The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction 0367627280, 9780367627287

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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF HERITAGE DESTRUCTION

The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction presents a comprehensive view on the destruction of cultural heritage and offers insights into this multifaceted, interdisciplinary phenomenon; the methods scholars have used to study it; and the results these various methods have produced. By juxtaposing theoretical and legal frameworks and conceptual contexts alongside a wide distribution of geographical and temporal case studies, this book throws light upon the risks, and the realizations, of art and heritage destruction. Exploring the variety of forces that drive the destruction of heritage, the volume also contains contributions that consider what forms heritage destruction takes and in which contexts and circumstances it manifests. Contributors, including local scholars, also consider how these drivers and contexts change, and what effect this has on heritage destruction, and how we conceptualise it. Overall, the book establishes the importance of the need to study the destruction of art and cultural heritage within a wider framework that encompasses not only theory but also legal, military, social, and ontological issues. The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction will contribute to the development of a more complete understanding and analysis of heritage destruction. The Handbook will be useful to academics, students, and professionals with interest in heritage, conservation and preservation, history and art history, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, and law. José Antonio González Zarandona holds a PhD in Art History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies from the University of Melbourne. He has held fellowships from the British Academy and Columbia University. His latest book is Murujuga: Rock Art, Heritage and Landscape Iconoclasm (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). Antonio researches the intersections between heritage, art, and media. He has published widely on heritage destruction and iconoclasm in Australia, Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, Mexico, videogames, and Google. Emma Cunliffe holds a PhD in Archaeology from Durham University, where she studied site damage in Syria. She is a Senior Research Associate in the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University (UK), most recently co-editing Safeguarding Cultural Property in the 1954 Hague Convention. All Possible Steps? (Boydell Press, 2022).

She is also part of the Secretariat for Blue Shield International, an NGO dedicated to heritage protection in conflict and disaster and the Secretary of the UK National Committee. She teaches cultural property protection for students, heritage professionals, and armed forces and provides expertise on military exercises. Melathi Saldin is a Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University, Australia. She has a PhD in Heritage Studies (Deakin University), a BA (Hons), and an MPhil in Archaeology (University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka). Melathi’s research looks at the politicisation of heritage and archaeology across Asia and the potential of heritage for resilience building in communities recovering from war and other forms of social upheaval. She is Co-Chair of the Sri Lanka ICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Routledge Handbooks on Museums, Galleries and Heritage

The following list includes only the most-recent titles to publish within the series. A list of the full catalogue of titles is available at: Routledge Handbooks on Museums, Galleries and Heritage - Book Series - Routledge & CRC Press The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Heritage in The Asia-Pacific Kapila D. Silva, Ken Taylor, and David S. Jones The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction Edited by José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF HERITAGE DESTRUCTION

Edited by José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin

Cover image: Ai Weiwei, Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, three black-and-white silver gelatin prints, 148 × 121 cm each. Image courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin; individual chapters, the contributors The right of José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin; to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: González Zarandona, José Antonio, editor, author. | Cunliffe, Emma (Emma Louise), editor, author. | Saldin, Melathi, editor, author. Title: The Routledge handbook of heritage destruction / edited by José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin. Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge handbooks on museums, galleries and heritage | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022059116 (print) | LCCN 2022059117 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367627287 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367673727 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003131069 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Cultural property--Protection. | Cultural property--Destruction and pillage. | Cultural property--Protection--Law and legislation. | Historic preservation. | Historic sites--Conservation and restoration. | Art--Conservation and restoration. Classification: LCC CC135 .R696 2023 (print) | LCC CC135 (ebook) | DDC 363.6/9--dc23/eng/20230131 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059116 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022059117 ISBN: 978-0-367-62728-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-67372-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-13106-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069 Typeset in Bembo by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

CONTENTS

List of figures List of tables List of contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations

xiii xvi xvii xxii xxiv

1 A path well worn? Approaches for the old problem of heritage destruction José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin

1

PART I

Understanding Destruction

35

2 Heritage destruction in conflict Claire Smith

37

3 Talking about heritage destruction in market countries Erin L. Thompson

55

4 Destruction of cultural heritage in peacetime and international law Lucas Lixinski

65

5 Development of the law of armed conflict as applied to cultural heritage Patty Gerstenblith 6 Heritage destruction and human rights Federico Lenzerini ix

76 89

Contents

7 Heritage destruction and genocide: Legal resistance, conceptual resiliency 100 Elisa Novic 8 Methods, motivations, and actors: A risk-based approach to heritage destruction and protection Emma Cunliffe

110

PART II

Manifestations of Destruction 127 9 Heritage destruction, natural disasters, and the environment: Geological disasters Tom Dawson

129

10 Heritage destruction, natural disasters, and the environment: Atmospheric disasters 138 Tom Dawson 11 Flooded heritage: The impact of dams on archaeological sites 147 Nicolò Marchetti and Federico Zaina 12 On destruction in art and film 158 Stacy Boldrick 13 Between heritage and the readymade: The imminent aesthetic of Ai Weiwei 174 José Antonio González Zarandona 14 Heritage predation and the pursuit of politics 185 Mehiyar Kathem 15 Post-conflict recovery challenges: Affect and heritage in post-conflict Cyprus and Italy 196 Olga Demetriou and Elena Miltiadis 16 Media narratives, heritage destruction, and universal heritage: A case study of Palmyra 207 Christopher W. Jones 17 Collateral damage: The negative side effects of protecting cultural heritage in conflict-related situations 218 Frederik Rosén x

Contents

18 Turning destruction into an opportunity: Understanding the construction of Timbuktu’s “success story” by UNESCO Mathilde Leloup 19 Heritage destruction from a humanitarian perspective Jennifer Price-Jones

230 242

PART III

Transformation of Destruction

255

20 Cultural property destruction and damage in two world wars Nigel Pollard

257

21 Heritage destruction and its impact in Scandinavia and the Baltic region during the Second World War Mattias Legnér

268

22 Case study: The Wars of Yugoslav Succession Helen Walasek

279

23 Cambodia: Gods threatened by the art market and warfare Angela S. Chiu, Helena M. Arose, and Ben B. Evans

289

24 Destruction of cultural heritage in times of conflict: The case of Syria Nour A. Munawar 25 Iraq: Creative destruction and cultural heritage in the warscape Zainab Bahrani 26 Iraqi and Syrian responses to heritage destruction under the Islamic State: Genocide, displacement, reconstruction, and return Benjamin Isakhan and James Barry

301 313

322

27 Heritage destruction in the Caucasus with a specific focus on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict Ali Mozaffari and James Barry

333

28 Weaponised heritage: Urbicide by construction and destruction in Nablus, Palestine Nurhan Abujidi

343

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Contents

29 What is happening to Egyptian heritage?: The case of privately owned buildings Mohamed Kenawi

357

30 Destruction, development and heritage in Melbourne: SX Towers, Southern Cross Hotel, Eastern Market James Lesh and David Nichols

372

31 Case study: The destruction of Australian Aboriginal heritage and its implications for Indigenous peoples globally Jillian Huntley and Lynley A. Wallis

384

32 Destruction of heritage in Latin America María Isabel Hernández Llosas

395

PART IV

Epilogue

411

33 Reconsidering heritage destruction and sustainable development in a long-term perspective Cornelius Holtorf and Troels Myrup Kristensen

413

Index

424

xii

FIGURES

1.1 Ngram showing the number of books published between 1800 and 2019 that contains the keywords “destruction of heritage” 2 1.2 The ways of approaching the study of heritage destruction 12 1.3 Cartoon on heritage destruction by David Pope, published in May 2020. The cartoon juxtaposes the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of the Buddha statutes in Afghanistan with the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal 19 site in Juukan Gorge, Australia by the Rio Tinto mining company 1.4 Durham Castle is a thriving part of Durham University, hosting a collegiate community of 1400 students and 300 staff, as well as being a central feature 26 of the World Heritage site 2.1 Site of Buddhas of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan, before and after destruction by the Taliban 43 2.2 Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee removed from column, New Orleans, 19 May 2017 45 2.3 Old Bridge of the City of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1890/1900 to 2018. From top left in a clockwise direction: (A) Painted rock memorial on Old Mostar Bridge [Stari Most]. (B) Bullet holes, some partly patched, in the external wall of a house at Hrgića, Sarajevo, Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine, Bosnia & Herzegovina. (C) Memorial Stone remembering the act of “extremists who demolished this 427-year old bridge, which the whole world condemned” on 9th November, 1993. Mostar, HerzegovinaNeretva, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (D) Old Bridge of Mostar, Bosnia, and Herzegovina 48 6.1 Bombed mosque in Ahmići, Central Bosnia and 91 Herzegovina, April 1993 8.1 Factors influencing risk of loss 118 11.1 Middle Eastern and North African dams and the main water reservoirs along the Euphrates (A), Tigris (B), and Nile (C) rivers 149 162 12.1 Cai Guo-Qiang, Black Rainbow: Explosion Project for Edinburgh, 2005 167 12.2 Kate Davis, Disgrace (V), 2012, pencil on found image, 30 × 21 cm

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Figures

12.3 Raqs Media Collective, Coronation Park, 2015, nine fiberglass sculptures on bitumen coated wooden pedestals with acrylic polymer plaques, dimensions variable 168 200 15.1 Ledra Palace Hotel during its long renovation phase 15.2 View of “Palazzo M” 201 19.1 Image of the cluster system 244 262 20.1 Façade of Reims Cathedral 21.1 Finnish soldiers parading in front of the destroyed museum in Viipuri after 271 the city had been retaken. 21.2 U-Boat Bunker Bruno was built by the German Navy in Bergen during the 277 occupation, and is today a part of Norwegian Second World War heritage 23.1 A map of locations mentioned in the chapter 290 304 24.1 Heritage destruction in Syria during pre-IS Phase 1 (March 2011–May 2014) 24.2 Terrorism and heritage destruction in Syria, under IS Phase 2 ( June 306 2014–March 2017) 24.3 Post-IS heritage destruction in Syria, Phase 3 (April 2017–April 2021) 308 27.1 General topographic map of the Caucasus 334 28.1 An abstract map of the physical elements of the Israeli matrix of control in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank), the settlements, the Israeli 346 bypass roads, and the apartheid wall 28.2 Location of the Israeli physical matrix of control points around Nablus area 348 28.3 Location and level of destroyed buildings in Nablus Old Town, April 2002 349 28.4 Algharb neighbourhood showing significant buildings, such as Hamman, schools, caravansaries, soap factories, and religious buildings 349 28.5 Close-up of the northeast section of Algharb neighbourhood showing the location of forced routes of entry through streets, roofs, and buildings, April 2002 350 28.6 The Northern façade of An Naser Street, showing the link between void 352 and solid before and after destruction, April 2002 28.7 The mental image of Nablus Old Town drawn by children in Al Qaryun 353 quarter, April 2002 361 29.1 Esna, Sufi tomb, near Deir al-Shouhada 29.2 Qus, traditional multi-storey house 362 29.3 Qus, traditional multi-storey house with wooden inscription at its entrance (abandoned) 363 29.4 Rosetta, traditional Ottoman period house in the early twentieth century (vanished) 364 29.5 Rosetta, traditional Ottoman period house in 2018 365 29.6 Beni Sueif, the churches of Deir al-Maymoun before and after renovations 366 29.7 Beni Sueif, the churches of Deir al-Maymoun before and 367 after renovations 29.8 Deir al-Maymoun on Maxar satellite images (04 November 2004) 368 368 29.9 Deir al-Maymoun on Maxar satellite images (21 June 2010)

xiv

Figures

29.10 30.1 30.2 30.3 33.1

Deir al-Maymoun on Maxar satellite images (08 April 2014) 369 The Eastern Market 374 The Southern Cross Hotel 377 SX Towers, 121 Exhibition Street, Melbourne 381 The archaeological site of Palmyra, Syria, before damage sustained during the Syrian civil war 417

xv

TABLES

8.1 The most common factors in risk 120 28.1 Level and percentage of damage in the housing blocks in Nablus Old City (2002–2007) 348

xvi

CONTRIBUTORS

Nurhan Abujidi is an Associate Professor at Zuyd University, where she leads the Smart Urban Redesign Research Centre and urban renewal projects in Limburg, Netherlands. She is an international expert on urban regeneration in extreme urban conditions such as colonial context, war zones, slums, refugee camps, and vulnerable neighbourhoods in Europe. Helena M. Arose is a Project Director at the Antiquities Coalition, a non-profit leading an international campaign against cultural racketeering. She is an experienced museum professional with a background in Archaeology and a graduate of the University of Glasgow MSc in Art History: Collecting and Provenance in an International Context. Zainab Bahrani is Edith Porada Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University, New York. Her award-winning books include Rituals of War (Zone Books/MIT 2008) and the Infinite Image: Art, Time and the Aesthetic Dimension in Antiquity (Reaktion Books/University of Chicago Press, 2014). She currently directs two preservation projects in Iraq and Turkey. James Barry, PhD, is a Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Australia. Dr Barry is a political anthropologist specialising in religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East and the Caucasus and is the author of Armenian Christians in Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Stacy Boldrick is an Associate Professor at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Publications include Iconoclasm and the Museum (Routledge, 2020); Striking Images: Iconoclasms Past and Present (Ashgate 2013, reprinted Routledge 2018; with Leslie Brubaker and Richard Clay); Iconoclasm: Contested Objects, Contested Terms (Ashgate 2007, reprinted Routledge 2017; with Clay). Curatorial projects include Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm (Tate Britain, 2013; with Tabitha Barber). Angela S. Chiu is a researcher of Buddhist arts and literature and the Asian antiquities market. She earned a PhD in Art History from SOAS, University of London, and is the author of The Buddha in Lanna: Art, Lineage, Power, and Place in Northern Thailand (University of Hawai’i Press, 2017). xvii

Contributors

Emma Cunliffe is a Senior Research Associate in the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University (UK), part of the Blue Shield International Secretariat, and Secretary of Blue Shield UK. She teaches cultural heritage protection for students, professionals, and armed forces, and provides cultural expertise to military exercises. Tom Dawson joined the University of St Andrews in 2000 after working as an archaeologist in several different countries, and helped establish The SCAPE Trust. A former Royal Commissioner and Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Tom’s research focuses on coastal heritage at risk, heritage management, and public archaeology. Olga Demetriou is an Associate Professor at Durham’s Global Security Institute. She worked on heritage reconstruction, neglect, and ruination in relation to Cyprus’ stalemated conflict and the management of the UN Buffer Zone. She is the author of Refugeehood and the Postconflict Subject (SUNY Press, 2018) and Capricious Borders (Berghahn, 2013). Ben B. Evans is a graduate of Tulane Law School and Millsaps College. In 2018, he served as a Legal Associate at the Documentation Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. In that role, he travelled extensively in rural Cambodia researching ways to protect cultural heritage during times of war. Patty Gerstenblith is Distinguished Research Professor of Law at DePaul University. Presidents Clinton and Obama appointed her to the President’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee in the US State Department. She is currently President of the US Committee of the Blue Shield, and Chair of Blue Shield International’s Working Group on trafficking of cultural objects. José Antonio González Zarandona holds a PhD in Art History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies from the University of Melbourne. He has held fellowships from the British Academy and Columbia University. His latest book is Murujuga: Rock Art, Heritage and Landscape Iconoclasm (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020). María Isabel Hernández Llosas has a BA (Anthropology) and PhD (Archaeology) from the University of Buenos Aires, and postdoctoral studies (Heritage) at the Australian National University. She is a regional archaeologist in Quebrada de Humahuaca (World Heritage) and an international rock art expert. She worked as a consultant for proposed UNESCO World Heritage listing. Cornelius Holtorf is Professor of Archaeology and holds a UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden. He directs the Graduate School in Contract Archaeology (GRASCA). His current research interests include cultural heritage theory, contemporary archaeology, and future archaeology. Recently he co-edited Cultural Heritage and the Future (Routledge, 2020). Jillian Huntley is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. Jillian has over a decade of industry experience in cultural heritage management. She continues to provide strategic advice to Aboriginal peak bodies, government agencies, and private corporations.

