Is It Possible to Protect Our Cultural Heritage?

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We all condemn looting. But there is little talk about what can effectively be done about it. Telling people not to buy what may be looted antiquities makes the authorities feel good but has virtually no effect on looting.

In the September 2014 issue of the distinguished British journal known as PEQ (the Palestine Exploration Quarterly, founded in 1865), editor David Jacobson laments the almost “total destruction” of an excavated site (in the West Bank in the area controlled by Israel) and another site “in jeopardy” of destruction (in the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority). Both sites have been “ransacked by treasure seekers on an almost daily basis.” Jacobson complains that the site had been left “unfenced and unprotected”—as if this would have helped. “The authorities are clearly not living up to their responsibilities,” charges Jacobson.

Archelais, the site in the area for which Israel is responsible, was built by Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great who inherited the rule of Judea from his father after Herod’s death in 4 B.C.E. The site is in the Jordan Valley, 8 miles north of Jericho, and was excavated by Israeli archaeologist Hananya Hizmi, who is now the staff officer for archaeology for the West Bank. The exciting archaeological remains of the city, as Jacobson tells us, were described by the excavator in the July/August 2008 BAR.^a Hizmi found a 3,000-square-foot mansion, a tower almost that large that protected the city, a ritual bath (miqveh), pottery, stone vessels, coins and lamps and, from a later period, a magnificent basilical church with three strata of mosaics, some with inscriptions.

The other site is outside Jericho. Tulul Abu el-`Alayiq is justly famous for its magnificent Hasmonean and Herodian palaces. It is in the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. It, too, is “clearly not living up to its duty of care of the country’s historical and archaeological remains.”

Jacobson calls this situation an “assault on the cultural heritage of the Holy Land.” The situation “demands an urgent wakeup call.”

I am in complete sympathy with Jacobson’s cri de coeur, but I don’t think a fence will do much good. And full-time armed guards at all the exposed sites seems beyond our reach. Jacobson suggests a possible “halt in further excavations in the entire region.” Is this really what we want? I admit: It’s a dilemma. I have no solution to suggest.

In Jordan southeast of the Dead Sea are extensive 065 cemeteries whose tombs date from the Early Bronze Age (c. 3100–2600 B.C.E.) to as late as the fourth century C.E. Konstantinos (Dino) Politis, the long-time excavator, wrote about them three years ago in BAR.^b The looting of these cemeteries has been vast. According to a report by archaeologist David F. Graf of the University of Miami, tombstones from these cemeteries can now be found in fashionable homes in Jordan and in museums in Israel. Others were “sold to wealthy diplomats and businessmen in Saudi Arabia, Italy, Britain and America.”^c In desperation Politis embarked on a campaign to locate and record looted tombstones and, if possible, acquire them. In this effort, he was forced to interact with the looters and illegal dealers, purchasing what he could.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the situation is just as bad, even worse. In March 2001, the Taliban government in Afghanistan blasted the famous sixth-century Buddhas of Bamiyan out of the rock. The Taliban explained that the statues were idols whose destruction was required by Islamic law.

Just as brazen, in 2003 looters broke into the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad, smashing vitrines and making off with some of the most treasured objects.^d Fortunately, much, but not all, of the loot has been recovered.^e Francis Deblauwe, the author of the cited article, is one of the few people to address the question of what should be done when looted objects surface: “What do we do then when the Warka vase resurfaces? And how do we proceed now to recover items from the collection? Should we ransom looted artifacts as fast as possible for the public good—perhaps by soliciting the help of often well-connected (and wealthy) dealers and collectors? Or should we, as is now the conventional wisdom, treat them as illegal contraband, thus assuring that they remain underground?” He raises the questions but he has no answers. (The Warka vase was returned to the Iraq Museum [smashed] during amnesty in June 2003.)

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Traditional tombs of Biblical figures have sometimes been targeted for destruction. Joseph’s tomb is one case. According to the Bible, when Joseph was about to die in Egypt, he made his brothers swear that they would carry his bones back to the land that the Lord had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 50:24–25). In fulfillment of this pledge, Moses took Joseph’s bones with him on the Exodus (Exodus 13:19). When the Israelites came to Shechem, they buried Joseph’s bones in land that Jacob had bought (Joshua 24:32). Various sites over the years have been identified as Joseph’s tomb. In 2000, during the so-called Second Intifada, a traditional tomb of Joseph in Nablus that had been so identified by Muslims as well as Jews became a source of conflict. The site was pillaged and torched by Palestinian protesters.

