a monument, building or other, can contain information. Forty wrote comprehensively about concrete being a modern material, as it gives away information about a timeframe in the creation of the material. In different moments in time, different 7 materials were used to construct objects. Because of this information, scientists and scholars discovered that in all probability, some of the by Daesh destroyed artifacts in the Mosul Museum in Iraq were replica’s. This discovery was afterwards rebutted by Iraq's Minister of Culture, Adel Sharshab who said: "Mosul Museum had many ancient artifacts, big and small. None of them were transported to the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. Thus, all artifacts destroyed in Mosul are original except for four pieces that were made of
6 Bevan, Robert. Destruction of memory: Architecture at War. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016): 27 7 Forty, Adrian. Concrete and culture: A Material History. (London: Reaktion Books, 2013):
gypsum". However, in the video material released by Daesh – which was questioned being8 reliable documentation material – the sculptures can be seen shattering apart as plaster instead of solid stone, observed by among others Near East researcher Christopher Jones (among others). “A later shot of the room at 3:59 shows the statue has shattered into hundreds of fragments and numerous steel rebars are sticking out. This is very different from even the reconstructed sculptures in the video, which sometimes have rebar inside to support the reconstruction but never shatter like the Hercules statue. Dr. Lamia al-Gailani Werr has confirmed that this statue is a replica. The original appears to be in the Hatra wing of the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad.” 9
Regarding the argument whether and how ancient artifacts are icons of memory, it is unimportant if memory is intrinsic to the material heritage or not. It is interesting however to notice that the moment the (false) news spread that most of the destroyed artifacts in the Mosul Museum were replica’s, relief settled on the many people that were concerned with the safety of the heritage. In the eyes of these people, the original artifact seemed to have considerable economic, cultural, historical and authentic value. But more important, it seems that by this statement, it is ignored that the value of a cultural heritage and identity of the people living near these sites of destruction, has been erased. Whether replica’s or not, the original memories of (local) people, transferred to these material objects, are possibly replaced by violent imagery of destructions.
If one acknowledges a site of heritage not to have intrinsic memory, likewise, architecture is not intrinsically political. However, political motivations can be projected on certain buildings, monuments and artistic styles, both by whom they are built and designed, by whom they are observed and by whom they are destroyed. Also certain monuments,10
artistic styles or architectural structures from certain historical eras, can be re-appropriated by later regimes. For example Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini gave order in 1924 to build the Via dell’Impero. This long boulevard in the centre of Rome crosses many archaeological finds in and around the Forum Romanum. During the construction of the road, ancient ruins were destroyed and buried, brutally eradicated for Mussolini’s
8 Sputnik editors. “ISIL Destroyed Original Artifacts, Not Copies — Iraqi Culture Minister.” Last
modified March 12, 2015. Accessed May 4, 2018,
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201503121019414970/
9 Jones, Christopher. “Assessing the Damage at the Mosul Museum, Part 2: The Sculptures from
Hatra.” Last modified March 3, 2015. Accessed April 30, 3018.
https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/assessing-the-damage-at-the-mosul-museum-part-2-the-sculptures-from-hatra/
neo-classical architectural project. Although the political motivations of the construction and11 deconstruction are obvious in this case, the very material the Via dell’Impero and the adjacent monument Altare della Patria are not inherently political.
The same applies to the architectural construction of the Mesopotamian city of Nineveh and the sculptures in the Mosul Museum. The motivations of Daesh to destroy these sites by Daesh, however, are extremely political. Although Daesh portrays its destructive acts as iconoclasm, a view that is broadly absorbed by media all over the world, its demolition and looting of cultural heritage is more than that. By destroying all physical evidence of a society of the past, Daesh denies a history that contrasts their beliefs, argues
research associate Elly Harrowell (focussed on post-conflict and post-disaster
reconstruction). “The razing of Palmyra was a direct attack on the memories that had crystallised there – those that recalled a diverse and multicultural place at odds with the extremist and monocultural vision advanced by IS”. And “to destroy such a place, then, is to do more than simply tear down walls and columns, but to take aim at the memories – and by extension identities – that they represent and reproduce.” 12
Memory and heritage discourse
Heritage, history, memory, politics and identity are intertwined concepts, having complex relationships with each other. The concept of memory is described by Laurajane13 Smith in the following way: “Memory is an active cultural process of remembering and of forgetting that is fundamental to our ability to conceive the world (Misztal 2003: 1)”. The 14
main distinction that can be made between the concepts history and memory, is discussed by Smith as: “Memory, unlike history, has an intimate relation to the present through the personal and collective actions of remembering. History, on the other hand, chronologically separates past ‘periods’ as units of expert scrutiny and analysis.” 15 Therefore memory is traditionally seen as subjective versus history being defined as a universal and objective narrative. Unlike history, memory belongs to one person or to one group, through personal
11 Orpheus Kijkt Om. “Keizers van Rome, Leiders van het Fascisme.” Accessed June 29, 2018.
https://orpheuskijktom.com/2013/03/09/keizers-van-rome-leiders-van-het-fascisme/
12 Harrowell, Elly. Looking for the future in the rubble of Palmyra: Destruction, reconstruction and
identity. Geoforum, 69 (2016): 81.