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Contributors

Benjamin Isakhan is a Professor of International Politics and Founding Director of Polis, a research network for Politics and International Relations research at the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Australia. He is also an Adjunct Senior Research Associate, Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Christopher W. Jones completed his PhD in History at Columbia University in 2021, specializing in the history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. He also publishes on cultural heritage issues and, since 2014, has worked to document the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria on his blog “Gates of Nineveh”. Mehiyar Kathem is a Senior Researcher in the History Department at University College London. He is also deputy director of the Nahrein Network, where his responsibilities include developing relationships with Iraqi civil society and with educational institutions, and to promote cultural heritage, and work towards its safeguarding. Mohamed Kenawi is a Research Associate at the University of Leicester. He is an archaeologist and heritage expert in Egyptian and North African Archaeology. He has taught at Catania University, and at the Hellenistic Centre of Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He has conducted various training projects in Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Troels Myrup Kristensen is an Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology at Aarhus University, where he directs the Classical Antiquity and its Heritage Research Programme. He works on pilgrimage, visual culture, and the contemporary “consumption” of classical heritage. With Anna Collar, he recently published Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean (2020). Mattias Legnér is a Docent in History and Professor in Conservation at Uppsala University Campus Gotland. Legnér has written widely on heritage in and after armed conflict. Most recently, he published a monograph on cultural property protection and uses of heritage in Scandinavia during the Second World War. Mathilde Leloup is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Institut d’Etudes Européennes (Université Paris 8) and researcher at CRESPPA-LabToP. Two years ago, as an Oxpo Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) of the University of Oxford, she published a book from her PhD thesis on the protection of cultural heritage by UN peace operations (Dalloz, 2021). Federico Lenzerini is a Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Siena, Italy. On several occasions, he has provided consultancies to UNESCO, and has represented the Italian government at negotiations for the adoption of international legal instruments concerning the protection and/or safeguarding of cultural heritage. James Lesh is a historian and Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. His research explores the theory and practice of heritage conservation in the twentieth and twenty-first century. His latest book is Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth-Century Australia (Routledge, 2023).

xix

Contributors

Lucas Lixinski is a Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney. He is also an Associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute. His current research examines the relationship between heritage law and crises. His latest monograph is Legalized Identities: Cultural Heritage Law and the Shaping of Transitional Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Nicolò Marchetti is a Full Professor at the University of Bologna. He directs archaeological excavations in Turkey at Karkemish and in Iraq at Nineveh. He led international projects about heritage conservation and monitoring, including the EU-funded HeAT, WALADU, EDUU, BANUU, and the Volkswagen Foundation-funded project KALAM. He is the Editor of www.orientlab.net. Elena Miltiadis is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University. Her thesis focuses on Latina, an Italian city built by the fascist regime in 1932. She explores how communities give meaning to their existence through, against, and beyond their contested pasts. Ali Mozaffari is a Senior Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Australia. He is an expert in the politics of cultural heritage in the Middle East and West Asia, with multiple papers and books, some translated into Persian. For further information, see www.heritageinwestasia.com. Nour A. Munawar is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar. Munawar has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes in Archaeology and Heritage Studies. His research focuses on the politics of the past, uses and abuses of heritage in (post)conflict, archaeology of the contemporary past, and decolonisation in the Middle East and North Africa region. David Nichols is a Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. Recent publications include The Alert Grey Twinkling Eyes of C. J. DeGaris (UWA, 2022) and the co-edited (with Sophie Perillo) collection Urban Australia and Post-Punk: Exploring Dogs in Space (Palgrave, 2020). Elisa Novic holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), where she wrote a thesis on the concept of cultural genocide in international law. She has since held various positions within NGOs operating in the field of international justice and human rights. Nigel Pollard is a Professor of History, Heritage and Classics at Swansea University. He researches cultural property protection in the Second World War and its application to the contemporary protection of heritage. His book, Bombing Pompeii: World Heritage and Military Necessity, was published by the University of Michigan Press (2020). Jennifer Price-Jones is a Humanitarian Consultant for the Blue Shield, specialising in the nexus of humanitarianism and cultural heritage. Jennifer has worked for over a decade in multi-country contexts, including complex conflicts and environmental emergencies. She has worked with international NGOs, national NGOs, and the United Nations.

xx

Contributors

Frederik Rosén is the Director of the Nordic Center for Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict and Honorary Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen. He has published leading scholarly work on international security and functioned as a key advisor to governments and international organizations on cultural heritage and armed conflicts. Melathi Saldin is a Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at, Deakin University, Australia. She has a PhD in Heritage Studies (Deakin University), a BA (Hons), and an MPhil in Archaeology (University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka). Melathi’s research looks at the politicisation of heritage and archaeology across Asia and the potential of heritage for resilience building in communities recovering from war and other forms of social upheaval. She is Co-Chair of the Sri Lanka ICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Claire Smith is a Professor of Archaeology at Flinders University, South Australia. She conducts research into socially mediated terrorism, heritage destruction in conflict, and the role of heritage in cultural healing, health, and well-being. She is the twice-elected President of the World Archaeological Congress (2003–2014). Erin L. Thompson is a Professor of Art Law and Crime at John Jay College, City University of New York. Her books are Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors (Yale, 2016) and Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of American Monuments (Norton, 2022). Helen Walasek is the author of Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage (Routledge, 2015) and is a researcher, writer, and lecturer on cultural heritage in conflict. She was deputy director of Bosnia-Herzegovina Heritage Rescue, a consultant expert to the Council of Europe, and an advisor to Cultural Heritage without Borders. Lynley A. Wallis is a Professor at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, as well as working privately as a cultural heritage consultant. She has longstanding interests in the archaeology of northern Australia, paleoenvironments, Aboriginal cultural heritage management, and a commitment to undertaking collaborative research partnerships with communities. Federico Zaina is Research Fellow at the DABC, Politecnico di Milano. He has participated in archaeological excavations in Albania, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. He has been a member of the EU-funded projects HeAT, WALADU, EDUU, and BANUU. His research interests include heritage at risk, Bronze Age Mesopotamia, and historical landscapes.

xxi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume arose out of our collective experiences in heritage destruction, both our academic research, but also our personal and professional backgrounds. We have all witnessed heritage destruction in various forms, and have all come to work against it. Without a holistic understanding of the issues, we cannot hope to move out of the silos that so often mark the field. So, this book owes its existence first and foremost to our contributors, who have offered their perspectives from all round the world. Without them, we could not have realised our idea to create a truly global view of heritage destruction. We also thank the experts who took time from their busy calendar to review the chapters of this handbook. We would also like to thank those who have inspired us along this journey – they are too many to count. Particular mention goes to the national committees of the Blue Shield Movement, an international – and largely voluntary – group who tackle heritage destruction daily, and whose experiences have significantly informed our understanding of this issue, and who it is a privilege to work with. We would also like to thank Professor Peter Stone, President of the Blue Shield and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University, for his support, advice, and ideas. We are extremely grateful to the team at Routledge for their help in guiding us through the process and for taking our idea and turning it into this volume. We would also like to thank Loretta Bushell, Hannah Baker, and Amelia Hough from Newcastle University, who have put in so much work to help prepare this manuscript, and to James Barry, our indexer, who was a lifesaver at the last minute. We are extremely grateful to you all. Here we must also thank Newcastle University for financial support in this, specifically the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace and the School of Arts and Cultures. Thanks also go to the Women in Academia Support Group (WIASN) for their ready and generous advice and to AWOWR: the Academic Women Online Writing Retreat, whose companionship and support have been invaluable during the pandemic. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we owe our thanks to our families, which expanded even as we worked on this manuscript. This book would not have been possible without their support (even Noisy Panda). They read drafts, acted as sounding boards to explore ideas – and gave us the time to do this, something which cannot be undervalued. They have supported us through a pandemic, unemployment, school closures, sickness, crises, loss, and birth. It’s been an “interesting” time. We can’t thank you enough. xxii

Acknowledgements

We also like to thank Ai Weiwei and his studio for letting us use his artwork to adorn our cover. On a personal note, Antonio would also like to acknowledge Emma Cunliffe and Melathi Saldin for their collaboration, patience, and support while co-editing this handbook. Without their hard work and input, this handbook would not be the same.

xxiii

ABBREVIATIONS

AAP ACHPR ACtHPR APSARA AQIM ARCE ASOR BIF BJP BSA BSI CAFN CESCR CHCFE CHI CNN CO2 CPP DGAM DIAS DPA DRM DSI EAMENA ECCC ECMM ECOWAS ECtHR EFEO

Accountability to Affected People African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights Authority for the Protection and Safeguarding of Angkor and the Region of Angkor Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb American Research Centre in Egypt American Schools of Oriental Research Banded Iron Formation Bharatiya Janata Party Bosnian Serb Army Blue Shield International Champagne and Aishihik First Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe Cultural Heritage Initiative Cable Network News Carbon dioxide Cultural Property Protection Syrian Arab Republic’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums Destruction in Art Symposium Dayton Peace Agreement Disaster Risk Management Devlet Su Işleri (Turkish State Hydraulic Works) Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia European Community Monitoring Mission Economic Community of West African States European Court of Human Rights École française d’Extrême-Orient xxiv

Abbreviations

EIAR Environmental Impact Assessment Report ELRHA Enhancing Learning & Research for Humanitarian Assistance ERR Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg EU European Union FAD Fine Arts Department FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia FSA Free Syrian Army GAP Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi (south-eastern Anatolian Project) GTV General Television Victoria HCP High Contracting Parties HRC Human Rights Council HVO Hrvatsko vijeće obrane (Croatian Defence Council) IAA Israel Antiquities Authority IACHR Inter-American Court of Human Rights IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee IC International Community ICC International Criminal Court ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICCROM International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ICJ International Court of Justice ICOM International Council of Museums ICOMOS International Council on Monuments and Sites ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTY International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia ICVA International Council of Voluntary Agencies IDMC Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre IHL International Humanitarian Law IHRL International Human Rights Law IMO International Museums Office IO International Organisation IOM International Organisation for Migration IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IS Islamic State ISIL Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria JNA Jugoslovenska narodna armija (Yugoslav People’s Army) JSCNA Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia KBR Kellogg, Brown, and Root KFOR Kosovo Force KLA Kosovo Liberation Army KRI Kurdistan Region of Iraq MAA Manbij Archaeological Administration MENA Middle East and North Africa MFAA Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives MHPSS Mental Health and Psychosocial Support xxv

Abbreviations

MINUSMA MMA MNLA NATO NGOs NPR OCHA ODG OHCHR OPT PHAP PKKP RSK SANA SAO SBAH SDF SDG(s) SFRY TCCH TFV UK UN UNDP UNESCO UNFICYP UNGA UNHCR UNICEF UNIFIL UNOCHA UNOSAT UNPROFOR UNSC UNSCR UNV US USAID VRS WHC WHO YPG

United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission Metropolitan Museum of Art National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Non-Government Organisations National Public Radio Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Office of the Director General Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Occupied Palestinian Territory Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples Republika Srpska Krajina Syrian Arab News Agency Serb Autonomous Oblast State Board of Antiquities and Heritage Syrian Democratic Forces Sustainable Development Goal(s) Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage Trust Fund for Victims United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Development Programme United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus United Nations General Assembly United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program United Nations Protection Force United Nations Security Council United Nations Security Council Resolution United Nations Volunteer United States United States Agency for International Development Vojska Republike Srpske (Army of Republika Srpska) World Heritage Convention World Health Organisation People’s Protection Units

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1 A PATH WELL WORN? APPROACHES FOR THE OLD PROBLEM OF HERITAGE DESTRUCTION José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin Heritage destruction is not a new phenomenon. The destruction of symbols of the identity of the Other has long been a prevalent feature of warfare and civil unrest, as has the more subtle and insidious erasure as part of development (intended and in ignorance), alongside the unintentional but often instantaneous and devastating loss from disasters. The English antiquarian William Camden wrote in his great work Britannia at the turn of the sixteenth century: To teach us that cities dye as well as men, it is at this day a cornfield, wherein the corn is grown up, one may observe the draughts of streets crossing one another.1 Today, communities also face heritage destruction from climate change. As the global population increases and technology advances, heritage is lost on a global level at a catastrophic rate. It is a process: multiculturalism does not always entail harmony among people but friction which ultimately leads to the destruction of material culture, cultural practices, and symbols. Heritage destruction is therefore also part of a battle for space and resources. As a multifaceted social and cultural phenomenon that produces ripple effects on several levels (such as political, military, psychological, and of course, historical) and in different dimensions (for example, media, government, public opinion), heritage destruction deserves our full attention. The focus of this handbook is to provide the range of different approaches that scholars around the world have adopted to understand, analyse, and interpret the destruction of significant cultural objects, sites, and traditions. In doing so, the handbook also aims to untangle the definition of heritage destruction – which is unclear. The renewed interest in the academic world, as well as increasing media attention on heritage destruction events in the last two decades, is evident through the exponential number of academic and media articles as well books that specifically deal with this phenomenon. A simple search containing the keywords “heritage destruction” in Google Scholar in February 2021, for example, returned 960,000 published books and articles related to this subject. Likewise, the number of books published since 1980 on the topic has exponentially grown (see Figure 1.1). Today, one can study the topic at university and even obtain a Master’ degree specifically on the destruction and protection of cultural heritage during times of crisis and conflict2: this is certainly a sign that the phenomenon has become a field of study in its own right. DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-1

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José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin

Figure 1.1 Ngram showing the number of books published between 1800 and 2019 that contains the keywords “destruction of heritage”. Data source: Google Books Ngram Viewer (2021).

However, on the whole, it remains siloed by type of heritage, country, conflict, and discipline. Architecture, Art History, Archaeology, Anthropology, Classical Studies, Criminology, Heritage Studies, History, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies are some of the main (although still not the only) disciplines which have studied its impacts. Indeed, the various contexts of heritage destruction are frequently studied in isolation. Heritage destruction sits in a multi-disciplinary nexus where each field has something to contribute, but scholars, just as much as their students, approach the phenomenon from their own specialisms, finding their own way through the field. One of the precursors to the academic study of heritage destruction was András Riedlmayer, who documented the destruction of cultural heritage in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He is a bibliographer who specialised in Ottoman Balkans architecture and culture. This issue however is not limited to academia, as heritage professionals are similarly constrained by their disciplinary and professional niches and biases rather than enabled by them. In the authors’ experience, few of those who studied the effects of the war in Iraq in and after 2003, or Syria after 2011, had knowledge of previous wars in Cambodia or former Yugoslavia, for example, and those who work in contexts of peace hope they will never find themselves working in contexts in conflict. Likewise, scholars of European heritage have little engagement with those seeking to support Indigenous people (Soderland & Lilley, 2015). Archaeologists studying archaeological site damage rarely engage with architects and conservators studying building damage. Museologists rarely engage with librarians. Heritage professionals have frameworks for assessing damage to buildings following conflict and disaster, but these rarely feed back into academic study. This is not to say this type of collaboration never happened. Notably, one of the incidents that ultimately resulted in the creation of the international heritage protection NGO, the Blue Shield (founded in 1996 as a collaboration between library, archive, museum, and monument and site organisations) was the multiple international responses to the 1992 shelling of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Sarajevo. Several international organisations sent support missions to Sarajevan colleagues dealing with different types of heritage – who were sometimes in the same building but had never previously worked together.3

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This handbook seeks to break that silo: the editors themselves come from a variety of academic and practical backgrounds which, although overlapping, also bring different perspectives to destruction. González Zarandona has spent more than a decade researching art destruction, iconoclasm, Indigenous rock art, and the role of the media in various contexts. He has applied the framework of iconoclasm to interpret the destruction of heritage in Australia, Iraq, Syria, and Myanmar while analysing the nuances of heritage destruction present in Mexico, videogames, and Google. Cunliffe’s academic work specialises in remote sensing, the role of organisations in protection and destruction of heritage, and in applications of cultural property protection law. She also brings over a decade of on the ground experience. In addition to being a member of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle University (England), she is currently part of the Secretariat for the international NGO, the Blue Shield, where she is the national committee coordinator and carries out military training in cultural property protection. From this, she brings an essentially pragmatic viewpoint but from a global perspective. As an archaeologist and critical heritage scholar interested in the nexus between heritage and resilience, Saldin’s research examines the diverse ways heritage is co-opted by minority and other disadvantaged communities to navigate and negotiate the complex local-global interplay of cultural politics in the aftermath of war and other forms of social upheaval. She is currently looking at the role of grassroots and other heritage initiatives in building resilient communities as a response to the widening anti-minority rhetoric and heritage centric violence in post-war Sri Lanka. This handbook aims to understand the risks and the realisations of heritage destruction based on the premise that it is an organic concept of multiple influences and consequences. Supporting this blended viewpoint, this volume has invited contributions by established leaders in the field and the voices of emerging scholars alongside those of practitioners, specifically encouraging authors from countries affected by heritage destruction to re-examine it from different perspectives. It seeks interdisciplinary views on what destruction is, how it manifests in different contexts, and how that can change in both the short and long term. In doing so, this handbook provides a first step towards a long overdue and much needed study of heritage destruction viewed through geographic, temporal, theoretical, and conceptual spectrums rather than as isolated occurrences. The book was largely written during the COVID pandemic. Although the immediate impacts of the pandemic on the heritage industry are severe (see, for example, the effects on heritage professionals in ICOM, 2020; Tiejgeler et al., 2020; UNESCO, 2020), the long-term effects are still unknown, and the editors have consciously excluded it from the volume. We begin by considering what is heritage and why even the definition can cause tensions: this friction embodies why and how it is destroyed. Following this, we consider why several approaches for understanding and analysing heritage destruction are needed, before laying out the scope of the book, and the contributions made by its authors. The contributing authors identify a number of themes and issues, which the editors seek to synthesise and explore.

