Cultural Heritage Destruction: Evidence and Emergency Responses in Syria, Iraq, and Libya
Panel 194, 2015 Annual Meeting
On Tuesday, November 24 at 11:00 am
Panel Description
How can the international and academic community respond to the current destruction of cultural heritage occurring in Syria, Iraq, and Libya? The international regime of heritage protection during conflict rests upon an agreement that actors within the modern system of nation-states will refrain from damaging cultural heritage out of humanitarian concerns. But in the present crisis, one actor, the Islamic State rejects that system. The Syrian Arab Republic Government has also been implicated in extensive damage to historic and religious sites. The destruction of cultural heritage accompanying intrastate and ethnonationalist conflict is a well-known but little studied phenomenon often designed to erase the presence and history of a rival social or ethnic group. Yet despite considerable scholarship directed toward violations of civil and political rights during these and other conflicts, there is a general tendency to view damage to cultural heritage as an unfortunate collateral outcome, rather than as a common tactic of intimidation and subjugation. Although prior research suggests that the purposeful destruction of cultural heritage may escalate a conflict, few studies have identified factors leading to such an intensification. Furthermore, even less attention has been given to what measures may protect heritage sites and the people who care about them in conflict situations. Successful interventions are rare, and, in the present crisis, there is an acute need to examine what factors might result in positive outcomes. This panel explores the destruction and protection of cultural heritage in the context of recent events in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. In looking at the intentional destruction of cultural heritage, panelists will discuss the social dynamics involved, methods employed in documentation, emergency preservation interventions that have occurred or are currently underway, the legal implications of damage to cultural heritage, and the practical and ethical responsibilities of museums and other heritage professionals in crisis situations.
Syria’s four-year civil war has led to the destruction of the country’s cultural heritage at an unprecedented rate. World Heritage sites, museums, and religious sites have been subjected to looting as well as collateral damage and deliberate destruction. This paper will discuss an effort to protect museum collections in the midst of the conflict. Last year, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and a Syrian civil society NGO, The Day After Association, partnered to provide training and material assistance for Syrian museum curators, heritage experts, and civilians working to protect cultural heritage in opposition controlled areas of Syria. A three-day training workshop, “Emergency Care for Syrian Museum Collections,” took place in southern Turkey. Participants discussed securing museum collections, stabilizing and protection of immovable heritage, emergency packing and crating techniques, and rapid documentation. They also received packing supplies, conservation materials, and other tools and equipment to take back to their work in Syria. The workshop also afforded participants an opportunity to dialogue about emergency response going on in their different regions. The training was funded by the Smithsonian and the J.M. Kaplan Fund. During the workshop the participants expressed particular need to protect the immovable collection of Byzantine mosaics at the Ma’arra Museum in Idlib province. An additional phase of the project began in late 2014 in which Syrian participants received funds to purchase local materials to face and sandbag its significant mosaic collection. This project will hopefully allow the museum to survive the current conflict intact and provide an example for other such stabilization projects.
The growing availability of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery provides unprecedented capabilities for monitoring around the world, shedding light on events in remote locations. The ability to monitor remotely is of particular need when conflict creates non-permissive environments that result in long-term inaccessibility on the ground. Multiple actors often overlap in space and time and conflicting accounts, often based on incomplete or inaccurate information, can proliferate. When conducted with a rigorous study design, proactive monitoring of cultural heritage sites, utilizing time-series historical analysis, can bring much needed clarity to these situations by providing independent scientific assessments of past events or events in progress.
This presentation will discuss the methods and means to systematically monitor cultural heritage sites in Syria and Iraq using high-resolution satellite imagery. The research identifies and quantifies damage to cultural heritage sites and has developed a method to determine risk to sites based upon a wide variety of geospatial factors, ranging from local military presence to site accessibility. The difficulties encountered while conducting large-scale satellite imagery analysis will be discussed, such as identification of corroborating information, data storage and organization, workflows, and coordinating multi-analyst research.
Libya’s cultural heritage is facing significant threats and damage. Since the Revolution of 2011, these dangers include not only unmanaged, unregulated development, but also increasing acts of civil disorder. With two de facto governments claiming authority in the country, no constitution yet written, no clearly operating legal system, no defined property rights, no organized police force, many contesting militias, and rising religious extremism, more damage is being done to the country’s cultural heritage than was caused by the events of the 2011 Revolution.
During the 42 years of the Gaddafi regime, Libya’s cultural heritage from the pre-Arab period was seen as a painful reminder of Libya’s colonial past and therefore neglected for political reasons. Virtually all of Libya’s heritage sites still suffer from a lack of ongoing maintenance and inadequate security. In the context of the many challenges facing the new Libya, it is not surprising that cultural heritage struggles for recognition and protection from both governmental authorities and the population at large.
But now, as this abstract is being written (February 2015), Libya is engaged in a burgeoning civil war. The country is fighting for its very soul. Working within this challenging political and security environment, the Libyan Department of Antiquities continues to negotiate the protection of cultural sites in contested areas and to draw up plans for emergency inventory, crisis planning and protection work. Despite their best efforts, it remains unclear what the future will hold for the cultural heritage of Libya.
This paper details two projects in Iraq focusing on documentation and preservation efforts. The first of these case studies describes training efforts to prevent future damage and maintain archaeological sites through the Archaeological Site Preservation Course (ASP) at The Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil. Through this program, employees of the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and the Kurdistan Regional Government Antiquities Department train in strategies for identification, evaluation, prioritization, and stabilization of cultural heritage sites. The second case study in this paper will detail emergency documentation work that aims to digitize and record sensitive cultural heritage at risk of intentional targeting within the current crisis.