13 Moore, Niamh, and Yvonne Whelan. Heritage, Memory and the Politics of Identity: New
Perspectives on the Cultural Landscape. (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012):
14 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 58. 15 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 58.
and collective acts of remembering. These forms of memory are defined as individual memory and collective memory. The collective memory of a social or cultural group is a shared experience, passed on by generations and is constantly shaped and reshaped in the present by commemorative events and the language they employ to frame and define those memories. In the words of Smith: “Collective memory is understood as a way to socialize16 members of a group into privileging and agreeing upon a particular view and understanding of the past.” 17
Because collective memory is connected to both past and present, through commemorative acts of a group, memory is closely connected to identity. For example, Maurice Halbwachs argues that every group constructs an identity for itself through shared memories.18 Subsequently memory and identity are connected to heritage, not only oral heritage, such as stories and fables that belong to a specific group, but also to physical heritage like places or sites of remembrance.
A basis of the relation between memory and material architecture (heritage) is set out by the French historian Pierre Nora, known for his publicationLieux de Memoire (Realms of Memory, 1989). In this book Nora states that realms or sites of memory, whether these are places, rituals, symbols or texts, have become increasingly important over real or living memories. Living or real memories can here be seen as oral memories, such as stories19 that were told within communities or families, being part of their everyday life. Nora argues that these have vanished in modern, industrialized mass culture, where memories became institutionalized.
The emphasis given to ‘objects’, ‘sites’, or ‘things’ in relation to the heritage discourse is discussed by various scholars, including Laurajane Smith. In her work The Uses Of
Heritage (2006), she theorizes on heritage as a cultural process of meaning and memory making.20 In her view, it is not the traditional Western account of cultural heritage of attributing an inherent cultural value, that emphasizes on the material value of an object. However, it is the present-day cultural processes and activities that are undertaken around the material heritage, that identify material things as physically symbolic of particular cultural and social events, and thus give them value and meaningful. However, in her publications21 Smith uses the term ‘authorized heritage discourse’ (AHD) to define a Western heritage discourse that first of all allocates material heritage over living memories. Furthermore, AHD
16 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 64. 17 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 64. 18 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 59. 19 Bevan, Robert. Destruction of memory: Architecture at War. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016): 28 20 http://archanth.cass.anu.edu.au/people/professor-laurajane-smith#acton-tabs-link--tabs-0-row_2-2 21 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006):
privileges cultural symbols of the privileged classes since the beginning of the discourse in the nineteenth century.22 Authorized heritage discourse “privileges expert values and knowledge about the past and its material manifestations, and dominates and regulates professional heritage practices,” according to Smith. In short, heritage is involved in the 23 production of identity, power and authority.” 24
Consequently, heritage becomes largely political when authority and power structures come into play. The authorized heritage discourse, argued by Smith, favors cultural heritage of privileged classes. This results in the elite and its institutions deciding which heritage for example becomes visible in museums. The discourse of heritage emerged at the same time as the frameworks of nationalism and historicism, which resulted in commemorative rituals and the creation of monuments working around the legitimization of the modern nation state. Thus, the nation state became widely seen as the container of25 collective memory.26 This had a great impact on archaeology in the Middle East. By the invasion of large parts of the Middle East by colonizing countries in the nineteenth century, heritage became part of the larger project of nationalism. In archeology (and subsequently the heritage discourse) in this area, cultural heritage from ancient pre-Islamic cultures was, and still is, favored above other material remains of the past. By claiming this heritage from ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Akkadians the colonizers made the material remains of the history of these cultures part of their own historical memory. Findings during excavations became increasingly important and were not only seen as artistic objects of wonder, but also as historical objects of science belonging in an taxonomic system. Therefore, an increasingly amount of ancient objects were shipped from the Middle East to the West (Europe, US), in order to build archives used for means of research. Also, objects ended up in museums, and eventually emerged in the historical memory of the Western countries. During the last decades this raised discussions between Western institutions where the material cultural heritage is held and, in this case, Middle Eastern countries where the heritage originally came from. The deep-rooted disagreements on ownership of (material remains of) the past show the importance of the relation between historical memory and ancient artifacts.
22 De Cesari, Chiara and Michael Herzfeld. Urban Heritage and Social Movements. In Global
Heritage: An Anthropological Reader, ed. Lynn Meskell, 171-195. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2015): 178
23 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 3. 24 Smith, Laurajane. The Uses Of Heritage. (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2006): 17.
25 De Cesari, Chiara, and Ann Rigney. "Introduction." Transnational Memory: Circulation, Articulation,
Scales. Ed. Chiara De Cesari and Ann Rigney, 3-25. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014): 1.
26 De Cesari, Chiara, and Ann Rigney. "Introduction." Transnational Memory: Circulation, Articulation,
Memorial sites have increasingly become institutionalized, as discussed by Nora in
Lieux de Memoire.27 Monuments, plaques, museums, and buildings are set up by
governments, municipalities and other institutions in order to become (controlled) sites of memory. Due to the growing interest in ancient Middle Eastern cultural heritage since the end of the nineteenth century, many artifacts from that area were accumulated in museums, scientific and educational institutions in Western countries. As well by monuments and performances, such as national remembrance days, often symbols of the past are used, to remember and commemorate former, considered important, events in the present. Due to the excavation, appropriation and exhibiting of Middle Eastern artifacts in European museums as a form of nation building, the ancient cultural heritage of the Middle East slowly became implemented in the collective memory of the Western society. For example, Mesopotamian culture is seen by many as the cradle of (Western) civilization. Resulting from this point of view ancient Middle Eastern culture is regarded as a part of Western society and therefore used as a means to legitimize the extensive collecting of ancient Middle/ Near Eastern objects, that often found their way to European and American museums under dubious circumstances.