From heritage to destruction Very few contributors to this volume have defined heritage, and where they have done so, there is little consistency: their definitions are drawn from law, policy, and key literature from different disciplines. Understandings of heritage are varied and complex (García Canclini, 1993; Lowenthal, 1998; Smith, 2006; Harrison, 2013a), and this is not the time – nor is there space – to untangle them. Rather, we focus on how the discussion around two key approaches to conceptualising heritage (although most views sit on a spectrum between the two) have informed the analysis and interpretation of its destruction. 3

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To put it simply, the first strand views heritage as the tangible, physical manifestations of cultures and their intangible customs with inherent value. Modern societies are the inheritors and curators of such property, and its conservation and preservation are a social responsibility for future generations. A key, and widely used example of this approach, is that taken in international law. Following two world wars and the Spanish Civil War, the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) was drafted (for more, see O’Keefe, 2006). Although the drafters felt “preservation of the cultural heritage is of great importance” (Preamble), the Convention only offers protection to “cultural property of great importance” (Article 1). The listed exemplar cultural property was non-exhaustive but was considered to include: monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular; archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books or archives or of reproductions … museums, large libraries and depositories of archives. (Hague Convention 1954, Article 1) According to O’Keefe (1999 p.35), the meaning of Article 1 was “a patent attempt to arrive at a formulation which was capable of meaning all things to all parties. The result was a deliberate emptiness, to be filled with whatever meaning the high contracting parties chose to bring to it”. Yet, perversely, the 1993 Meeting of Experts in the Hague concluded that the scope of the 1954 Hague Convention “should not be extended to include natural heritage. It was generally considered that the definition given in Article 1 of the Convention is largely acceptable and broad enough to cover all cultural heritage in need of protection” (Toman, 2009 p.51); a clear contradiction. Moreover, as Viejo-Rose and Sørensen (2015 p.283) argue, the formulation of such international conventions and other responses in the context of destruction and looting occurring during the time of war focus on the notion of cultural property (i.e., material heritage in the form of monumental heritage and collections), rather than the concept of cultural heritage in a broader sense. Intangible heritage is likewise bounded. The 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage recognises it broadly consisting of practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage … transmitted from generation to generation. (Convention for ICH 2003, Article 2) Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (2004 p.57) sees the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) list – UNESCO’s attempt at recognising other forms of heritage that have been left out of its cultural and natural World Heritage programs – as the perpetuation of yet another form of exclusivity. The ICH list tends to privilege cultural pageants or performances which are aligned with national or dominant heritage narratives, while Indigenous and other minority cultural forms remain underrepresented (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2004 p.57). Furthermore, at this end of the heritage spectrum, cultural practices, and values, while acknowledged, are often neglected unless they have a direct and concrete link to a physical object or location (see discussion in González Zarandona, 2015). This means that cultural practices, languages, as well as cultural knowledge associated with the natural environment that are not attached to a 4

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specific place are not meaningfully embedded in heritage practice (Buckley & Sullivan, 2014 p.39). As the examples above indicate, such definitions of cultural heritage struggle against their boundaries and their inclusivity – at what point is an archive cultural heritage rather than, for example, a repository of government records? Likewise, a library? (Prott & O’Keefe, 1992; Frigo, 2004; O’Keefe, 2006). The second, and now more widely accepted, school of thought views heritage as a process of meaning-making created by human agency (Bonfil Batalla, 1993; García Canclini, 1993; Harvey, 2001; Smith, 2006; Byrne, 2008). Here, heritage is conceptualised as changeable; constantly produced and re-produced by social interaction, with negotiable and contested values. All heritage meaning is understood as that which has been attributed. Nothing has inherent value, only that which people give it. Approaching heritage as a process also encourages challenging the normative framing of heritage as a binary concept in terms of either tangible or intangible, natural or cultural, along with other Cartesian understandings of the world, which are largely incompatible with non-Western worldviews. Indeed, as Smith advocates, “all heritage is intangible” contending that tangible manifestations of heritage need “deprivileging and denaturalizing … as the self-evident form and essence of heritage” (Smith, 2006 p.3). Similarly, Harrison argues that to “speak of intangible heritage as somehow separate from the ‘material’ world is inaccurate” (2013a p.14). Both strands are key to understanding why heritage is destroyed because the changes in how heritage is conceptualised also drive the ways by which its destruction is understood (Viejo-Rose & Sørensen 2015 p.282). The editors take the conscious choice to offer no fixed definition of heritage: every period in history and every context must be judged according to its own standards, and we have actively encouraged our contributors to explore heritage in a wide variety of social, cultural, geographical, and historical contexts. The commonality between the contributions is the focus on the perception of heritage as that which is culturally significant to the communities under discussion. As such, on the one hand, heritage is seen as the glue that bounds and binds communities together as it provides them with a sense of meaning and identity (Stone, 2016). On the other hand, it can become a medium that causes division and dissent (Winter, 2015). Heritage destruction is the (theoretical and practical) locus where both sides of the spectrum tend to conflate. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, the tensions caused by heritage destruction extend beyond the loss of the heritage in the immediate community with often national or international widespread ramifications. In peacetime, heritage preservation and destruction sit uncomfortably alongside concepts of progress, particularly affecting minority groups. Who decides what is preserved, or lost, and based on what? Such debates speak to the heart of power relations and contested values within heritage regimes (Winter, 2015). When conflict breaks out, these competing tensions are often at the heart of it: symbols of the Other are deliberately targeted for complex ideological and political reasons, alongside deliberate and collateral damage – and casualties and mass displacements of the people. Just as there is no single or agreed upon definition of heritage among scholars or professionals, there is no consensus on heritage destruction. However, a large part of the approaches and definitions of heritage destruction sees it caught between intellectual work that explains it as an aesthetic or psychological response towards art and material culture and the preservation and conservation measures implemented to prevent it. Heritage destruction in its fullest expression might also be seen as the destruction of a particular object, site, and tradition, as well as their associated communities, with the aim of erasing them from the present for political, social, and cultural (including religious) motives. History is replete with examples of invading forces targeting cultural heritage as part of their military campaigns: entire masterpieces have been lost to the appetite of the so-called barbarians in their aim to 5

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erase history, destroy cultures, and establish new states. This remains a recurrent act today, performed by a myriad of actors at all levels: state, civil society, private sector, individuals, and all those outside conventional social structures, such as terrorist organisations and groups engaging in acts of protest and violence. Each actor destroys heritage for different reasons: to erase history, to attract attention, to demoralise the enemy, to divide audiences, to scandalise, to carve out a new national identity or nation building project, or to advance development and progress (see also the typology developed by Viejo-Rose, 2022 p.38). Yet the destruction of heritage may also be prosaic, secular, and the result of greed, disinterest, or neglect. As such, heritage destruction occurs both in times of conflict and peace (themselves a spectrum), and motives can change (Apaydin, 2020 p.4). Heritage destruction during peacetime is difficult to pinpoint; it is often called vandalism, itself an ill-defined and widely used term (see below and see also discussion in Gamboni, 1997 pp.18–19). Yet, those carrying out the destruction may not consider the object, site, or tradition as heritage, or the act as destructive. Industrial buildings, for example, are frequently lost to neglect and redevelopment; it is only relatively recently that the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia, for example, are making an active effort to save such buildings through adaptive reuse (see UK case studies by the Heritage Fund (2015), where previously abandoned industrial buildings were determined to be worthy of the label heritage, and significant investments were needed to preserve them). Likewise, Cunliffe (2014) documented the destruction of archaeological sites in Syria by farmers extending their fields who were most likely unaware of the nature of the land. In a similar vein, in the Aboriginal Heritage Act Western Australia 1972 (currently outdated), section 62, it was stated that a person could not be charged with destroying an Indigenous site if the perpetrator proved he or she did not know and could not reasonably be expected to have known that the site was an Indigenous heritage site. We argue, however, that even if this is the case, these examples can still be considered an act of heritage destruction because even if heritage does not reside in the inherent qualities of the object, site, or tradition, it exists in the processes that people create while interacting with the object, site, or tradition (see González Zarandona, this volume). By exploring both sides of the spectrum, we argue that it is important to recognise the various motives, modes, and contexts within which heritage destruction occurs. Heritage destruction is often a symptom of a larger (societal) problem rather than the cause or the end in itself (Saldin, 2021) and this is also clearly illustrated in the chapters in this handbook. Heritage destruction is thus a process, often framed and explained through concepts and analytical frameworks such as iconoclasm, vandalism, barbarism, terrorism, nationalism, cultural genocide, cultural and ethnic cleansing, historical revisionism, collateral damage, cultural hegemony, military necessity, or development, among others, with each act of destruction connected to specific conflicts, actors, and/or locations. The terms for heritage destruction are as varied as the contexts in which it occurs in. However, each of these terms (whether for a concept, actor, or other aspects) has been loaded with its own cultural baggage. For example, Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide”, defined vandalism as the systematic and organized destruction of the art and cultural heritage in which the unique genius and achievement of a collectivity are revealed in fields of science, arts and literature … the destruction of a work of art of any nation must be regarded as acts of vandalism directed against world culture. (Lemkin, 1933) Nowadays, scholars would talk about iconoclasm or heritage destruction in those terms, and vandalism may just as easily refer to spray paint on a wall or senseless destruction. 6

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Likewise, not all cases of heritage destruction can be explained using a single concept or motive, as actors and motivations may overlap, and these too often do not correspond to each other. Indeed, as this volume demonstrates, even the same event of heritage destruction and its aftermath can generate different scholarly interpretations, as can the heritage form itself. Rosén, as well as Holtorf and Kristensen (this volume), for example, present opposing views on whether Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas were known internationally before their destruction or whether it was because of it. The same destruction is also often subject to different interpretations in different contexts. The destruction of heritage in the Global South is widely analysed and interpreted through colonial and racist tropes (see Hernández Llosas and Chiu et al., this volume), while heritage destruction in developed nations is usually interpreted as necessary steps towards modernisation and progress (see Lesh and Nichols, this volume). Moreover, a large part of scholarly and media attention usually focusses on large-scale and (frequently) rapid manifestations of heritage destruction while other types of heritage destruction are forgotten. For example, everyday destruction perpetrated by states and/or development actors (i.e., mining companies, real estate developers, etc.) is not always acknowledged with the same international scrutiny or condemnation as the heritage destruction occurring, in the hands of terrorists in the Middle East. Travel writer Bill Bryson (2015) likewise refers to British heritage as being “nibbled to death” by planning regulation failures. Development activities are particularly detrimental to Indigenous heritage, which is not always recognised or well-embedded into local/state or national political and management structures (Nicholas, 2022; see also Hernández Llosas, and Huntley & Wallis, this volume). Such heritage is particularly vulnerable to top-down development activities, occurring with little or no meaningful consultation or collaboration with Indigenous communities, a situation compounded by outdated heritage legislation which was often drafted without appropriate consideration and understandings of Indigenous knowledge, laws, and cultural values. Indeed, Lilley (2016) convincingly demonstrates how the ongoing development-oriented destruction of ancient Indigenous rock art in Murujuga (Western Australia) does not garner the same level of global attention as that resulting from war, likening the heritage destruction at this site to a death by a thousand cuts.

Local versus international perceptions of heritage loss The mediatised focus on destruction also often results in the loss of local voices. Media, governments, and international organisations rarely include the voices of the local community in their communiques, except when the aftermath of heritage destruction becomes a Public Relations exercise (see Leloup, this volume). In such narratives, heritage that is recognised internationally as important is co-opted into narratives of universality, familiarity, and ownership at the expense of the needs and sensitivities of local communities. Once heritage is destroyed, four tendencies are seen to follow (existing on a spectrum). 1 In some instances, while regretting and condemning the destruction, heritage and its values are disregarded because the loss of heritage is not considered as significant as the loss of human lives. 2 For others, heritage destruction is concerning but is treated as separate and/or secondary to the adversely affected people (see Price-Jones, this volume for both). 3 Some stakeholders seem more interested in the fate of heritage sites rather than the fate of the communities which they are associated with (see examples in Press, 2016; Frowe & Matravers, 2019). 7

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4 Some view the loss of heritage as a loss of social value and thus a loss of sense of community in general arguing the two cannot be separated (many authors, this volume). The rhetoric of many international heritage organisations has changed in the last decade to reflect this spectrum: UNESCO, for example, emphasises how destruction can be a war crime and has spoken regularly of cultural cleansing and the impact of destruction on communities. In doing so, it has positioned itself from a marginalised agency in the United Nations system to an acknowledged operational actor with key partners such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) (see Leloup in this volume). However, the damaged sites are often discussed within the conservation paradigm embodied in UNESCO’s cultural conventions, based on universal perceptions of importance and expert opinions. The destruction of the shrines and mausolea in Timbuktu, Mali (most of which were part of a UNESCO World Heritage site) forms an excellent example of the inherent tensions of these approaches. The sites that were destroyed were of clear significance to the local community: UNESCO worked closely with local people to rebuild them. In a landmark case, the Malian government referred the prosecution for the exclusive war crime of destruction of historic and religious buildings to the ICC. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 9 years and 2.7 million euros in reparations to the affected community. For some, this was a key moment for justice … The outcome of Mahdi’s trial is an important contribution towards a comprehensive response to violent extremism, and a strong statement on the role culture should play … This goes beyond Mali: humanity itself is targeted; we are all concerned. (Bokova, 2016) For others, the local communities of people in whose name justice is delivered find the ICC intervention not aligned with their concerns, as the focus on the crime of destruction of cultural heritage appears to sideline other more serious crimes inflicted upon their lives, bodies, and dignity. (Ba, 2020 p.744) Governments and international organisations are accused of putting heritage before people, in particular the so-called universal heritage, which too often is derived from Western canons (García Canclini, 2010 p.72). At its worst, the international focus given to sites like UNESCO World Heritage sites makes them a target for extremists (see Rosén, this volume), the impacts on the ground, however, are equally, if not more concerning, as it can also cause distress among local communities, who feel that their everyday needs for security, shelter, and stability are ignored in favour of excessive amounts spent by international organisations on reconstruction projects that may not align with the desires of the community (Isakhan & Meskell, 2019; see also Duval, 2022). A contradiction becomes evident: the rise of the value of cultural heritage (in both international discourse and the economic market) and an apparent decrease in the value of the human lives attached to that cultural heritage. González Zarandona (this volume) articulates these local-global tensions of heritage destruction in his discussion of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Resetting Memories exhibition held in Mexico. He argues that states such as China 8

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and Mexico, nations with some of the greatest numbers of UNESCO World Heritage Sites outside of Europe, draw on concepts of universal heritage for the purposes of nation building, establishment of a national identity (local), and international image building (global). These, however, often occur at the expense of those diverse local heritages which are not aligned with the state’s vision of a national heritage narrative. The simultaneous building, tearing down, and rebuilding of cultural heritage raise questions on how heritage destruction should be measured (if at all) and how it is perceived. What is lost, why, and to whom does it matter? Many of our authors write of the impact of heritage destruction on them, their cultures, and those whose voices they give precedence to: “when you are destroying a church you are destroying a memory, a history. When there is no history, there is no memory. I feel the same about Syria, but I hurt. My everything has gone” (Armenian man from Aleppo in Isakhan and Barry, this volume). Another telling example of the impact of heritage loss on communities and their collective memories is from Nablus, Palestine: “… Now everything is changing … Ruins, soldiers, we are scared, in the first invasion we saw the bulldozers destroying our neighbour’s house and the old town, we want to stay here” (Ali and Nablusi from Nablus Old City in Abujidi, this volume). There have been several academic publications on such loss (Viejo-Rose, 2011; 2015; Isakhan & Meskell, 2019). From risk management perspectives (see Cunliffe, this volume), loss is loss of value, where heritage value is individually perceived and best managed as a consensus reached between all stakeholders. However, as Price-Jones notes (this volume), there are large gaps in understanding how heritage destruction impacts people. Many studies are qualitative, lacking a consistent comparative framework or an empirical foundation across different times, contexts, and communities. Without this more detailed understanding, the meaning and extent of loss caused by heritage destruction remains at the whim of states, international organisations, and the media. These media exercises can also shape the memories of destruction until the memory can become more real than the event itself, and this in turn shapes the present (see Jones, this volume). The media treatment of the destruction at Palmyra is well studied (and also referenced extensively in this volume), perhaps in part because of its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and similar examples can be found regarding the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001 (Elias, 2013) and in the study by Pollock (2005), who looked at the media narratives surrounding heritage destruction following the 2003 Iraq invasion. These examples indicate that national and international attention and aid are given not only to those whose story is most widely shared but also to those sites which will garner international recognition (see also Labadi, 2020). Any detailed studies of heritage damage, for example, Walasek’s meticulous study of Bosnia (Walasek, 2015), or the detailed reports by the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) Cultural Heritage Initiative for Syria and Iraq,4 highlight not only the internationally important sites but also the hundreds of other tangible heritage sites that are damaged in conflict, many of great significance for local communities – to say nothing of their cultural practices. As Isakhan and Shahab (2020) note, the Yezidi, whose genocide was widely discussed with international horror in media, were nonetheless left to fund reconstruction of their demolished shrines largely on their own. As understandings of heritage destruction advance, the multidisciplinary nature of the field becomes increasingly evident: illicit trafficking, for example, is part of a wider context of art crime, and sits within law, international policy, security, and criminology studies (Bowman Proulx, 2010; Brodie, 2015; Nemeth, 2015; Oosterman & Yates, 2021), to say nothing of the destruction and loss caused by the initial looting and its ongoing impact on associated communities. 9

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In the absence of a commonly accepted definition of heritage, its destruction, and of loss, which are mired in a context of historical practice, limited yet binding laws, multi-level politics and tensions, media interest, selective aid, and cultural baggage, how then can we methodically study heritage destruction from a holistic point of view? Methods, as we will show, are no less complicated.