More recently, in July 2014, ISIL or ISIS or, what it likes to call itself, the Islamic Caliphate, destroyed the traditional tomb of the prophet Jonah in Mosul, Iraq, despite the fact that it was holy to both Muslims and Christians. (Obviously, there are no Jews left in the area.) An Assyrian church had been built over the tomb in the 14th century. The church was converted into a mosque when the Muslims took over. In addition to Jonah’s tomb, the mosque once held the remains of the supposed whale that had swallowed Jonah. ISIL extremists wired the structure with explosives and blasted it to rubble. A video captured the event. Whether the destruction was somehow aimed at Christians or at fellow Muslims with less-strict interpretations of the faith remains unclear.

According to a recent report on CNN, the current director general of Iraqi museums, Qais Hussain Rashid, says ISIL is selling antiquities on the black market.¹ “They cut these reliefs and sell them to criminals and antique dealers,” he said. The CNN report candidly admitted, “Little can be done to protect artifacts on the ground.” Should they be purchased to rescue them, or would this simply encourage more looting and destruction? A Reuters headline reads, “Islamic State makes millions from stolen antiquities.”

The story goes on and on. The colorful 17th-century suq in Aleppo has largely been destroyed; the fate of the synagogue that once held the famous Aleppo Codex, the most authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible which dates from the tenth century, is unknown.^f

If someone suggests that guards should be posted at especially treasured archaeological sites, the answer is clear: “Not in the face of ISIL.” According to Maamoun Abdulkarim, the director general of antiquities and museums in Damascus, a ranger who guarded several archaeological tells in Syria was beheaded by ISIL.² In a speech at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Secretary of State John Kerry stated “Our heritage is literally in peril in this moment, and we believe it is imperative that we act now.”³ But what can we do?

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Another site in Syria, Dura Europos, is famous for its extraordinary third-century C.E. synagogue with its colorful Biblical frescoes (more accurately al secco),⁴ as well as its Christian building with a smaller number but still extraordinary wall paintings. The paintings fortunately are no longer in situ. But the site itself, an important outpost of the Roman Empire that frequently changed hands in ancient times, is largely unexplored. It may never be. It has now been badly looted, according to the New York Times.

On September 19, 2014, the U.S. Blue Shield Organization held a day-long meeting at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Blue Shield committee is so named because of the prescribed blue emblems on buildings that would alert the good guys not to bomb or attack them. The emblem is described in the convention: a blue-and-white shield “consisting of a royal blue square, one of the angles of which forms the point of the shield, and of a royal blue triangle above the square, the space on either side being taken up by a white triangle.” The problem is that the blue shields also alert the bad guys who know just where to go to inflict maximum damage. Why the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the convention is a cause for celebration was not clear from the Washington meeting.

According to Lamia al-Gailani Werr, an Iraqi archaeologist now living in London, “The archaeologists there [in Iraq] are begging us not to pinpoint anything, especially ancient things … They don’t want to attract the attention of [ISIL].” Asking protection for archaeological sites “may only fuel the group,” say archaeologists, as reported in the New York Times. “It’s hard to imagine that an international treaty would have an impact in Syria and Iraq,” say experts on the ground. The recent “United States-led bombing campaign is a new threat,” the report concludes.

While we should applaud those who are devoting themselves to protecting cultural property, there seems to be no effective means to prevent the destruction amid the turmoil gripping the Middle East. Much of the professional effort is devoted to documenting the destruction, rather than preventing it. In short, the Hague Convention hasn’t done much good. A summary of the day-long meeting in Washington reported that it “served as a reminder of the tragedies befalling cultural heritage sites and objects in areas of armed conflict—but also of the hope and initiative that so many are taking to protect these sites and these objects.” A memorandum of understanding between the Blue Shield Organization and the Smithsonian pledged their mutual support “in the education of cultural heritage professionals as well as locals in conflict areas and to provide the means with which to do this.” God bless.—H.S.

We all condemn looting. But there is little talk about what can effectively be done about it. Telling people not to buy what may be looted antiquities makes the authorities feel good but has virtually no effect on looting.