Destruction of memory
Many (archaeological) museums in (former) colonizing countries are filled up with cultural artifacts originating from the countries that were, or still are, colonized. Agreeing that physical remains of the past have a role in the memory process and identity making of a culture, I reflect in this paragraph on the history of the destruction of antiquities by former colonizing countries. A simple Google image search for ‘iconoclasm’ firstly leads to pictures of damaged sculptures in a Cathedral in Utrecht, prints of the destruction of religious art in Antwerp, a painting of the burning of sculptures in Zurich, and imagery of Byzantine Iconoclasm. About twentyfive hits later it is followed by the dynamiting of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan and hammering down of sculptures in the Mosul Museum. By reflecting I do not only refer to the 16th century Protestant ‘beeldenstorm’, I also argue that the excavation of ancient artifacts in formerly colonized countries and its shipping to institutions and museums in Western countries, can as well be regarded as destruction of cultural heritage. These artifacts are unearthed and subsequently isolated from their original surroundings.
In a video that Daesh uploaded on YouTube in February 2015, featuring the destruction of the Mosul Museum, monuments of the past were violently blown down by bulldozers, dynamite and sledge hammers. Militants were erasing traces of civilizations that did not align with their ideology, essentially erasing the memory and future of local Syrians and Iraqis. It has been discussed that this attempted destruction of memory was principally initiated to erase a history, in order to avoid passing its knowledge. “Physical destruction of culturally significant artifacts grants perpetrators the power to reject them as unimportant and to limit how well they can be known to future generations.” 28
The destruction affected the collective memory of groups in Western countries too. This is demonstrated by the statement of UNESCO, stating that cultural heritage belongs to all mankind. UNESCO was mainly established by countries that were colonizers, and some see this organisation as an institution that continues Western colonialism. The notion of world heritage as a Western concept is further argued by art historian Dario Gamboni: “In this sense, the concept of world heritage suffers from the fact that it amplifies an idea originating in the West and tends to require an attitude toward material culture that is also distinctly Western in origin, as critics of the "religion" or "cult" of heritage point out.” 29
Figure 5: Eid holds a 2014 photo of the Temple of Bel against what remains. Credit: Joseph Eid/Getty.
Via http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20160408-should-palmyra-be-restored
28 Van Bokkem, Rachel. “History in Ruins: Cultural Heritage Destruction around the World.” Last
modified April 2017. Accessed May 4, 2018.
https://theantiquitiescoalition.org/ac-news/history-in-ruins-cultural-heritage-destruction-around-the-wor ld/
29 Gamboni, D. 2001. World Heritage: Shield or target? The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter
Some scholars even compared the destruction of cultural heritage to genocide or see it as a first warning of events that can eventually lead towards the genocide of cultural or religious groups of people.30 This definition of ‘cultural cleansing’ was later coined by Director-General Irina Bokova of UNESCO. The organization stated that: “to deny the identities of Others, to erase their existence, to eliminate cultural diversity and to persecute minorities.”31 In this position, the destruction of a people and the destruction of cultural heritage, are placed on the same level, in which both human and cultural extinction are being considered as genocide. De Cesari argues: “What is deeply problematic, is the taken-for-granted equation between attacks against people and attacks against things”. This comparison caused outrage amongst several Syrians and Iraqis, who assumed that the scholars and institutions using the term ‘cultural genocide’ cared more for Middle Eastern culture than for its people. Art historian Horst Bredekamp wrote about this ‘equal treatment’ 32
between people and monuments in conflict areas, focussing on Palmyra. He claims that again and again, in recent reports of iconoclasm, is it is worrying that there exist no difference between the attacks on people and works of art. In this process of treating works of art like people and people like works of art, lies the substitutive feature of an increased iconoclasm.33
In short, buildings, monuments and other material remains of the past are understood as a container for memories and consequently, shape the identity of a people. Therefore, the deliberate destruction of such a historical structure often is a politically motivated.