Heritage destruction: Methods and theoretical frameworks The main disciplines that study the phenomenon have only recently begun to pay attention to heritage destruction as a field in its own right. As David Freedberg (2021 p.x) notes, when he started researching iconoclasm (the breaking of images) in the 1960s, there was only one previously published summary, by art historian Julius von Végh published in 1915, on the topic. Louis Réau’s Histoire du Vandalisme was published much later in Paris in 1959. Another book entirely devoted to the topic was not published until the early 1970s (see Warnke, 1973), and the first comprehensive global survey of the phenomenon was published in the late 1990s (see Gamboni, 1997). Even systematic reviews of threats and damage to heritage are relatively recent (see compilations in Cunliffe, 2013; Zaina & Nabati Mazloumi, 2021; and Cunliffe, this volume). Those coming to the study of the topic were (and frequently still are) confronted with a harsh truth: methods are yet to be developed to study the full depth and breadth of heritage destruction. While studying heritage destruction, the voices of the perpetrators and the victims – recorded through ethnographic methods, oral histories, media reports, or narratives – are key, but unfortunately they remain, for the most part, undocumented. Heritage destruction is expressed and evoked through words and images. When objects, sites, or traditions are damaged, it is difficult to establish a particular method to evoke the loss of meaning and the meaning of loss. Could sensorial and affective experiences and gestures, based on text and images, be enough? Destruction cannot always be evoked only through words due to linguistic barriers (hence images are also necessary). As a global phenomenon, heritage destruction also requires the knowledge of multiple languages to make sense of destruction in different contexts. Furthermore, the intensity or the traumatic nature of the experience may not lend itself to the production of stories, narratives, or oral testimonies. People who experienced it may prefer not to relive the trauma, or they simply do not care about the value of heritage. In other cases, destruction cannot be expressed in words because there are no witnesses or, if there are, they might prefer to remain silent and avoid further destruction or possible conflict in order to survive. Destruction can also be commodified by media, governments, and actors, including academics. Witnesses of destruction may be wary and tired of the constant demand to go over the destruction and its meanings for the benefit of other people when they would rather not talk about heritage but about their lives and their future. As a result, scholars who study heritage destruction use different sources – material traces, oral histories, interviews, testimonies, satellite images, digital recreations, archival material, and security footage – to understand the phenomenon. No method is better than the next. However, the amount of data and evidence may limit the analysis and interpretation of destruction. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies applied to the study and analysis of heritage destruction can be seen throughout the works cited in this volume, but there are few comprehensive theoretical frameworks. Studies of heritage destruction are nuanced and deepened by an understanding of the motivations of the actors, which may be a domain of study by itself, but although these “are sometimes accessible directly from individuals 10

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or groups, or through documentary sources”, for other acts, we can only rely “on the evidence of the resulting material culture in isolation” (Chapman, 2018 p.2). As perceptions towards heritage destruction have been evolving (Holtorf, 2006; 2015; 2018; Harrison, 2013a; DeSilvey, 2017), the available methods of study are also changing, developing as technology advances. For example, remote sensing techniques are now a commonplace way to study damage to archaeological sites and buildings, but they have only become easily available and economically viable in the last decade at a useful resolution (Lasaponara & Masini, 2017). Remote techniques are also criticised for their failure to consider the human dimensions of the study (Herscher, 2011; Quntar & Daniels, 2016). Yet, attempts to combine functional assessments of damage severity with loss of value are in their infancy (see the study on Aleppo by UNESCO et al., 2018).5 Ethical standards, as well as conceptual frameworks, are not able to keep pace (see Apaydin, 2020, and Price-Jones, this volume). In brief, destruction is never neutral and its study is also influenced by the positionality and privilege of researchers. Nor do acts of destruction always share traits that could be analysed to create a typology, as the motivations, actors, and purposes constantly change. As Gamboni (2002 p.89) noted: “the recurrence of several traits in phenomena separated by time and place does not mean that there exists a timeless grammar of iconoclasm”, a truism for any form of heritage destruction (cf. Kolrud & Prusac, 2014). Compounding the problem, or perhaps because of it, heritage is frequently conceptualised as a product rather than a process: this has resulted in a narrow focus on the single event of destruction, usually at a single site, disregarding its impact on the wider cultural landscape (cf. Byrne, 2003). Unable to deal with the overwhelming complexity of approaches, many resort to a descriptive approach of effects, documenting the ways damage occurs. Scholarship has yet to decide whether such documentation is a method of study in its own right or simply a first step to deeper understanding. Notwithstanding, scholarship in this area enjoys a healthy production of theories, methods, and histories by scholars working in different disciplines who have devised and adapted different methods to study heritage destruction and make sense of the destruction of cultural heritage, as well as how to document it, and to assist in the design of better protection frameworks. Figure 1.2 offers a visualisation of the wide variety of approaches in studying heritage destruction, which by no means aims to be definitive but a stepping-stone in studying this phenomenon. So how can we move forwards? Viejo-Rose and Sørensen (2015 p.282) argue that conceptualising heritage as a process broadens approaches to its understanding and analysis, compelling one to also look at the deeper histories of destruction, as well as its impact in the aftermath. This approach, also advocated in other fields, such as those which focus on art and iconoclasm (see for example Gamboni, 1997; Flood, 2002; Clay, 2012; Noyes, 2013; and also González Zarandona and Boldrick, this volume) broadens understanding, not just of what heritage is, but of the wider context it sits in, and its destruction. As an example, art historian Richard Clay (2012) took a major step forward in breaking down disciplinary silos in his studies of iconoclasm: he proposed to study destruction as the transformation of signs whereby the meaning of the sign is constantly changing and therefore can be studied at different times with different outcomes. As a result, he was able to study the positive perceptions of iconoclasm by the less privileged members of society and the reactions from the elite during the French Revolution. To widen this concept, the meaning of a heritage site, for example, may change after it is damaged, and the damage is perceived by society in different ways. Other scholars such as Plets (2017 p.22), have explored the change in meaning at Palmyra following the attacks by IS6, while Lesh and Nichols (this 11

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Figure 1.2 The ways of approaching the study of heritage destruction. ©Cunliffe González Zarandona, and Saldin (2023).

volume) explore changing conservation values in the context of development-driven heritage destruction in Melbourne (and see many other examples throughout this volume). Indeed, as Viejo-Rose and Sørensen (2015) argue, diverse approaches to the understanding and analysis of heritage destruction mean that critical evaluation of this concept is necessary, and this volume moves some way towards that.

Scope and structure of the book We have encouraged authors whose work sits across the conceptual spectrum of understandings of heritage to provide broad engagement with the field. The examination of the problem is not limited to one discipline of the Humanities or Social Sciences but influenced by many. Our contributors come from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds, examining heritage destruction from multiple perspectives, juxtaposing theoretical and legal frameworks with conceptual contexts to nuance understanding alongside a wide distribution of geographical and temporal case studies. The contributors rose to our challenge admirably, offering 12

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insights from aesthetics, media, history, current practice, politics, policy, and law, across the spectrum of peace and conflict. In doing so, this volume addresses the inherent tensions in protection versus destruction, favouring the past over present progress, or present progress over someone else’s past, and the elitism often inherent in such protection. The handbook does not seek to define good or bad practice, or to elucidate a universal paradigm but to encourage a holistic exploration of the issues to establish the importance of understanding and studying the destruction of heritage. This handbook encourages an understanding within a wider framework that encompasses not only theory but also legal, military, social, aesthetic, and ontological issues linked to the destruction, widening understanding of the constraints and contexts. As a result, the volume does not aim to present neutral, impartial, and unbiased accounts of events. For many of the situations described, there is no such thing. To nod to Just War Theory (Baker, 2015), a war may be waged for just reasons, but in an unjust manner, or may have no just cause but be fought justly. Even in peace, political constraints may limit free speech from across the globe, and we thank those authors for responding to our invitations despite professional and personal risk. While we as editors seek to maintain the academic integrity of the accounts here, we have respected the right of these authors to present their lived experiences as those who witnessed such events. The handbook consists of four sections. The first section seeks to understand heritage destruction. It explores the overarching and underlying drivers of heritage destruction, and what the key constraints, contexts, and discourses surrounding it are. Following the introduction, Claire Smith starts the volume, providing an overview of the contexts in which heritage is destroyed, the effects of loss, and the different ways communities address that loss with reconstruction. Erin L. Thompson explores the discourses of heritage destruction in Chapter 3, including key terms such as heritage and destruction, placing them within a framework of values. These discourses focus on certain aspects of destruction and ignore or even erase other aspects. Touching on many of the themes recurrant throughout the book, Thompson explores the critical (and competing) discourses of necessity, preservation, and vandalism. In Chapter 4, Lucas Lixinski explores the international legal framework against the destruction of heritage in peacetime. He focuses particularly on two international standardsetting instruments: the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention and the 2003 UNESCO Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. He queries the assumption in international law that the destruction of heritage is always wrong and explores the impacts of this paradigm on the communities living in, with, and around heritage, who may be trapped in a conservation paradigm that is antithetical to the idea of heritage as living culture. Patty Gerstenblith traces the development of international legal rules and norms during armed conflict in Chapter 5, noting that, even as they exist today, these provisions have generally not succeeded in protecting the world’s cultural heritage from destruction, damage, looting and theft during armed conflict and military occupation, with a view to current attempts to prevent future destruction. In Chapter 6, Federico Lenzerini argues that heritage destruction is principally and primarily a crime against communities and persons whose human rights may be heavily affected by such destruction. He notes this approach is particularly opportune as human rights remain applicable even in the event of armed conflict – when many, if not most, instances of intentional destruction of cultural heritage actually occur – as well as offering more effective avenues of redress to victims. 13

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Elisa Novic looks at heritage destruction as part of genocide in Chapter 7, exploring the historical, legal, and conceptual debates around the term, and discusses the extent to which these spheres may open up to encompass instances of heritage destruction. In Chapter 8, and finishing the first section, Emma Cunliffe seeks to address the lack of a holistic comparable framework to assess the damage and its motivations across the spectrum of peace and conflict. She identifies theoretical, temporal, and spatial contexts and constraints and applies a risk-based approach to establish a new framework for risk of destruction to offer insights into methods for heritage protection. The second section explores specific thematic contexts in which heritage destruction is interpreted, recognising how drivers and contexts change and in turn change our understanding and how various parties use and shape heritage destruction for their own ends. Tom Dawson explores the effects of natural disasters and the environment in Chapter 9, with a specific focus on the impact of geological disasters, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, which often cause rapid and catastrophic damage, affecting natural, tangible, and intangible heritage. It is directly followed by Chapter 10, in which Dawson explores the impact of atmospheric disasters, noting the critical role that climate change is already playing in heritage destruction. Nicolò Marchetti and Federico Zaina explore the impact of dams on archaeological sites in Chapter 11, noting that thousands of archaeological sites and large portions of cultural landscapes around the globe have been fully submerged or partially damaged by dams and other hydraulic infrastructures, yet such impacts are often neglected by those studying heritage destruction. They explore the types, extent, and reasons for such damage, citing economic development and political interests, often fostered by the low level of awareness of local populations towards their heritage. Moving away from sites, Stacy Boldrick tackles art destruction in Chapter 12, taking as her subject both the representation of destruction in art and of art, as well as the use of destructive practices and materials in the making of new artwork. This chapter addresses the roles contested art objects and their destruction play in relation to the longer histories of colonisation, the contemporary forces of globalisation, and the ideological positions destructive actions represent. In Chapter 13, José Antonio González Zarandona analyses an exhibition of Ai Weiwei held in Mexico City to interpret the imminent aesthetics of the most renown contemporary artist in the world. In doing so, he opens up the debate to claim that a new turn in contemporary art is in motion: the heritage turn. The chapter notes the emerging interest of contemporary artists in the discourse of heritage destruction and analyses Ai Weiwei’s work as a case study. In Chapter 14, Mehiyar Kathem explores the impact of state politics in more detail, viewed through the lens of heritage predation, defined as the process of exploiting cultural resources for political purposes. He argues that heritage destruction, including cultural appropriation, reconfiguration, and partial or complete erasure of cultural property, occurs across societies and in political systems characterised by different structures of power. Heritage predation is a lens into the relationship between centres of power and what happens over time to cultural property and other forms of heritage, explored through case studies from Iraq and India. Closing the gap from conflict to recovery, in Chapter 15, Olga Demetriou and Elena Miltiadis provide an overview of the challenges faced in the recovery of architecture and heritage destroyed during conflict. They address the temporal aspects of such recovery, in the immediate aftermath of conflict, as well as in processes that unfold in the longer-term, with case studies from Italy and Cyprus. 14

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In Chapter 16, Christopher W. Jones explores state, politics, and destruction through the lens of media narratives using the destruction of heritage in Palmyra (and its aftermath) as a case study to explore competing representations and narratives by the Islamic State, USA, British, Syrian and Russian media. The chapter illustrates how each actor weaponised Syrian heritage to create propaganda that would improve their international reputation in the face of the Syrian conflict. Staying with Palmyra, in Chapter 17, Frederik Rosén also looks at the impact of politics but taking as his subject how efforts by NGOs and the international community to protect cultural heritage may sometimes generate adverse effects and even instigate destruction. He argues that the more we talk about the value of cultural heritage and the importance of protecting it, the more interesting it becomes for some groups to target it as part of their strategy of war and a means to garner greater visibility to their cause. Political focus contributes to pulling cultural heritage into the heart of conflicts, explored through studies in Afghanistan, Syria, and Mali. Mathilde Leloup also explores Mali, using it as a lens to explore how UNESCO framed heritage destruction as an act of cultural cleansing and its rehabilitation in the case of Timbuktu as a success story contributing to the fight against violent extremism. She argues that this framing allowed UNESCO, as a specialised agency marginalised in the United Nations system, to reposition itself by being acknowledged as a major operational actor, acting on the ground through strategic partnerships with the ICC and the United Nations Security Council, ultimately turning destruction into opportunity. In Chapter 19, and finishing the second section, Jennifer Price-Jones, a humanitarian consultant, explores the way heritage destruction is conceptualised by humanitarians and the humanitarian system. She notes the critical disparities in heritage and humanitarian work programmes, and the core ethical differences. Despite these there is a growing body of evidence that argues humanitarians should consider the impacts of heritage destruction on affected people in their work, as doing so could not only benefit crisis affected people experiencing heritage destruction but may also lead to better humanitarian outcomes. The third section looks at specific geographic and temporal case studies that explore nuanced expressions of specific situations of heritage destruction. While these case studies are context specific, the issues they raise and explore are relevant to interpretations of heritage destruction globally. Nigel Pollard opens this section with a historical case study exploring heritage damage in the First and Second World Wars, the most significant state warfare in history, in Chapter 20. He explores the impact on heritage of technological and industrial innovation and the emergence of war that was total both in its industrialisation and its ideologies, in a context where law failed to keep pace with such innovation. Keeping with the Second World War, Mattias Legnér moves to a different battlefront for Chapter 21 – the understudied area of northern Europe, specifically Scandinavia and the Baltic region. He looks not only at the types of destruction but also the impact on local and national heritage as well as identity resulting from it. Moving forward in time, in Chapter 22 Helen Walasek explores the Wars of Yugoslav Succession that accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia from 1991. She details how the conflicts’ typically aggressive ethno-national and ethno-religious exclusivism incorporated attempts by state and/or paramilitary forces and/or local secessionist actors to create monoethnic territories by forcefully cleansing its unwanted populations. These actions, she notes, included destroying the built markers of the expelled groups’ presence and cultural identity or structures emblematic of a multi-ethnic coexistence. 15

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Angela S. Chiu, Helena M. Arose, and Ben B. Evans explore heritage destruction in Cambodia in Chapter 23, unlocking the complex issues of destruction and looting during the war, and its aftermath, as Cambodia transitioned to peace. The threat, they argue, has changed, but increasing demand from the art market ensures that the risk to heritage remains high, resulting in Cambodian authorities making cultural heritage preservation a national focus. Nour A. Munawar takes a more recent conflict (and, as of the time of writing, still ongoing) in Chapter 24 – Syria. The destruction is examined according to three different phases of the conflict from 2011 to 2021. Each phase examines the destruction of cultural heritage with a particular emphasis on sites and monuments that have been in the news in the past decade, such as the World Heritage sites of the Ancient City of Aleppo and the site of Palmyra, and archaeological sites in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. While the focus is mostly on the destruction of heritage in the context of Syria’s recent and ongoing conflict, he argues that it is important to understand the current destruction as part of a continuum of destruction taking place in that region; coming to terms with this, he contends, is an important aspect of recovery and reconciliation. Following the transition to case studies exploring the cycle of peace and conflict, Zainab Bahrani traces the increasing destruction and erasure of history in Iraq in Chapter 25, through the era of colonialism, the Gulf Wars, the US occupation, and its aftermath, arguing that the recent destruction can be better understood in a long-term view of a history of colonialimperialist violence. She argues that the massive scale of displacement and uncounted deaths, the destruction of prominent monuments and traditional neighbourhoods, and the extraction of archives and antiquities are connected parts of the same biopolitical restructuring of the domain of life and livelihood. Focussing on the Syrian and Iraqi communities affected by violence, in Chapter 26, Benjamin Isakhan and James Barry explore Iraqi and Syrian responses to heritage destruction under the Islamic State. Seeking to engage first-hand with the people affected and offer them a critical and sorely need voice, this chapter documents the results of 53 interviews with Iraqis and Syrians, many of whom were eyewitnesses to heritage destruction and were forcibly displaced by the Islamic State. Ali Mozaffari and James Barry explore heritage destruction in the South Caucasus region in Chapter 27, with a specific focus on Armenia and Azerbaijan. Importantly, heritage destruction in this context is changing, with outright destruction now being replaced with the alteration of sites to deny the heritage claims of ethnic rivals. In Chapter 28, Nurhan Abujidi explores urbicide as an expression of war and political violence in Palestinian cities, institutions, and symbols of identity. She specifically looks at construction in and destruction of the Old City of Nablus as a result of the ongoing processes of Israeli occupation. The impact of urbicide, she argues, goes beyond the physical and extends to the spatial, human experience, and collective memory. Keeping with the theme of urban development, in Chapter 29, Mohamed Kenawi examines the forces driving change in Egypt, with a particular focus on how urban development affects privately owned houses and religious buildings (specifically Coptic Christian Churches). He argues that the tensions between approaching such built heritage in terms of enhancing their functionality have disregarded their historical or heritage value, contributing to their destruction. Kenawi posits that there needs to be ongoing attempts at educating citizens in why the safeguarding of such buildings is important and why this should matter to them should be periodically reassessed. 16

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James Lesh and David Nichols move to Australia in Chapter 30, where they explore heritage destruction and development in Melbourne, looking at a site in the present day Melbourne CBD that has been redeveloped three times over the last century, first as the Eastern Market, then the Southern Cross Hotel and currently the SX towers. Urban destruction, they note, is transformational, yet while their case study location holds a prominent place in the cultural, architectural, historical, social, and economic life of Melbourne, no incarnation has achieved sufficient cultural value to reach a heritage threshold for being conserved. In doing so, they explore key issues around paradigms of value, conservation, destruction, and progress. Peace, of course, does not mean peaceful. Jillian Huntley and Lynley A. Wallis explore the critical topic of state sanctioned destruction of Indigenous heritage in Chapter 31, where governments privilege economic imperatives for development, with a specific focus on Indigenous heritage in the Pilbara region of north-western Australia. They outline the complexities Indigenous Australians face in decision-making about their heritage, identifying barriers for effective protection of their places of cultural significance, both tangible and intangible, arguing that heritage destruction is not inevitable, despite inherent power imbalances. María Isabel Hernández Llosas takes us to Latin America in Chapter 32, exploring manifestations of heritage destruction as a political tool for legitimising power in colonial and postcolonial contexts. Heritage, she reminds us, is a constructed concept, and western constructions are frequently used as expressions of power to overwrite local conceptions of heritage – with global consequences. Our handbook closes with transformations: Chapter 33 gives a long-term perspective of heritage destruction and sustainability by Cornelius Holtorf and Troels Myrup Kristensen. They propose that heritage destruction can be seen as a medium and manifestation of dynamic transformations that ultimately allow more sustainable forms of development to emerge, not the least when seen in the context of long-term change. They argue for a critical and open-minded discussion of the existing and prospective effects of cultural heritage in society, potentially even developing a code of not simply conservation but destruction, change, and decay. This volume cannot claim to be comprehensive: there is no such thing. We have not attempted to include every conflict, just as we have not included every instance of peacetime destruction – or those which fall in between that spectrum. To some extent, we were guided by our contributors and their interests, expertise, and perspectives. However, we believe that the variety of contexts and interpretations presented here do offer new, widely applicable insights for the study of heritage destruction.

Themes, issues, and (new) approaches The contributors to this volume have raised and, when possible, addressed several challenges and themes and new avenues for scholarship and discussion.

Understanding heritage and its destruction The first is, of course, what we mean by heritage. As Viejo-Rose and Sørensen have shown (2015), concepts of heritage are constantly evolving alongside concepts of heritage destruction, but not at the same time, and certainly not at the same pace. The contributors have covered a wide variety of tangible and intangible heritage types, but we particularly emphasise Hernández Llosas’ chapter in this volume. For many cultures around the world, such 17

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distinctions into heritage types are at best artificial and at worst actively harmful. For them, humans, their traditions, and their cultural and natural heritage are a unified whole. Heritage, its destruction, and its protection are a process (Viejo-Rose & Sørensen, 2015), but that process is formed of constituent parts that must be acknowledged. This volume contains many examples of communities whose heritage was not recognised by those in authority, resulting in destruction, or, as Lesh and Nichols explore, a site where there was simply not enough community impetus (and perhaps an inadequate regulatory framework) to warrant preservation. Crucially, we have also included art and its destruction – and its power to explore destruction. It is unquestionably considered heritage, yet far too often, it is treated separately (see, for example, Gamboni, 1997).7 Rather than constraining our understanding, we argue that the diverse definitions and approaches to heritage destruction instead enrich and expand our analytical approaches to understanding its complexities and also serve to breakdown siloed approaches to its framing and analysis. However, this broad understanding has three key implications. Firstly, there is a tension inherent in so broad an understanding of heritage. Everything is important to someone, and we must acknowledge that not everything should, or can be kept (Holtorf, 2001; Harrison, 2013b). The ever-broadening definitions of heritage offer increasing challenges for preservation as resources grow ever scarcer. Secondly, destruction is not always negative. Destruction can bring new interpretations: the hermeneutics involved in the interpretation brings to the fore new perspectives from which we can analyse and interpret these unfortunate events. As González Zarandona, Boldrick, and Holtorf and Kristensen explore in this volume, for example, not all acts of destruction are perpetuated by disinterested and profit driven real estate developers, authoritarian states, and extremists. Artists, for example, explore what cannot be said, using art to navigate the complex social and political situations that govern destruction and highlight the complexities. Destruction thus sends powerful messages. Thirdly, academic scholarship must situate itself more clearly when discussing heritage destruction. It can no longer be acceptable to make sweeping statements of the extent of destruction when referring to a particular instance. This is not to suggest that specific case studies have no value; the depth explored in detailed case studies of particular types of heritage, destroyed in particular situations, can deepen our understanding of those situations, provide critical nuance to any analysis, and offer comparators to provide insight elsewhere. However, it is important to be just as explicit about what is not included as what is. As Cunliffe notes in her chapter, historic buildings, libraries, archives, and museums in urban areas are often more vulnerable during fighting, for example, while rural sites, such as archaeological sites and monuments, may be unaffected. Many types of damage affect specific types of heritage, and discussions of damage must not exacerbate the same patterns of erasure that take place when the damage itself occurs. This is not only a problem present in academia but also in media. In 2020, after corporate mining giant Rio Tinto destroyed Juukan Gorge in Western Australia (see Huntley & Wallis, this volume), The Canberra Times published a cartoon in May 2020 by David Pope, where he explicitly compared the destruction of this Indigenous heritage site to that of the 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban (see Figure 1.3). While comparing both instances of destruction has some visual merit, the context behind each destruction was different, and therefore, one cannot make sweeping comparisons to explain them. This also raises questions as to why and to what end such comparison was needed in the first place and what did it ultimately achieve? Such instances underpin the importance of understanding heritage and its destruction in a nuanced manner and are therefore one of the key aims of this volume. 18

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Figure 1.3 Cartoon on heritage destruction by David Pope, published in May 2020. The cartoon juxtaposes the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of the Buddha statutes in Afghanistan with the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site in Juukan Gorge, Australia by the Rio Tinto mining company.

Understanding damage The types of damage listed by Pollard and Legnér in the First and Second World Wars – the deliberate and incidental destruction (particularly from bombing), looting, and noncombat military misuse (whether during conflict or occupation) – remain the key causes of conflict damage today. Legnér notes how “conquest did not end with peace but continued as a way of cultural terraforming in order to adjust the past in a way that suited the political leadership”. Similar patterns of destruction are also evident in Cambodia, the (former) Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, and the Caucasus, and it would be tempting, then, to suggest that nothing has changed. Yet examination of the case studies presented here shows new facets of damage and destruction which significantly expand our understanding – an evolving constant. This is evidenced in three important ways. The first is the breadth of damage to heritage discussed in this volume. The damage caused by dams is examined alongside farming, geological events, disasters, climate change, and economic development, which in turn are examined alongside conflicts, looting, occupation, reconstruction, nationalism and other socio-political interests, erasure, ignorance, and protest – many of which are exacerbated by a low level of awareness of local populations towards heritage. Destruction during occupation becomes particularly relevant to themes of the volume through comparison of case studies: it is a situation that sits at the nexus of peace, conflict, law, authority, state, and community. Accounts by Legnér from the Second World War, Munawar’s mention of the Golan Heights, Mozaffari and Barry’s inclusion in the Caucasus, together with Abujidi’s exploration of urbicide in Palestinian Nablus, address this issue. 19

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Secondly, new studies provide a greater depth of understanding of effects and impacts. This includes affected populations and their heritage. Isakhan and Barry (this volume), for example, chronicle responses of those impacted by heritage destruction (see also Isakhan & Meskell, 2019; Isakhan & Shahab, 2020), while Price-Jones (this volume) lays out compelling arguments supporting the need for greater research to understand the impact of heritage destruction and the priorities of crisis-affected people. Knowledge of how heritage is impacted is also increasing. Cunliffe’s chapter cites numerous studies that provide significant detail to otherwise sweeping statements of loss, such as the depth of archaeological sites disturbed and lost by ploughing and by foundations for new developments. New technology continues to provide us with new opportunities for understanding (see, for example, the work of the Heritage in the Crossfire project, who use geoscience techniques to understand ballistic and explosive impacts on historic stone, with important ramifications for conservation theory).8 In his chapter, Dawson provides detailed accounts of the impacts of extreme weather events, geological disasters, and climate change and how they not only impact heritage but also can kill many thousands of people and destroy entire settlements. “Natural events”, he notes, “become disasters when they have a significant negative impact upon the things that humans value”. As we continue to broaden our understanding and recognition of heritage, the extent of these impacts can only increase. It is a relatively recent understanding in disaster management that there is no such thing as a natural disaster: such events only become disasters when they impact humans (García Acosta, 2019; Kelman, 2022). As the heritage community seeks to respond better to such disasters and to support those affected by heritage destruction, we are learning many lessons from the more experienced disaster response colleagues. Blue Shield, for example, is actively looking at how to incorporate the standards set by organisations such as the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction9, and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative works closely with the USA and international colleagues in disaster response agencies (Corine Wegener, pers. comm, October 2022). New approaches taken from other fields have much to teach us but must nonetheless be used with care. To return to the position put forward by Hernández Llosas (this volume; see also Byrne et al., 2013; Taylor & Lennon, 2011), humanity should not be separated from the natural world. Thirdly, the temporal scale offered in this volume has further potential to expand our understanding. The end of a war is not the end of conflict, and the ramifications can be critical. Bahrani demonstrates compellingly that the destruction of heritage in Iraq must be looked at in the longue durée, and with several other authors (Legnér; Chiu et al.; Mozaffari & Barry, this volume) examine the impacts of destruction in their case studies at the time, and after. Legnér notes how the war “fundamentally changed the landscape of parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic states, as well as the cultural practices of this region”, while Chiu et al. note that almost thirty years after the war, “it was estimated that up to 98% of Cambodia’s historic temples had been partially or completely destroyed, while at least one temple per day was being plundered according to another assessment”. The long-term consequences of conflict are significant. Demetriou and Miltiadis (this volume) look to post-conflict reconstruction, noting the difficulties of dealing with the past in contexts where processes of reconciliation are largely absent results in the bypassing of major sites in urban cityscapes from the register of ‘heritage,’ leading to neglect, ruination, or disengagement not only with the sites themselves, but also in relation to the wider collective histories within which these sites are situated. 20

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However, it is not only the cultural landscape of the region affected, but more widely as the demands of the art market follow the conflicts far from the initial war. Peacetime impacts, too, are often best understood in the long term. Loss of single sites or buildings may be overlooked (or may be critical, such as the destruction of Australia’s Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto), but over time the entire character of a place can change, and patterns of behaviour are established to demonstrate that destruction was not an isolated occurrence but reflective of significant imbalances in preservation, and societal changes. Only by exploring the breadth of these situations can we move beyond the mediatised presentation and circumscribed consumption of destruction.