Figure 6: Daesh decapitates “humanity” and the “heritage of humanity.” By Jehad Awartani. Via
http://www.newsweek.com/ignored-and-unreported-muslim-cartoonists-are-poking-fun-isis-332040
30 Bevan, Robert. Destruction of memory: Architecture at War. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016): 31 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
Today 31 no.6 (2015): 23
32 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
Today 31 no.6 (2015):
33 Bredekamp, Horst. “Vom Untergang Palmyras Zur Kämpferischen Reproduktion” (Köln:
Colonial
demolition
of
ancient
cultural
heritage from the Middle East
By relating the Daesh’ demolishing of the Mosul museum, Palmyra, Hatra and many more sites of ancient cultural heritage, to colonial acts of destruction in the Middle East, my aim is not to find an apology for the acts of destruction by Daesh, nor to justify them. I do not try to fully understand these extremely violent acts: how would it ever be possible for me to understand, being a young Dutch woman who was never exposed to the kind of structural violence as carried out in these regions. On the contrary, my aim is to put these acts in different framework than the one commonly presented by the media in Europe and the US, positioning the acts of destruction of cultural heritage by Daesh mainly as religious iconoclasm. Many of the destructions are posted by Daesh on social media. This means that the effect is that footage and new imagery is created. De Cesari states this as follows: “These acts were committed in order for their images to be virally circulated, as shown by the various IS men caught photographing and filming their fellow militants at work with sledgehammer in the famous video of the destruction of statues at the Mosul Museum.” 34
This depicting of destructions and many other horrific events as a spectacle and the creation of imagery for propaganda means seems more applicable to Daesh motivations of deconstruction of cultural heritage than the common view of religious iconoclasm suggests. In this paragraph I examine whether and how these current deconstructions by Daesh can be related to the displacement of ancient artifacts from the Middle East during its colonial occupation.
A striking occurrence in relation to colonial and recent destructions in the Middle East is that the six countries that are most negatively affected by the Arab Spring, namely Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, are all countries that were created by Western imperial powers in the early 20th century. “In each, little thought was given to national coherence, and even less to tribal or sectarian divisions. Certainly, these same internal divisions exist in many of the region’s other republics, as well as in its monarchies, but it would seem undeniable that those two factors operating in concert — the lack of an intrinsic sense of national identity joined to a form of government that supplanted the traditional
34 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
organizing principle of society — left Iraq, Syria and Libya especially vulnerable when the storms of change descended.” 35
Western interest in archaeological finds in the Middle (Near) East has a long history. Common sense is that archaeology as an academic discipline has its roots in the context of European Enlightenment. Susan Pollock and Reinhard Bernbeck write in ‘ Archeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives’, that it has been discussed that archaeology, now practiced all over the world, not only in Western countries and is the result of colonialism and imperialism. “Westerners made the study of the material remains of the past a tool in their own political ambitions and at the same time demonstrated its utility to their subject in their own quests for independence and national identities.” There are several motivations for the36
interest in and the study of remains of the past in the Middle East. They can be narrowed down to a religious interest in the lands of the Bible, colonial sovereignty and nationalism, to maintain control over knowledge production in colonies and appropriation of resources.
A number of Middle Eastern countries, like Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine are the lands of the Bible. Crusaders had invaded this area to, among other things, find material remains of the biblical past. The impact of colonialism on archaeology is evident in the late nineteenth and twentieth century competition between European countries to fill their emerging and expanding museums with unusual and ‘exotic’ treasures from the area that eventually became known as the ‘Cradle of (Western) Civilization’. Labeling the ancient past of the Middle East as the origin of Western civilization is advantageous to the Western legitimation for excavating and researching the ancient past and the occupation of this area. The treasure hunts originated in religious and biblical interest in the past, but also became a tool for nation-making and knowledge production.
In order to systemize these archaeological findings in museums, that often had pedagogical missions, it was important for the colonizers to ship as many artifacts to Europe as possible. As in the early nineteenth century, objects from the past were evermore treated as objects of study, instead of being considered as marvelous objects or works of art. The emergence of new methods of treating material culture largely lacked considerations of taste, instead, the mission was to obtain data and information. Questions about the object’s usage, its material composition and patterns of decorations arose. An artifact was no longer
35 Anderson, Scott. “Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart.” Last modified August 28,
2016. Accessed June 10, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/magazine/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-land s.html
36 Pollock, Susan and Reinhard Bernbeck. Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives.
considered as a unique piece of art, but as an object that belonged in a taxonomic grid. 37
The shift of view changed from eighteenth-century antiquarianism to become the modern science of archaeology. This shift is discussed by Elliott Colla, scholar of the Middle East. “The artifact was becoming not just a crucial object for producing solid knowledge about the ancient past, but also an instrument of colonial intervention sixty years before the start of direct British rule in Egypt.” 38 39
The interest in archaeology in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, expanded largely around the time the French army invaded the geographical area in 1798-1801, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was the first time Western troops invaded the Middle East since the40 Crusaders. Except for nationalistic reasons influenced by the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte is also known for his ‘educational travels’ to the Middle East. 41 During his campaigns to the ‘Near East’, Napoleon brought a military army supported by an army of 151 scientists, scholars and artists. The task of the latter was to systematically order and catalog everything, from flora to fauna and historical artifacts and monuments. The findings 42
were bundled in prints of etchings in the book La Description d’Egypte (1809–28).
Meanwhile, during the campaign, many found objects during excavations were shipped to Europe. Scientists and scholars privileged certain topics in material heritage of the Middle East, mainly ancient, pre-Islamic remains, and therefore, both biblical history, as well as cultural heritage of Mesopotamian civilizations (Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian) and ancient Egyptians were excavated and carried off.