Experience, perception, and narrative It is clear that heritage and its destruction can no longer be considered as isolated incidents: the destruction experienced by local communities can have far-reaching consequences, not only over the long term but contemporaneously, spread through media and especially social media, and utilised accordingly. Governments have long used heritage in national narratives, and today even terrorists have become active participants in such strategies, carefully crafting socially mediated terrorism to spread their messages (Smith et al., 2015; González Zarandona et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2019), but so have the communities themselves. When the unrest in Syria escalated into conflict in late 2011 and early 2012, Cunliffe was volunteering for the Global Heritage Fund, monitoring potential damage to Apamea (on the tentative UNESCO World Heritage List) and Carchemish (a major archaeological site). Social media was then still relatively new, and many international experts had not yet opened accounts on platforms like Twitter or Facebook. Cunliffe was repeatedly advised by senior international heritage professionals and archaeologists that there was little to no site damage. Regular checking of social media showed that was not the only case, but that communities had come together to form groups of interest, some even forming civil society organisations, sharing photos and videos of damage. The excessive looting at Apamea, for example, was reported in an Arabic newspaper in January 2012 (Ayoub, 2012), but it was dismissed by those Cunliffe spoke to as hyperbole and exaggeration. However, when Google Earth updated their satellite imagery in April 2012, it sadly proved all too true. To try and combat the widespread disbelief and encourage support for colleagues in Syria, the Global Heritage Fund published Cunliffe’s report in May of that year, collating Syrian stories of damage (Cunliffe, 2012). It was one of the first published near-real time overviews of damage as it was occurring. Previous studies were largely forced to wait until ground visits or satellite imagery were possible and were limited by not only safety but the time available to visit sites and collect data, or by the quality of imagery. Today, we take real-time access to social media reports and mobile phone conversations almost for granted. Photos of damage travel around the world faster than the sun, and satellites are positioned to confirm damage within days of new reports at key sites. More than ever before, communities have the power to make their voices heard. So why, then, does the international heritage community focus too often on the accounts of those considered (international) experts? Thompson’s exploration of the discourse of preservation and destruction stands us in good stead to approach this issue. She identifies three discourses of destruction in market countries (though her points are more widely applicable): necessity, preservation, and vandalism: Each discourse focuses on certain aspects of destruction and ignore or even erases other aspects. The way that pieces of information are either heavily weighted or 21

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missing changes the results of the discourse, by spurring participants to take different actions not only in relation to destruction, but to heritage as a whole … A discourse, once selected, seems to lead its participants to its foreordained conclusion regardless of the facts of any particular destruction it encounters. For those far removed from the actual event, the consumption of the event, and the context of that consumption, becomes of relevance in and of itself. We are active consumers in how heritage destruction is mediated and how its destruction and mediatisation has taken a central role in emphasising the value of heritage as an immovable and tangible aspect of our human and universal identity (see, for example, Garduño Freeman & González Zarandona, 2021). The advances in technology offer unparalleled opportunities to understand heritage destruction, but too often, it occurs at the expense of those affected. A satellite image can tell us the percentage of a site destroyed, but it cannot tell us what is lost from the number of looting holes, what knowledge can never be recovered, or who is affected by the destruction and what the impact is on them. One of the most understudied aspects of heritage destruction is the documentation and recording of the perception of all those involved in the destruction – not just communities but perpetrators and authorities. Perceptions of destruction can be just as important as the destruction itself, as explored by Cunliffe and Curini (2018) in their analysis of the perceptions among Arabic speakers on Twitter of the destruction carried out by the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, the destruction of mosques and shrines garnered greater attention than that of archaeological sites, while Western media focussed on the latter. Jones’ chapter also provides an excellent case study of such alternative viewpoints. While the Islamic State sought to present its destruction of Palmyra as a recapitulation of the actions of Abraham and Muhammad manifested through the modern day destruction of symbols of Syrian nationalism, USA and British media presented the site as part of the universal heritage of all humankind, while claiming it as a forgotten part of Western heritage. The Syrian Arab Republic and Russia, on the other hand, also laid claim to the universal heritage model to present the government of Bashar al-Assad as a defender of civilisation against the barbarism of the Islamic State. Rosén discusses the destruction from the perspective of UNESCO, which also framed the site as one with universal value (the consequences of which are discussed in the following section). We certainly have come a long way from previous experiences recording the perceptions of all those involved in the destruction. In 1975, when the painting The Night Watch by Rembrandt was slashed by a mentally ill individual in Amsterdam, the director of Public Relations at the Rijksmuseum declared: “The assailant and his motives are wholly uninteresting to us; for one cannot apply normal criteria to the motivations of someone who is mentally disturbed” (in Freedberg, 2021 [1985] pp.135–136). Individuals who attacked art and destroyed heritage were automatically deemed mentally unfit (a tactic that was repeated in 2015 when it was said that the members of the Islamic State who damaged artefacts were considered barbarians). There was no interest in knowing more about the real motivations of the perpetrators to destroy culturally significant pieces of art and heritage. As Freedberg (2021 [1985] pp.137–139) elaborates, talking about the damage done to paintings (and heritage) was considered a taboo in academic circles because it could only encourage further acts of violence; a thesis that finds striking resonance in Rosén’s argument. The more we talk about the value of cultural heritage and the importance of protecting it, the more likely it will be targeted (Gamboni 2001). Yet, despite this very real risk, today, the opposite of that taboo is true. Scholars analyse all angles of the destruction to produce a holistic view of the attack by 22

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including the motives of the perpetrators and sometimes even the voices of those who were affected by the attack. Where possible, we have encouraged authors to write about their countries, but we have also sought to encourage wider debate on the issues raised. The extent to which we have succeeded was a subject of some discussion between the editors. How can we weigh perception and lived experience against apparent facts, scholarship against morality, or the international pressures of ongoing political situations, and the uneven power relations that affect access to knowledge and the ability to share it? This volume has attempted to give space to multiple voices, including those directly affected to write about their countries, but we acknowledge that even the contributors to this volume, to whom we are grateful, are themselves a particular subset of all those affected by heritage destruction.

Responsibility We have touched several times on the roles of states, governments, and those in authority or power in both heritage destruction and its preservation: the topic is not new, but there are, nonetheless, points worth addressing and new concepts to highlight. As in the other spheres, the breadth of cases explored by the contributors nuance our understanding of the contexts of both preservation and destruction. Kathem introduces the new concept of heritage predation as a lens with which to analyse heritage destruction. It is “the process of exploiting cultural resources for political purposes”. The concept offers a lens to better understand the relationship between centres of power and the fate of cultural property and other forms of heritage over time, and thus provides a crucial window into heritage destruction in Iraq. His analysis follows on from, and complements, Bahrani. This volume comes to print twenty years after the Coalition invasion of Iraq, and yet destruction continues to occur in new and complex ways. Iraq’s fragmented political structures and political power plays use and destroy heritage to create equally fragmented narratives. As noted above, it is critical to be clear about what types of heritage are affected. Tragically the answer is all of them. Iraq provides further evidence of how international politics can significantly affect national heritage protection. Bahrani notes how, although both the Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage and UNESCO requested an inventory of war damage, the request was denied by the UN Security Council because of the international embargo on Iraq. Such an inventory has, to this day, never taken place. Indigenous heritage in postcolonial settler societies fares no better, if not worse, in state practice: Huntley and Wallis draw attention to “tokenistic stakeholder engagement; grossly unequal negotiation positions; [and] government agendas that prioritise development over cultural heritage protection”. Yet, although international actors expect states to protect their own cultural property, they now take a greater interest in the actions of those states. Governments can no longer do what they want with their heritage expecting the rest of the world to remain silent. International actors are now inclined to protest the destruction of heritage in someone else’s territory. Weiss and Connelly (2017) for example, suggest that the international doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (which argues that states have a moral duty to intervene in the sovereign affairs of another state to protect lives if a state is unable to do) should be applied to cultural property (cf. Frowe & Matravers, 2019). As a result of the increasing international interest in national affairs (see examples above), “any destruction has a greater potential to cause international conflict now than in the past” (Wangkeo, 2003 p.264).

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The problem becomes even bigger when we consider the role of international heritage organisations such as UNESCO, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on Archives (ICA), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and their limited power to protect heritage sites, and prevent their destruction (Meskell, 2018; see also Allais, 2018). As Gamboni (2001) rightly expressed: “In a sense, ‘world heritage’ is an ambulance that follows an army and tries to precede it”. Even those with the best of intentions can engender destruction. Rosén illuminates problems in current policies and practices of cultural heritage protection, which, he argues rightly, call for serious self-scrutinisation: The paradox is that the more we speak about the value of cultural heritage and the importance of protecting it, the more we also bolster narratives on the dramatic loss its destruction involves, and the more interesting it becomes for armed groups, terrorists and, sometimes, states to target it. Art History has much to contribute to this line of thought. Theories of iconoclasm may be particularly useful here as they unpack how and why some sites, objects, images, and statues become idols and are targeted (Freedberg, 1989; Rambelli & Reinders, 2007; Boldrick et al., 2013; Noyes, 2013; Tugendhaft, 2020). In the same vein, Tourism Studies are valuable to understand how UNESCO and other organisations turn heritage sites and objects into idols through their valorisation process (see, for example, Di Giovine, 2009), and this in turn contributes to their damage and destruction. The complementary scholarship offered by different disciplines is necessary to produce a nuanced analysis of how heritage destruction works on the ground. In the same sense that Art History, or Heritage Studies, can provide clues to better understand the processes of acquiring value, legal scholarship may shed light on the responsibility of state actors towards the destruction of heritage. The key, it seems, is to trace the transfer of responsibility across the spectrum and not only focus on a single actor. For example, Chiu et al. explored how the Cambodian government was able to secure cooperation and assistance from multilateral, government, and non-government entities to enable the return of numerous looted Cambodian objects. There are, of course, hundreds of thousands of examples worldwide where heritage planning and conservation laws were implemented successfully and no discussion was generated. The danger lies in assuming that what functioned in one country would be the same elsewhere, and here again, the contributions of the volume provide valuable comparisons across different contexts.

Law and practice International heritage law should be a touchstone of heritage protection, identifying and regulating norms of national and international behaviour, yet the chapters in this volume are a testament to the widespread nature of heritage destruction. Gerstenblith’s study of the evolution of the laws protecting heritage and prosecuting destruction highlights that the context of heritage destruction is constantly evolving. Yet, as both technology and our understanding of heritage and its impacts evolve, so, too, do the laws around them. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Walasek, this volume) set ground-breaking precedents in

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international law on heritage destruction, as did the ICC, when it prosecuted the destruction in Timbuktu (Leloup, this volume). Yet evidence suggests that, too often, the laws designed to protect cultural property lag far behind the field they are intended to regulate. Pollard (this volume) notes how much of the damage in the Second World War was due to technological developments that the existing legal protection did not address, and that, although the laws were less than 35 years old, they were already obsolete. In the same vein, Huntley and Wallis, and Hernández Llosas (this volume) evidence how the laws surrounding the protection of Indigenous heritage are woefully inadequate at both national and international levels. Embodying the tension in defining heritage, the human rights approach laid out by Lenzerini (this volume) moves the discussion forward again, with legal avenues to include intangible elements of cultural heritage. Potentially addressing the gaps left by international humanitarian, cultural heritage, and criminal law, the human rights standards which may be infringed by the destruction of heritage include cultural rights, offering more effective avenues of redress that favour victims rather than property. Yet, even as we continue to develop new laws to deal with new circumstances, there seems to be no shortage of those willing to destroy heritage. That does not mean that the law is inadequate; there will always be those who break the laws. Laws stands as an expression of the standards a community expect their citizens to adhere to on a national and international level. However, as much as heritage law offers protection, it can also be a challenge. For example, Lixinski (this volume) notes that: while the legal presumption against destruction may be important to protect (vulnerable) communities’ interests over their own heritage, it can also trap those same communities in a conservation paradigm that is antithetical to the idea of heritage as living culture. [Communities may] not be allowed to control their own heritage, adapt it to their needs, transform it, and, yes, destroy it. Crisis thinking in international law leads to the conclusion that all destruction is bad and should be prevented and punished. Lixinski highlights the case of the Bagrati Cathedral in Georgia, added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994. After the government reconstructed the site as a national symbol, ICOMOS and the UNESCO World Heritage Committee deemed that the process greatly altered the authenticity of the site, and in 2017, the boundaries of the site were substantially redrawn so as to exclude the Cathedral. Authenticity and the apparent universal value were privileged over the people the site serves. This point is also made by Holtorf and Kristensen (this volume), when looking at how culture may contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Too much conservation, they argue, is not only inherently unsustainable in general but can also lead to a focus on the preservation of unsustainable sites and practices. If we are truly to accept the mantra that heritage is a given value because of the communities who create and use it, then we must also face the fact that they can adapt and destroy it too. Balancing the competing needs of different stakeholders remains a challenge that heritage professionals, no less than governments, have yet to achieve. That being said, a volume of heritage destruction is, by its nature, the place to find the points of failure, that we may address them and find better ways to manage this in the future. There are many excellent examples at all levels as well. To give one example, the eleventh century Durham Castle and Cathedral UNESCO World Heritage site (UK), is also a student hall of residence for the Durham University, accommodating some 450 students in the college every year (Figure 1.4).

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Figure 1.4 Durham Castle is a thriving part of Durham University, hosting a collegiate community of 1400 students and 300 staff, as well as being a central feature of the World Heritage site. The management committee comprises a wide variety of local, regional, and national stakeholders, of which local government is only one part. Photograph by Emma Cunliffe (2021).

Concluding remarks This handbook contains a significant body of evidence of what constitutes heritage destruction and why it occurs. As such, it not only contains a new body of important and diverse scholarship but also contributes meaningfully to debate about existing practice, looking at heritage destruction in three core areas. We invited authors who contributed to our current understandings of heritage destruction, exploring the overarching and underlying drivers of heritage destruction, and what the key constraints, contexts, and discourses surrounding it are. These constraints are essential to understand the context of destruction. In the first section, authors frame, bound, and explore it, drawing attention to the discourses used in scholarship and society, consciously or 26

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otherwise, but also questioning how we label acts as legal or illegal, permissible, or punishable – moral or immoral – and what that means for our understanding of heritage destruction. The second section explores the specific thematic contexts heritage destruction manifests in, using multiple case studies from around the world. These drivers and contexts change, evolve, and in turn change our understanding. The final section looks at specific geographic and temporal case studies to explore nuanced manifestations of specific situations of heritage destruction. While these case studies are context specific, the issues they raise and explore are relevant to manifestations of heritage destruction globally and locally. The final chapter, by Holtorf and Kristensen, looks to the future by asking how heritage can be sustainable and contribute to sustainability, given that destruction is ultimately inevitable. As editors, we believe that scholars interested in the topic need to be familiar with all aspects: studying destruction from both wide and narrow lenses is valuable and cannot be divorced from the wider context it occurs in. Heritage can no longer be “treated as a passive victim of the atrocities” (Viejo-Rose & Sørensen, 2015 p.281). In exploring these domains, we have established the importance of understanding and studying the destruction of heritage within a wider framework that encompasses not only theory but also legal, military, social, aesthetic, and ontological issues linked to the destruction of art and culture. We have deliberately avoided adopting a general view of destruction in this handbook. We hope this approach will help readers to make broad connections between their own situations to those in other places. The local complements the global. Destruction is interpreted differently on the ground than when seen from a satellite image or reported in a newspaper. Perceptions of destruction by all who participate – whether as perpetrators, witnesses on the ground, or as consumers of information – are needed to achieve a holistic comprehension. Heritage destruction is no longer a neutral act of obliteration: too many actors are in play and in the audience. There is no such thing as innocent or passive consumption. All heritage is contested and therefore its destruction can never be a matter of black and white. Ground-breaking works on the topic (Gamboni, 1997; Flood, 2002; Bevan, 2006; Clay, 2012; Noyes, 2013; Isakhan, 2015; Stone, 2016; Viejo-Rose & Sørensen, 2015; Tugendhaft, 2020) have certainly advanced scholarship on an old problem that considers both the negative, as well as the positive side of how destruction transforms heritage and our relationship with it. In the last two decades, however, we have been witnesses to the destruction that we wished had never happened. As editors, we also believe that these acts of violence have also contributed to our understanding of what we consider is valuable from a cultural point of view. The next generations of scholars on heritage destruction will have to consider the emerging threats to heritage, on top of the threats that have arisen in these last decades, while at the same time acknowledging that heritage is never, and will never, be safe. Our task as scholars is to never forget the memories that destruction has created because they have impacted our current understandings of what heritage and its destruction mean in the past, today, and will in the future. We must pay attention to Rosén’s warning: “To what extent do our voiced concerns and protection initiatives instigate the kind of destruction [the international community] aim to prevent? What could we do to mitigate such effects?” It is a question that the editors, scholars, practitioners, and international organisations have no answer to, but one we must address. UNESCO was founded to “contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture” (UNESCO, 1945, Article 1) following two devastating world wars, based on the beliefs: That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war … That 27

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the wide diffusion of culture … for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfil in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern. (UNESCO, 1945 Preamble) These sentiments are no less true today. We must celebrate the diversity that gives rise to our heritage to counter the enduring tendency to ignorance and prejudice. However, as Kenawi (this volume) notes on his chapter on Egypt, this cannot be done in isolation: international agencies and governments must involve the private sector, architects, scholars, and local communities at large and small scales to manage and promote heritage. Our handbook closes looking to the future. Holtorf and Kristensen argue for a critical re-evaluation of the conservation paradigm and its foundational principle that destruction is bad. This shift in thinking – treading the fine line between continuity and change – is evident with the tearing down of colonial era statues in light of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests which took place in many parts of the world. In the UK, for example, sweeping BLM protests, particularly the toppling of the Edward Colston statue – a prominent slave trader – in Bristol, led to at least 150 reviews and audits of places of contested heritage in 2020/21 alone (Stephenson et al., 2021). This toppling resulted in the formation of the We Are Bristol History Commission, tasked with helping Bristol residents understand their history, its role in shaping who they are and what this might mean for the future. The Commission’s participatory education programs launched in the wake of the statue’s removal encouraged Bristol residents to explore their history and heritage and the celebration of “positive distinct identities” in the community. They also inspired positive change in relation to themselves and the community (Stephenson et al. 2021, p.11). Nevertheless, it is also important to acknowledge that complex issues such as racism and other legacies of slavery and colonisation may not be solely resolved through the toppling or recontextualising of statues alone. As the authors of the Bristol guidance document on reviewing contested statues, memorials, and place names argue, any attempt to address contested spaces should account for existing structural injustices and inequalities and support efforts towards social inclusion, cohesion, equality, and fairness (Stephenson et al., 2021 p.11). As the events at Bristol and other similar examples show us, such actions and their ensuing fall out will continue to polarise communities, yet they also present a useful point of departure, where destruction ignites a process of renewal and a moment of reckoning of what is considered as heritage and certainly the types of legacies that we want passed down to the future (see also Bevan, 2022). As Avrami and Mason argue (2019 p.12), the dynamics between heritage values and societal values are a reminder that “the ‘fixity and physicality of monuments’ architectural fabric and long-ago scripted narratives stand at odds with the changefulness marking how broader society values these heritage places”. Circling back to Holtorf and Kristensen’s argument, there are indeed a number of ways that destruction can be beneficial, in both specific circumstances, such as access to new, previously inaccessible information. They call on us to question our assumptions about the role and importance of heritage: it may benefit society, but is its conservation the most socially and economically viable way to achieve those benefits, or do we start from a position of inherent bias, stuck to the conservation paradigm?

Notes 1 Various editions of the text were written in Latin by Camden between 1587 and 1607. In 1610, Holland translated it into (old) English: “Now hath time razed out all the footings and tractes thereof, and to teach us that Cities as well as men have their fatall periods, it is a verie field at this

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A path well worn? daie, wherein when the corne is come uppe a man may see the draughts of streetes crossing one another” (1637, 2nd edn.). The above is a transliteration into modern English. 2 See, for example, the Master’s degree in Cultural Property Protection in Crisis Response offered by the University of Turin (Italy) or the MLitt degree in Cultural Property Protection offered by Newcastle University (England). 3 As part of her work for Blue Shield, Cunliffe has been compiling the history of the organisation. 4 ASOR CHIs reports can be found at: https://www.asor.org/chi/reports/weekly-monthly 5 A great example of combining remote sensing techniques while engaging with the local community in the documentation of heritage destruction is Forensic Architecture’s project on the destruction of Yezidi heritage (see González Zarandona, 2021). 6 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 7 At best, art historians talk about images, in general, rather than objects, to refer to the destruction of art and heritage (see, for example, Freedberg, 1989, 2021; Mitchell, 2011, 2015). 8 https://www.heritageinthecrossfire.com/projects 9 https://www.undrr.org/

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José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin Camden, W. (1637). Britannia. Translated into English in 1610 by Philemon Holland, revised, amended, and enlarged with sundry Additions by the said Author. 2nd edn. London: F. K. R. Y. and I. L. for Andrew Crooke. Chapman, H. (2018). Iconoclasm and Later Prehistory. London: Routledge. Clay, R. (2012). Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Paris: The Transformation of Signs. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protectingheritage/convention-and-protocols/1954-convention [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 17 October 2003. Available at: https://ich. unesco.org/en/convention [Accessed: 12 February 2022]. Cunliffe, E. (2012). Damage to the Soul: Syria’s Cultural Heritage in Conflict. Global Heritage Fund, 22 May. Palo Alto, CA: Global Heritage Fund. Available at: http://ghn.globalheritagefund.com/ uploads/documents/document_2107.pdf [Accessed: 20 June 2012]. ——— (2013). Satellites and Site Destruction: An Analysis of Modern Impacts on the Archaeological Resource of the Ancient Near East. PhD Thesis, Durham: Durham University. ——— (2014). Remote assessments of site damage: A new ontology. International Journal Heritage in the Digital Era (3), pp.435–474. Cunliffe, E., and Curini, L. (2018). ISIS and heritage destruction: A sentiment analysis. Antiquity 92(364), pp.1094–1111. Di Giovine, M. (2009). The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage, and Tourism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. DeSilvey, C. (2017). Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Duval, M. (2022). To what degree does a UNESCO World Heritage Site listing improve the conservation of heritage sites? Insights from the case of the Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage Site (South Africa-Lesotho). International Journal of Heritage Studies 28(3), pp.376–399. Elias, J.J. (2013). The Taliban, Bamiyan, and Revisionist Iconoclasm. In: Boldrick, S., Brubaker, L., and Clay, R. (eds). Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.145–163. Flood, B.F. (2002). Between cult and culture: Bamiyan, Islamic iconoclasm, and the Museum. The Art Bulletin 84(4), pp.641–659. Freedberg, D. (1989). The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. ——— (2021). Iconoclasm. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. Frigo, M. (2004). Cultural property v. cultural heritage: A “battle of concepts” in international law? Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge/International Review of the Red Cross 86(854), pp.364–378. Frowe, H., and Matravers, D. (2019) Conflict and Cultural Heritage: A Moral Analysis of the Challenges of Heritage Protection. J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy Number 3. Available at: https://www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-3/ [Accessed: 01 February 2022]. Gamboni, D. (1997). The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and vandalism since the French Revolution. London: Reaktion Books. ——— (2001). World Heritage: Shield or Target? The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter, 16. https:// www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/16_2/feature.html. ——— (2002). Image to Destroy, Indestructible Image. In: Latour, B., and Weibel, P. (eds). Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art. Cambridge, MA; London: MIT Press, pp.88–135. García Acosta, V. (ed). (2019). The Anthropology of Disasters in Latin America: State of the Art. London: Routledge. García Canclini, N. (1993). Los usos sociales del patrimonio cultural. In: Florescano, E. (ed). El patrimonio cultural de México. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, pp.41–61. ——— (2010). La sociedad sin relato. Antropología y estética de la inminencia. Madrid: Katz. Garduño Freeman, C. and Gonzalez Zarandona, J.A. (2021). Digital spectres: The Notre-Dame effect. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 27(12), pp.1264–1277. González Zarandona, J.A. (2015). Towards a theory of landscape iconoclasm. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 25(2), pp.461–475. González Zarandona, J.A., Albarrán-Torres, C., and Isakhan, B. (2018). Digitally mediated iconoclasm: The Islamic State and the war on cultural heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(6), pp.649–671.

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A path well worn? González Zarandona, J.A. (2021). “Destruction of images; images of destruction: Critical stances of contemporary heritage” in Motion: Transformation 35th CIHA Congress Proceedings. Vol. 1–2. Eds. M. Faietti and G. Wolf, Bononia University Press, Bologna, pp.391–396. Harrison, R. (2013a). Heritage: Critical approaches. London: Routledge. ——— (2013b). Forgetting to remember, remembering to forget: Late modern heritage practices, sustainability and the “crisis” of accumulation of the past. International Journal of Heritage Studies 19(6), pp.579–595. Harvey, D.C. (2001). Heritage Pasts and Heritage Presents: Temporality, meaning and the scope of heritage studies. International Journal of Heritage Studies 7(4), pp.319–338. Heritage Fund. (2015). Making our past relevant to our future – How industrial heritage can boost growth. Heritage Fund website, 05 November. Available at: https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/news/ making-our-past-relevant-our-future-how-industrial-heritage-can-boost-growth [Accessed: 28 September 2022]. Herscher, A. (2011). From Target to Witness: Architecture, Satellite Surveillance, Human Rights. In: Kenzari, B. (ed). Architecture and Violence. Barcelona and New York: Actar, pp.127–148. Holtorf, C. (2001). Is the past a non-renewable resource? In: Layton, R., Stone, P.G., and Thomas, J. (eds). Destruction and Conservation of Cultural Property. London: Routledge, pp.286–297. ——— (2006). Can less be more? Heritage in the age of terrorism. Public Archaeology 5(2), pp.101–9. ——— (2015). Averting loss aversion in cultural heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies 2(14), pp.405–421. ——— (2018). Embracing change: How cultural resilience is increased through cultural heritage. World Archaeology. doi:10.1080/00438243.2018.1510340. ICOM. (2020). Museums, museum professionals and COVID-19. Paris: ICOM. Available at: https:// icom.museum/en/news/museums-museum-professionals-and-covid-19-survey-results/ [Accessed: 01 November 2021]. Isakhan, B. (2015). Heritage Under Fire: Lessons from Iraq for Cultural Property Protection. In: Logan, W., Nic Craith, M., and Kockel, U. (eds). A Companion to Heritage Studies. Chichester: WileyBlackwell, pp.268–279. Isakhan, B., and Meskell, L. (2019). UNESCO’s project to “Revive the Spirit of Mosul”: Iraqi and Syrian opinion on heritage reconstruction after the Islamic State. International Journal of Heritage Studies 25(11), pp.1189–1204. Isakhan, B., and Shahab, S. (2020). The Islamic State’s destruction of Yezidi heritage: Responses, resilience and reconstruction after genocide. Journal of Social Archaeology 20(1), pp.3–25. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, B. (2004). Intangible heritage as metacultural production. Museum International 56(1–2), pp.52–65. Kelman, I. (2022). Disaster by choice. How our actions turn natural hazards into catastrophes. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Kolrud, K., and Prusac, M. (eds). (2014). Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate. Labadi, S. (ed). (2020). The Cultural Turn in International Aid. Oxford and New York: Routledge. Lasaponara, R., and Masini, N. (2017). Preserving the Past from Space: An Overview of Risk Estimation and Monitoring Tools. In: Masini, N., and Soldovieri, F. (eds). Sensing the Past. Cham: Springer, pp.61–88. Lemkin, R. (1933, October). Acts constituting a general (transnational) danger considered as offences against the law of nations. Available at: http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/madrid1933english.htm [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. Lilley, I. (2016). War crimes, development, and the many threats to cultural heritage. The Conversation. http://www. abc.net.au/news/2016-10-15/war-crimes-and-the-many-threats-to-cultural-heritage/7932694 Lowenthal, D. (1998). The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meskell, L. (2018). A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, W.J.T. (2011). Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present. Chicago, IL and London: Chicago University Press. ——— (2015). Image Science: Iconography, Visual Culture, and Media Aesthetics. Chicago, IL and London: Chicago University Press. Nemeth, E. (2015). Cultural security: Evaluating the power of culture in international affairs, London: Imperial College Press.

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José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin Nicholas, G. (2022). Protecting Indigenous heritage objects, places, and values: Challenges, responses, and responsibilities. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 28(3), pp.400–422. Noyes, J. (2013). The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence, and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam. New York: I. B. Tauris. O’Keefe, R. (1999). The meaning of “cultural property” under the 1954 Hague Convention. Netherlands International Law Review 46(1), pp.26–56. ——— (2006). The protection of cultural property in armed conflict, Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press. Oosterman, N., and Yates, D. (2021). Crime and Art Sociological and Criminological Perspectives of Crimes in the Art World, Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Plets, G. (2017). Violins and trowels for Palmyra. Post-conflict heritage politics. Anthropology Today 33(4), pp.18–22. Pollock, S. (2005). Archaeology Goes to War at the Newsstand. In: Pollock, S. & Bernbeck, R. (eds). Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publisher, pp.78–96. Press, M. (2016). Callousness among the ruins. Textual Cultures, Material Cultures Blog, 31 March. Available at: https://textualcultures.blogspot.com/2016/03/callousness-among-ruins.html [Accessed 28 September 2022]. Prott, L.V., and O’Keefe, P.J. (1992). “Cultural heritage” or “cultural property”. International Journal of Cultural Property 1(2), pp.307–320. Quntar, S.A., and Daniels, B.I. (2016). Responses to the destruction of Syrian cultural heritage: A critical review of current efforts. International Journal of Islamic Architecture 5(2), pp.381–397. Rambelli, F., and Reinders, E. (2007). What does iconoclasm create? What does preservation destroy? Reflections on iconoclasm in East Asia. In: Boldrick, S., and Clay, R. (eds). Iconoclasm: Contested objects, contested terms. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.15–33. Saldin, M. (2021). Excavating the Power Politics of Heritage in Post-War Sri Lanka: Hegemonic Narratives and Resilient Minorities. PhD Thesis, Melbourne: Deakin University. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Smith, C., Burke, H., De Leiuen, C., and Jackson, G. (2015). The Islamic State’s symbolic war: Da’esh’s socially mediated terrorism as a threat to cultural heritage. Journal of Social Anthropology 16(2), pp. 164–188. Smith, C., Von Der Borch, R., Isakhan, B., Sukendar, S., Sulistiyanto, P., Ravenscrroft, I., Widianingsih, I., and De Leiuen, C. (2019). The manipulation of social, cultural and religious values in socially mediated terrorism. Religions 9(5), p.168. Stephenson, B, Gournet, M-A & Burch Brown, J 2021, Reviewing contested statues, memorials and place names: Guidance for public bodies. Bristol: University of Bristol, BAS Consultancy & MAG Consultancy Stephenson, B., Burch Brown, J., and Gournet, M.-A. (2021). Undertaking reviews of monuments and street names: Processes to guide public bodies (106: October 2021; Policy Bristol). Available at: https:// www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2021/november/contested-statue-recommendations-.html [Accessed 12 September 2022]. Stone, P.G. (2016). The challenge of protecting heritage in times of armed conflict. Museum International 265–268, pp.40–54. Taylor, K., and Lennon, J. (2011). Cultural landscapes: A bridge between culture and nature? International Journal of Heritage Studies, 17(6), pp.537–554. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2011.618246 Tiejgeler, R., Sabrine, I., Halleb, Y., Barakat, M., and Korinth, E. (2020). Heritage Guidelines for COVID-19. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen. Barcelona: Heritage for Peace. Available at: https://ansch. heritageforpeace.org/guidelines/ [Accessed: 01 January 2021]. Toman, J. (2009). Cultural property in war: Improvement in protection: Commentary on the 1999 Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the protection of Cultural property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Paris: UNESCO. Tugendhaft, A. (2020). The idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. UNESCO. (1945). Constitution, 16 November 1945. UNESCO website. London: UNESCO. Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution [Accessed: 28 September 2022]. ——— (2020). Museums around the world in the face of COVID-19. Paris: UNESCO. Available at: https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373530 [Accessed: 01 November 2022]. UNESCO, UNITAR and UNOSAT. (2018). Five Years of Conflict. The State of Cultural Heritage in the Ancient City of Aleppo. Paris: UNESCO. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000265826 [Accessed: 14 November 2018].

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PART I

Understanding Destruction

2 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION IN CONFLICT Claire Smith

As Peter Stone (2012), the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace at Newcastle  University, notes, the physical remains of the past and their interpretation are frequently at the heart of conflict. This is because both tangible and intangible heritage are an embodiment of the values that one generation wishes to pass on to the next generation (Vecco, 2010). While intangible heritage (songs, oral histories, language, dances) can exist with few, or even no, tangible manifestations, tangible heritage is inextricably tied to intangible heritage, to a society’s social and political institutions, its culture, religion, even the economic reality of people’s lives (UNESCO, 2009). The symbolic function of this heritage has made it a target for destruction in times of conflict – its destruction strikes at the identity and emotional strength of the opposing group. As such, the destruction of cultural heritage is an attack not only on a society’s contemporary identity and values but also on its memories and even its hopes for the future. In addition, heritage destruction can arise from social and political conflicts as a society reshapes its memories and identity. Cultural heritage is particularly vulnerable to attack during conflicts as it is often linked to nation building (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983; Kohl & Fawcett, 1995; Boswell & Evans, 1999). This link is apparent in the contested meanings of monuments and museums (Schwartz & Bayma, 1999; Teeger & Vinitzky-Seroussi, 2007), as well as the processes by which some objects are memorialised, while others are forgotten, demolished, or misused (Stone & MacKenzie, 1990; Bartmański, 2011). A trend towards the intentional destruction of cultural heritage as part of modern warfare is apparent in recent conflicts in Bosnia, Crimea, Iraq, Mali, Somalia, Syria, and Afghanistan (Stone, 2012; Van Der Auwera, 2012; Bevan, 2016; Arnal, 2020; see Isakhan & Barry; Bahrani; Munawar; and Leloup, this volume). Significant associated destruction also occurs through looting which increases when there is armed conflict (Smith et al., 2016; Weiss & Connelly, 2017). This was particularly apparent in the strategies adopted by the IS1 in Syria and Iraq in which the ad hoc looting of archaeological sites was transformed into a business model (Smith et al., 2016; Weiss & Connelly, 2017). In 2015, the British House of Commons (2015) estimated that looting was the IS’s second largest revenue source after oil sale. Cunliffe (2017) attributes the inability of guards and heritage staff to access and protect sites to underlying economic pressures. In relation to Syria, Cunliffe (2013 p.244) argues that “looting becomes the most devastating form of damage … it is also one of the hardest forms of damage to prevent”. DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-3