As stated before, apart from biblical concerns and advancement of knowledge production, interest in cultural heritage largely derived from nationalist perspectives. Since the nineteenth century cultural heritage was taken or stolen from countries by colonizers to create collections in European museums. Other cultural heritage was selectively destroyed. Elliott Colla discusses Western interest in Middle Eastern (mainly Egyptian) artifacts. “[...] travelers, politicians, and archaeologists of the period, who recognized that to know ancient Egypt, one needed to gain control of as many artifacts as possible. To reach this end, they might need to control modern Egypt” (Colla 2007). Thus an artifact or material object from
37 Colla, E. Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity. (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2007): 8
38 Colla, E. Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity. (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2007):10
39 (1882-1956)
40 Cole, Juan. Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007): 41 Pollock, Susan and Reinhard Bernbeck. Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives.
(Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2009):
42 Pollock, Susan and Reinhard Bernbeck. Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives.
Egypt (and other colonized countries) became not only an object for producing knowledge about the ancient past, it also became an instrument for colonial intervention. According to De Cesari, mainly ancient Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Palestinian and Greek antiquities, were regarded as ‘cradles of [Western civilization,’ and helped to legitimize the colonial projects, by those who claim(ed) to be the real heirs and saviours of these ancient civilizations. “Heritage, then, is a key locus for realizing the nation. In making and destroying heritage, people materialize ethnonational identity, sovereignty, and power claims (Baillie 2013) in ways that belie instrumental claims about supposedly neutral heritage (Hamilakis 2007). [...] Sometimes, the colonizers claimed to have saved a heritage that would otherwise have gone lost thanks to the negligence of uncaring natives.” A claim used again in the discussion 43 about the safety of cultural heritage in danger by, for example, the terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Many of the displaced antiquities remain in European and American institutions, despite many requests for repatriation from various former colonized countries. One of the most discussed objects in the context of repatriation and (illegal) excavation is the bust of queen Nefertiti. It was excavated in 1912 in Tel-el-Amarna, Egypt, under authorization of Ludwig Borchardt, founder of the German Archaeological Institute of Egypt. Nowadays the bust is exhibited in the Neues Museum in Berlin. The question whether the Nefertiti bust arrived in Germany in a legal way, has been going on almost since the moment of transportation to Europe and the first repatriation request was filed by Egypt in 1925. 44
According to, among others, Zahi Hawass of The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SAC), Egypt was not aware that it allowed the export of the Nefertiti bust. Possibly after the dig in 1912, the Egyptian chief antique inspector Gustave Lefebvre was misled while going through the various antiquities found during the excavation. On the other hand, the German45
Oriental Society claims that the Nefertiti bust was clearly written down on the exchange list. 46
There is a suspicion of bribery related to the Nefertiti bust, but no proof could be determined.
43 De Cesari, Chiara and Michael Herzfeld. Urban Heritage and Social Movements. In Global
Heritage: An Anthropological Reader, edited by Lynn Meskell, 171-195. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015): 176.
44 Egan, Valerie R. “Post-Colonial Politics and Cultural Heritage. Egyptian Repatriation Requests and
European Museums” (2010): 31.
45 Lieke van der Made. Nefertiti and the Other: (postcolonial) internet activism and ownership of
ancient artifacts
46 Spiegel news. “Did Germany Cheat to Get Bust of Nefertiti?” Last modified February 10, 2009.
Accessed May 2, 2017.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/archaeological-controversy-did-germany-cheat-to-get-bust-of -nefertiti-a-606525.html
Looted or not, this example questions both ownership of the past and power structures
47
within the heritage discourse.
Lamassu, a
protective deity
One of the iconic objects that was destroyed by Daesh in Mosul was an ancient Assyrian Lamassu sculpture. In 1845, a similar sculpture was unearthed by the British archaeologist, art historian and politician Henry Austen Layard, whom then started excavating the ancient city of Nimrud, close to Mosul. Soon after he discovered the ancient palace Nineveh. The city gate was flanked with what Layard described in his 1853 book
Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon as: "a pair of majestic, human-headed bulls, fourteen feet in length and still entire, through cracked and injured by fire". 48 This Lamassu, a human headed winged bull, is a protective deity in Assyrian mythology. Lumasi statues originally stood in pairs in at entrances of palaces and city gates, to protect the place against evil intruders. This specific Lamassu, excavated and exported by Layard, is exhibited in the British Museum in London. Other original Lumasi can be found in Western institutions like The Oriental Institute in Chicago, The Louvre Museum in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Other lumasi were exported to museums the Middle East like the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. Only a few Lumasi were left in situ amongst them the Lamassu sculpture that was demolished with a drill hammer by Daesh troops, shown in the video released in 2015.
Moving or removing reminders of the past has fundamental consequences for the identity of a culture or nation, removing the Assyrian statues of winged beasts from Nimrod's palace seemed to A. H. Layard himself almost an act of sacrilege: “They were better suited to the desolation around them for they had guarded the palace in its glory, and it was for them to watch over it in its ruin.” 49
Early archaeological practices and excavations in the Middle East were led by military officers, diplomats, missionaries, mining engineers and businessmen from the West. For example in Iraq the political officer, administrator, writer and archaeologist Gertrude
50
47 Chamberlain, Russell. Loot! The Heritage of Plunder. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1983): 64 48 Adamson, Daniel Silas. “The men who uncovered Assyria” BBC News Magazine. Last modified
March 22, 2015. Accessed May 14, 2018. <http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31941827>
49 Lowenthal, David. The past is a foreign country. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995):
288
50 Pollock, Susan and Reinhard Bernbeck. Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives.
Bell who played a major role in the formation of Iraq and its modern day borders “ran the country’s first department of antiquities, promulgated the first heritage law, and set up the Iraqi National Museum.”51 This interference of politics with archaeology reveals power structures, both on the excavation sites as in the later process of researching and exhibiting the artifacts. Since the 19th century, Middle Eastern archaeology has been dominated by Euro-American archaeologists, creating an hierarchical division of labour between the Euro-American archaeologist and, for example, the workers in excavation sites who often came from local villages. To this day this hierarchical system is deeply rooted in the practice of local archaeology. For a long time Euro-American archaeology has been focussed on52 antiquities of the pre-Islamic period (claiming that Mesopotamian cultural heritage belongs to the West, which is the “Cradle of (Western) Civilization). Departments of archaeology that were set up in Middle Eastern countries during the colonial period, remained generally unchanged after the independence of nation states in the area.
Figure 7: Lamassu excavated by Layard. Credit: Alamy.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31941827 53
51 De Cesari p.25
52 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
Today 31 no.6 (2015): 25
53 Adamson, Daniel Silas. “The men who uncovered Assyria” BBC News Magazine. Last modified
Rewriting of history
Not only Western archaeologist were interested in the ancient past of the Middle East and appropriated its cultural artifacts in the service of nation and state building. For centuries ancient Middle Eastern heritages were described as objects and sites of marvel and wonder by Arab writers and poets. However, during the colonial period it was turned into sites of a specific politics. The practice that has its roots in colonial archaeology practices in order to make ancient, pre-Islamic heritage part of the Western past, continued in Middle Eastern oppressive nationalisms. Especially in Iraq, the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris that represents the geographical past of the ancient Mesopotamians, the use of cultural heritage became a political tool for nation building. After the independence of Iraq from colonial Britain, a systematic control of Mesopotamian heritage and historical memory became increasingly important to both overcome ethnic cleavages within the Iraqi society as to overcome threat of political rivals. After Iraq’s 1958 revolution an anti-colonial military coup was led by brigadier Qasim and colonel el-Salem and the political leaders of the state started an organized systematic restructure of historical memory in Iraq. The main goal was to overcome deeply rooted ethnic, religious and political cleavages between Islamic branches of Sunni and Shia, Kurds, Christians, Jews and other minorities, and Quasim encouraged Iraqi intellectuals to promote the revolution. Through censored film, theatre, television, folklore and the arts, a political message was spread. For example by broadcasting trials of state enemies, spectacle was used to mobilize the populace. 54
Eventually all the cultural production could not be controlled by the regime.
The model of control of historical memory was later implemented by the Baathist regime in 1968. 55 Especially from the 1970’s, under repressive political power of Saddam Hussein, the very intensive and systematical ‘Project of Rewriting History’ started. Political scientist Eric Davis wrote extensively about the Iraqi political history and stated that: "More than simple indoctrination, the project represented an attempt to create a new public sphere, including the reconstitution of political identity, the relationship of the citizen to the state, and public understandings of national heritage." 56 Ancient Mesopotamia was the only heritage that all Iraqis could relate to and furthermore, it would put Iraqi’s above other Arabs by making them more civilized than people from neighbouring countries. The Baath regime
54 Davis, Eric. Memories of state: politics, history and collective identity in modern Iraq. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005):
55 A nationalist, Pan-Arabic party, dat does not recognize the ‘artificial’ borders of Iraq, but a larger
Arab state.
56 Davis, Eric. Memories of state: politics, history and collective identity in modern Iraq. (Berkeley:
intended to appropriate folk culture to be the representative of mass interest, mainly to overcome infighting of the political elite, to eliminate threat of rivals (Iraqist nationalists and communists) and to promote a foreign policy. 57 The Baath regime had various forms of appropriation of historical memory. It increased state-controlled journals and magazines, also in English for international attention. Also, it organized international festivals and conferences in Iraq, having a Mesopotamian theme. Part of this was the reconstruction of Babylons old city, during which Saddam’s initials were carved on every brick. Furthermore, emphasis was given on archaeology and excavations; also in journals. For example the previously well regarded journal Sumer was now censored by the state, that pretended that before the Baathist regime archaeology did not even exist.58 The state also propagated through arts and crafts.
Besides appropriating historical memory for nation making, the Baath regime was extremely violent. It executed its political opponents, and used violence against its people by imprisoning and killing political enemies and ethnic groups. The regime executed gas attacks on the Kurdish population and destroyed many thousands of Kurdish villages and towns to suppress Kurdish nationalism.59 Much of this brutality was dressed up in Mesopotamian gear. Apart from appropriating Mesopotamian culture in his project of rewriting history and60 nation building, Hussein practiced destruction of heritage and architecture to erase certain groups. For example by demolishing unique reed-built villages of the Marsh Arabs, a 5000-year-old culture of a Shi’ite community. 61 “Again, the British were here first; one of history’s first aerial bombardments against civilians was conducted against Iraqi villagers resisting British colonial rule in 1924,” states Bevan in his book The Destruction of Memory , implying the reference to colonial rule in this area.
Similar politics characterized the Baath regime in Syria since 1947. More recently, in 1982, the former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad ordered the demolishing of the ancient city and inhabitants of Hama. “Attacks such as these have a duality of purpose. The more abstract rationales of retribution an inculcating fear are often coupled with concrete goals of eradication. Here terror merges with ethnic cleansing and genocide”. 62
57 Davis, Eric. Memories of state: politics, history and collective identity in modern Iraq. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005):
58Davis, Eric. Memories of state: politics, history and collective identity in modern Iraq. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005):
59 Bevan, Robert. Destruction of memory: Architecture at War. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016):97 60Davis, Eric. Memories of state: politics, history and collective identity in modern Iraq. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005):
61 Bevan, Robert. Destruction of memory: Architecture at War. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016): 97 62 Bevan, Robert. Destruction of memory: Architecture at War. (London: Reaktion Books, 2016): 98
Despite these horrific destructive acts on certain cultures, ethnic groups and the opposition, Syria and Iraq kept their ancient cultural heritage to a great extent in safety and the countries had a good archaeology record. Yet when in 2003 Iraq was invaded by the 63 United States (UK, Australia, Poland) and the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, massive lootings followed, amongst which the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. As a result, cultural objects were sold across the world, even on ebay. Some artifacts from this collection were intercepted and sent back to Iraq from the US. 64
Protection of cultural heritage
Cultural heritage that is in danger is safeguarded by various institutes and individuals. After the uprising of Daesh this proved to not to be without danger. The head of65 antiquities of the ancient city Palmyra, was murdered when he refused to lead Daesh fighters to hidden artifacts. Also activist and founder of #NewPalmyra that creates 3D-reconstructions of the destroyed ancient city, Bassel Khartabil, was secretly executed in prison by the Syrian authorities in 2015. Despite the risks, many local and global institutes 66
are protecting cultural heritage in danger. In Daesh occupied territory this was for example done by transporting objects to neighbouring museums.
One of the main international institutions that is safeguarding the preservation and security of (ancient) cultural heritage is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The organization writes on their website that it: “seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.” 67
63 Rothfield, Lawrence. The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2009): 58.
64 Cochrane, Emily. “Iraqi Artifacts Once Bought by Hobby Lobby Will Return Home” Last modified
May 2, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/politics/iraq-artifacts-hobby-lobby-ice.html
65For example Heritage for Peace, SAFE saving antiquities, Syrian Archaeological Heritage Under
Threat, American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), ICOM. And many other local communities/ networks/ volunteers.
66 McKernan, Bethan. “Bassel Khartabil Safadi dead: One of Syria’s most famous activists has been
executed in prison, widow confirms.” The Independent. Last modified August 2, 2017.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/bassel-khartabil-safadi-executed-syria-activist -dead-prison-widow-confirms-democracy-adra-damascus-a7872771.html
67 UNESCO. “World Heritage” accessed June 20, 2018
In the context of the Iraq war (2003-2010), Iraq had asked UNESCO to put over a hundred heritage sites on the World Heritage List. This did not happen in time as UNESCO68 has a very strict procedure. At this moment, June 2018, there are 54 heritage sites included on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger. Among which areas (that were previously) occupied by Daesh, mainly in Iraq (Ashur (Qal'at Sherqat) (2003), Hatra (2015), Samarra Archaeological City (2007)) and Syria (Ancient City of Aleppo (2013), Ancient City of Bosra (2013), Ancient City of Damascus (2013), Ancient Villages of Northern Syria (2013), Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din (2013),Site of Palmyra (2013)). Naturally, UNESCO was worried when Daesh started the destruction of many mosques, shrines and churches all over Syria and Iraq. When Daesh seized control over ancient cities, for example Nineveh, Hatra, Mosul and Palmyra, these sites proved not be resistant to the devastating practices of the militant group. “In 2015, Daesh had destroyed over 150 cultural heritage sites, according to the Antiquities Coalition, an US-based organization that fights against the illicit global trade in antiquities.” 69
Contrasting to the aim of protection of material cultural heritage, it is argued that the association with UNESCO and the ‘World Heritage List’ makes a site more valuable, and therefore also more vulnerable and a target for attacks. 70 “Within Western societies today, attacks against works of art often spring from situations or feelings of exclusion and from the absence of access to legitimate means of expression. On the world level, the real success of the idea of world heritage will depend upon the degree to which the universalism born of European Enlightenment comes to be perceived as truly universal, rather than appearing as a new form of colonialism or the cultural face of economic globalization.” 71
In the The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 (Second Protocol 1999), which was mainly signed by European countries, was stated that: “damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind.” Stating that the destruction of a 72 cultural heritage affects people from all over the world. Indeed, many people from places all
68 Brodie, Neil., Morag M. Kersel, and Christina Luke. Archaeology, Cultural Heritage and the
Antiquities Trade. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008): 28
69 Van Bokkem, Rachel. “History in Ruins: Cultural Heritage Destruction around the World.” Last
modified April 2017. Accessed May 4, 2018.
https://theantiquitiescoalition.org/ac-news/history-in-ruins-cultural-heritage-destruction-around-the-wor ld/
70 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
Today 31 no.6 (2015): 23
71 Gamboni, Dario. 2001. World Heritage: Shield or target? The Getty Conservation Institute
Newsletter 16: 5-11.
72 Brodie, Neil., Morag M. Kersel, and Christina Luke. Archaeology, Cultural Heritage and the
over the world were concerned by (past and relatively recent) destructions of cultural heritage, amongst which the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, the Ancient city of Palmyra, the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad and the Mosul Museum. At the conference on the Second Protocol in 1999, in the wake of the recent destructions of heritage in former Yugoslavia, director-general of UNESCO, Federico Mayor noted that the assaults were "part of the attack on the people themselves" and left an enduring trauma "because of the much greater difficulty of people's rehabilitation when everything dear and known to them has been swept away." Thus, who is 73 really affected? It not foremost the culture (and memory and identity) the heritage belongs to?
Daesh and its motivations for the destruction of ancient
cultural heritage
Daesh seems well aware of the Baathist political project of appropriating Mesopotamian history and also of the Western interest in pre-Islamic heritage of the Middle East. In this chapter, I discuss if and to what extent the violent acts of destruction by Daesh are a continuation or response on these historic Baathist and colonial events. This question is posed instead or besides the common view in Western media, stating that the destructions of cultural heritage by Daesh are religious iconoclastic acts of destruction.
Figure 8: Lamassu in Mosul, screenshot from YouTube footage by Daesh. Source: Mediafire
73 Gamboni, Dario. 2001. World Heritage: Shield or target? The Getty Conservation Institute
The term iconoclasm is a term used by Daesh itself, referring to the destruction of (ancient) cultural heritage. The militant group claims to have a religious iconoclastic reason for these violent acts of erasing icons and antiquities. However, the real reason for destruction seems to be a political, anti-colonial (anti-western) motivation, that calls for media attention by destroying past and future of people. Furthermore, the looting of museums can have a financial reason.
Daesh’ actions seem to resonate the power of the spectacle, that was abundantly used by the Baath regime. Chiara De Cesari for example juxtaposed the images produced by Daesh of the destruction of ancient cultural heritage to the imagery produced by Saddam Hussein’s obsession with ancient Mesopotamian artifacts, that had the goal to emphasize his power and legitimize or camouflage his politics of brutality and genocide. In the Baath 74 regime, spectacle was used in the form of military parades through ancient Babylon. The ancient city was ordered to be rebuild by Hussein, and during this process the leader’s initials were engraved on every single stone of the ancient city. All of this was part of Hussein claiming ancestry of Mesopotamian kings and it therefore plays a main role in the Baathist regime of rewriting the history of Iraq. Daesh in contrast, uses the power of the spectacle not to mask horrific acts of beheadings and public murders and torture, but to emphasize it, although it is also part of Daesh’ enormous media machine. The propaganda is broadcasted on social media and published in the terrorist group’s magazine Dabiq, not only to create fear amongst the inhabitants of Syria and Iraq (Levant), but also to recruit new sympathizers.
Therefore, I pose the question whether the destructions of ancient heritage by Daesh are merely an act of religious iconoclasm as portrayed in Western media. The destruction of cultural heritage in the Mosul Museum was carefully edited and eventually uploaded on YouTube by Daesh on February 26, 2015. The now iconic video was immediately and widely shared on social media by many people and broadcasted on news channels from all over the world. The video was watched by thousands, if not millions of people, before it was deleted from YouTube by Daesh the next day. Through the immense circulation of the video the footage can still be found online. The violent act of destruction was often referred to in the media as an act of barbaric, religious, anti-western iconoclasm. This is interestingly 75 discussed and criticized by Ömür Harmanşah, stating that Daesh produces imagery by
74 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
Today 31 no.6 (2015): 24
75 Harmanşah, Ömür. 2015. ISIS, heritage, and the spectacles of destruction in the global media. Near
creating the video and therefore doing the exact opposite of erasing figuration. The militant group does the same in its magazine Dabiq. Therefore Harmanşah questions: “How is it that we are convinced of ISIS militants’ hatred of idols and representations, while we consume the very powerful images that constantly flow through the global media, and those videos that have since ironically become some the most iconic representations of contemporary violence against humanity?”76 It seems that the (western) media “falls” for the statements that are made by Daesh in the video, where one of the Arabic-speaking militants states the following: “Daesh destroyed the Assyrian and Akkadian cultural heritage, because they are idols that were worshipped by people of the past instead of Allah.” The militant continues 77
that prophet Mohammed once took down these kind of idols with his bare hands. Therefore Daesh claims to be ordered to by their prophet to take down idols and destroy them. The statement was quickly translated and taken over by Western media, emphasizing the barbaric, “medieval” act of iconoclasm. The video’s were broadcasted in various news channels all over the world, and often used as evidence material and being an iconoclastic move, instead of staged performative act or spectacle. 78
Figure 9: Work from La Destruction Du series. By Lieke van der Made.
Dynamiting Palmyra and beheading an ancient lamassu sculptures are acts of violence that directly impact the West and can therefore be seen as an anti-colonial act. A
76 Harmanşah, Ömür. 2015. ISIS, heritage, and the spectacles of destruction in the global media.
Near Eastern Archaeology 78 (3): 173
77 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
Today 31 no.6 (2015): 24
78 De Cesari, Chiara. “Post-Colonial Ruins: Archaeologies of Political Violence and IS.” Anthropology