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Political and religious iconoclasm Throughout history conflicts have been entwined with the destruction of cultural heritage (Noyes, 2013; Bevan, 2016; Arnold, 2020), especially religious icons during periods of political and religious conflict. Though the two are entwined, our interpretations of heritage destruction in conflict can be sharpened by drawing a distinction between political iconoclasm, in which cultural and religious buildings or icons are destroyed primarily for political purposes, and religious iconoclasm, in which such destruction is motivated primarily by religious beliefs. Political and religious iconoclasm is not confined to any specific group – in addition to the destruction of pagan images by Christians, monuments or icons relating to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian religions have all been destroyed in various places and times. Early examples of politically and religiously motivated iconoclasm include the destruction of pagan images by Christians (Sauer, 2003), the attempts of pharaohs to erase all memories of Akhenaten and his religion through the destruction of art and the systematic dismantling of the Talitat blocks and buildings, the Roman destruction of Carthage, and the destruction of religious symbols during the Reformation (Kastenburg, 1997). Recent examples include the destruction of Christian icons during the communist revolution in Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe (e.g., Bournelis, 2019). A less well-known example is the destruction of Christian imagery by the Marxist national project in Mexico from 1930 to 1936: The government prohibited depiction of crosses in cemeteries and mandated the desecration of saint imagery, as well as religious paraphernalia. In Revolutionary Mexico, imagistic desecration provided a means for the implementation of modernity, progress — and secular salvation. (Rogers, 2011 p.110) While it is difficult to determine with certainty whether religion has been the primary motivation for heritage destruction, some guidance is provided by Eberhard Sauer (2003 p.38), who proposes several criteria for defining cultural heritage destruction as religious iconoclasm, including exceptionally laborious and thorough modes of destruction without any obvious practical purpose like the reuse of stone, cases where pagan images appear to have been targeted but other artwork spared, and cases where naked deities were more thoroughly destroyed than their modestly dressed counterpart. Religious iconoclasm can involve the replacement of the icons or physical structures of one religious tradition with those of another. Sometimes, particularly powerful places are subjected to a kind of successive erasure, with later structures built on top of earlier ones. As Arnold (2020) points out, an internationally known example of this kind of transformation is the Christian Basilica of Hagia Sofia in Istanbul which was subsequently inscribed as a mosque. Heritage destruction not only emerges from conflict, but it can also precipitate – and even predict – conflict. Following the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, India, in 1992, more than 2000 people died in riots (Ratnagar, 2004; Arnold, 2020). In addition, as Saldin (2021) points out in the context of post-war Sri Lanka, religio-cultural heritage spaces that are strictly marked can become flashpoints for communal violence (see also Silva & Hasbullah, 2019). Moreover, heritage destruction can be used to predict more invidious forms of conflict. In his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, the Jewish Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, identified the destruction of culture in the genocidal strategies of Nazi Germany. He noted that: Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different 38

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actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves … Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group. (Lemkin, 2008 [1944] p.79) The destruction of heritage is a powerful tool in the armoury of cultural genocide as it focusses on eliminating the wider institutions that support a group’s identity, values, and memories. As Lemkin (2008 [1944]) points out, individuals may suffer but only because they are members of a targeted group. Lemkin (2008 [1944]) draws attention to the crime of vandalism, which he conceives as the malicious destruction of works of art and culture because they represent the specific creations of the genius of a particular group (see also Moses, 2010). Cultural genocide manifests “when artistic, literary, and cultural activities are restricted or outlawed and when national treasures, libraries, archives, museums, artifacts, and art galleries are destroyed or confiscated” (Nersessian, 2005 online). This chapter interrogates these ideas within the context of major international conventions.

Major international conventions International law provides for a framework for protecting cultural heritage during armed conflict. If understood within its limitations of dependence on state ratification and enforcement, international law protects cultural heritage by providing guidelines to those who wish to conform. This section covers international conventions that are the most relevant to this chapter, though a number of UN Security Council Resolutions also protect cultural property, including the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention, 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (UNESCO Convention) as does the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (UNESCO 2003) and extensive peacetime legislation. (For more on cultural protection law, see Lixinski; Gerstenblith; Lenzerini; and Novik, this volume). The 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions established early international law on warfare that included provisions for the protection of cultural property. Initially discussed after the First World War, after the excessive looting and destruction of cultural property that occurred during the Second World War, a separate convention was enacted to deal specifically with the protection of cultural property. The Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (the Hague Convention) was drafted in May 1954 and augmented by a Second Protocol in March 1999, which, among other things, clarified the conditions in which cultural property could be destroyed as part of imperative military necessity, such as when cultural property has, by its function, been made into a military objective. The 1954 Hague Convention was signed by 39 nation states within a year of being drafted, showing great promise for the protection of cultural property in times of war and conflict. An important recent outcome of the 1954 Hague Convention, and specifically the Second Protocol, is the development of the Blue Shield Movement, a worldwide organisation which aims to provide greater protection to cultural property (see Gerstenbilth, 2020) and which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021. 39

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Almost at the same time as the Second Protocol, the international community agreed the Rome Statute (in 1998), which created the International Criminal Court (ICC) and stated that intentionally directing attacks against cultural and religious buildings that have no military purpose may constitute a war crime (Art. 8), and precedent from the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (see Walasek, this volume) suggests that widespread deliberate and unnecessary destruction of cultural and religious heritage may also contribute to Crimes Against Humanity at the ICC, though this has yet to be tried. In territorially based conflicts, international humanitarian law is a touchstone that can be called on for cultural heritage protection. For example, in an online address on 7 May 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, drew global support in response to the damage or destruction of almost 200 heritage sites in Ukraine by Russian forces, arguing that “evil returns when human rights and the law are violated and culture is destroyed” (2022). While international law provides a framework for protecting cultural heritage during armed conflict, some see international conventions between state parties as increasingly irrelevant. For example, although Ukraine has ratified both the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1999 Second Protocol, Russia has only ratified the Convention, and so would not be obliged to recognise the protected status of any sites under enhanced protection (a mechanism affording sites high levels of legal protection created under the Second Protocol). Regardless of legal ratification, there is growing evidence of Russian destruction of heritage. As of 30 May 2022, UNESCO had verified damage to 139 sites since 24 February – 62 religious sites, 12 museums, 26 historic buildings, 17 buildings dedicated to cultural activities, 15 monuments, and 7 libraries (UNESCO, 2022a).Although the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture sought to place multiple sites under enhanced protection in March 2022 (to establish the international importance attached to them, if not the legal protection), they were unable to meet the requirements due to the complexities of the conflict (Blue Shield International, 2022), a situation that was unchanged as of March 2023. They had also conducted little planning or preparation for site protection when the conflict began. Others (for example, Cunliffe & Fox, 2022) contend that: … the Hague Convention remains almost entirely fit for purpose, and that its problems lie in its limited peacetime application by HCPs [High Contracting Parties] and a failure to take a comprehensive approach … HCPs must move beyond the preoccupation of obsessing about whether certain problematic sites may — or may not — qualify for protection, towards identifying those that clearly do, and prepare realistic, resourced plans for their protection during peacetime. (Cunliffe & Fox, 2022 p.3) Yet, even if all state parties ratify and implement the relevant conventions, as Merari (2007 p.30) comments, “terrorism more than any other form of warfare systematically breaches the internationally accepted rules of war” (see also Gerstenblith, 2014). Contemporary conflicts can span military, political, social, civil, cultural, and economic landscapes. Increasingly, they are being fought by small groups rather than organised armies. These groups have a capacity to wage war, not only on a local level but also across different sites and locations globally (Kaldor, 2007). They feel no responsibility to adhere to international conventions (though some parts of the 1954 Hague Convention do apply to “each party to the conflict” in conflicts that are “not of an international character” (Art. 19), and such provisions are widely considered customary law today, binding on all parties in a conflict). Moreover, such 40

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conventions may be antithetical to the group’s aims. Indeed, some conflicts are aimed specifically at the material and symbolic manifestations of ethnic, ethno-national, ideological, or religious beliefs, exemplified in contexts as varied as the destruction of Aztec temples by Hernán Cortés, the carpet bombings of Dresden and Tokyo in the Second World War (Bevan, 2016), and the systematic removal of material traces of the historic presence of Muslim people in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Walasek, 2019). At its most extreme, such destruction can be considered cultural genocide. While cultural genocide was included in early drafts of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which prohibits physical and biological genocide, it was omitted from the final draft in response to the argument that it was not appropriate to include “in the same convention both mass murders in gas chambers and the closing of libraries” (Nersessian, 2005 p. online). However, others agreed with Lemkin’s view that a group could be effectively destroyed by an attack on its cultural institutions, even without the physical/biological obliteration of its members. The final convention recognised that the indoctrination of children into the customs, language, and values of a foreign group was “tantamount to the destruction of the [child’s] group, whose future depended on that next generation” through a prohibition on the forcible removal of a group’s children (Nersessian, 2005 online). Today, given the widespread culturally focussed destruction linked to the destruction of ethnic groups in the wars of Yugoslav succession in the 1990s (Walasek, 2019) and numerous others, the idea is once again being reconsidered (for more on this, see Novic, this volume). Some scholars are thinking more widely, in response to the intentional destruction of heritage in Syria and Iraq by IS, both about the types of heritage impacted and how best to protect it. Arnal (2020), for example, argues that the impact of heritage destruction on the associated intangible manifestation of cultural heritage in local communities has been largely overlooked. She contends that in some contemporary armed conflicts in Muslim contexts, certain Islamic religious law (Sharia) and local Muslim traditions may more adequately safeguard the intangible dimensions of cultural heritage than international humanitarian law. Her work demonstrates the utility of drawing from multiple legal traditions to enhance the protection of intangible cultural heritage in armed conflict. Certainly, to date, intangible heritage has the least protection of any heritage under any legal system.

Changes in the nature conflict and global communications The challenges of protecting heritage today are very different to those of the twentieth century. In recent decades, the vulnerability of heritage sites in conflict zones has increased markedly due to the confluence of changes in the character of conflict and in global communication systems. Traditionally, war was conducted between nation states that deployed armies to achieve material or territorial goals. However, in the late twentieth century and early 2000s, conventional wars between states were increasingly supplanted by “small wars”, in which a dominant state combines military force and diplomatic pressure to promote change in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is “unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory” (United States Marine Corps, 1940 p.1). New threats to cultural heritage were recognised by the Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe in its statement on Combating Terrorism through Culture: Culture is, however, also becoming increasingly a target of terrorism. Beyond the physical damage or destruction of monuments, temples or symbols of a given culture and 41

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way of life, such terrorist acts target the very cultural identity of a people or a population. They also harm a cultural heritage that is common to all peoples of the world. (Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe Recommendation 1687, 2004 n.5) Recent conflicts have engendered a new area of study in archaeology; cultural property protection in conflict (see Cunliffe, 2013). This involves not only identifying and analysing the extent of heritage destruction but also understanding the social and cultural motivations behind such destruction (Resnyansky et al., 2022) and how destruction is used within a global communication strategy (Cunliffe & Curini, 2018; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). Brosché et al. (2017) have identified four interconnected groups of motives for targeting cultural property during armed conflict: (1) attacks related to conflict goals, in which cultural property is targeted because it is connected to the issue the warring parties are fighting over; (2) military-strategic attacks, in which the main motivation is to win tactical advantages in the conflict; (3) signalling attacks, in which cultural property is targeted as a low-risk target that signals the commitment of the aggressor; and (4) economic incentives where cultural property provides funding for warring parties. In his analysis of conflict in the Balkans in the early 1990s, Bevan argues that architecture in its many forms is an increasingly regular target for heritage destruction: Architecture in the twentieth century became more and more a weapon of war rather than something that gets in the way of its smooth conduct. Architecture is not just maimed in the crossfire; it is targeted for assassination or mass murder. (Bevan, 2016 p.210)

Heritage destruction as global propaganda Increasingly, battles are being fought through symbols as well as through arms. The impact of heritage destruction in conflict has been magnified by vast changes in the media landscape in the twenty-first century. Cultural heritage is increasingly a target as extremists seek to maximise impact for their political agendas. Within this context, the aim of heritage destruction in conflict becomes twofold: (1) destroying the heritage that communities use to establish and nurture their identities, social and political institutions, and alliances and (2) magnifying the impact of heritage destruction through social and networked media. The notion of using heritage destruction as global propaganda, using modern communications to amplify heritage destruction, emerged with the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan in 2001 (Smith, 2015) (Figure 2.1). When the Taliban decided to destroy these Buddhas, they not only sent out a press release to probe the potential international response to their destruction (Nemeth, 2011), but also invited the international press into the valley to film their obliteration (Rogers, 2011). The images of this destruction were given worldwide distribution and permeated global memories. The demolition of the Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan is a clear example of the constitution of heritage through destruction. Though these were not World Heritage sites at the time of their destruction, two years later the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley was inscribed on the World Heritage in Danger list ( Jansen, 2009). The key elements that elevated the Buddhas of Bamiyan from destroyed cultural heritage to global icons of iconoclasm lay in the communicative capacity of global information networks and the power of visual imagery. 42

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Figure 2.1 Site of Buddhas of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan, before and after destruction by the Taliban. (Left) Photograph courtesy of David Adams Films Pty Ltd. (Right) Photograph by Carl Montgomery, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Heritage destruction and digital media The opening up of new, user-led channels of communication is most clearly shown in the IS’s sophisticated use of global information networks to expand the impact of heritage destruction of heritage, which has given rise to new terms and analytical approaches. Smith et al. (2016) identify the emergence of socially mediated terrorism, defined as “the use of social and networked media to increase the impact of violent acts undertaken to further a social, political and/or religious cause with the aim of creating physical, emotional, or psychological suffering that extends beyond the immediate audience” (p.164). Conversely, González Zarandona et al. (2018) focus more specifically on iconoclasm to propose a new analytical framework – digitally mediated iconoclasm – to interpret heritage destruction that is promoted through global information networks. They identify a range of photographic and audio-visual production techniques used to enhance three stages of iconoclasm – before, during, and after – to enable the perpetrator to build tension in the narrative and demonstrate the veracity of heritage destruction. Cultural heritage has a particular place within this scenario, not only because it embodies a society’s identity but also because of the visual impact that heritage destruction can have on 43

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an audience. Modern media channels make it possible to construct meaning at a much larger scale than was once possible. The amplification of heritage destruction through the strategic use of media was apparent in videos released via social media in 2015 by the IS in which several large statues at Mosul’s museum were destroyed as well as cultural artefacts dating to the ninth century BCE. Global information networks provide a powerful platform for the self-display acts of violence and terror performed as “attention-generators par excellence” (Schroer, 2013 p.220) in which iconoclasm acts as “a cynical performance designed as a mass media spectacle” (Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018 p.1). Ritualised behaviours associated with heritage destruction are critical to the impact of these acts (Shahab & Isakhan, 2018). In addition, while global media strategies facilitate enhanced visibility and impact of heritage destruction, they also offer opportunities to record heritage destruction. For example, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation (2022) established an interactive “Map of Cultural Losses” to allow citizens to record the location and time of damage to a cultural monument or object.

Heritage erasure Not all heritage destruction is due to armed conflict. Heritage also can be erased by neglect, looting, development pressures, and social or political conflict. The capacity of heritage erasure to simultaneously reflect and shape social transformation is exemplified in the removal of statues that commemorate contested histories. The removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a public park in Charlottesville in July 2017, for example, prompted public meetings by white supremacists, and the death of one woman and injury of 19 people when a car rammed into a crowd of people protesting against a white nationalist rally (Helm et al., 2017). The role of these memorials in shaping the current identity of the nation and in how past actions are interpreted and remembered is at the centre of this controversy. Ironically, a broadly similar past can be interpreted in diametrically opposed ways in relation to the personal background and standpoint of the audience. For example, Woodley (2017) argues that statues of Lee signify the oppression of African Americans under slavery and act as daily reminders of the vulnerability of black people at the same time that they support the values of white supremacists by representing white military and political power. These issues are certainly complex. Though white supremacists were not the only group who wished to preserve the statues in situ, they were the most vocal and the most organised. The media attention that their rallies garnered made it difficult or impossible for others to express support for keeping the statues for fear of aligning them with white supremacist values. The removal of the Charlottesville statue precipitated the removal of hundreds of similar monuments across the US (e.g., Figure 2.2). This coalesced with the Black Lives Matter protests which focused on the removal of Confederate symbols following the murder of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist in 2015 (Edwards & Harris, 2016). The removal of the Confederacy statues overturned the public veneration of historical figures whose actions were associated with slavery, racism, and white dominance. Their removal was controversial because they speak to social and cultural identity not only in the past and present but also in the future as part of a process of social transformation. As Mullins (2018 p. online) points out, the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces leaves absences that “confirm shifting attitudes toward Confederate heritage even as they continue to evoke neo-Confederate memory and spark White nationalist activism”. Across the world, statues are contested heritage, used to reify particular pasts and reinforce present power structures. In relation to Syria, González Zarandona and Munawar (2020) 44

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Figure 2.2 Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee removed from column, New Orleans, 19 May 2017. Photograph by Information of New Orleans, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, 2017.

demonstrate how elements of the past were used to glorify personality cults focused on Hafez Al-Assad, the president of Syria from 1971 to 2000, and his son Bashar Al-Assad, president from 2000 to the present day. They interpret the destruction and re-erection of statues of these two men as symbolising changing attitudes towards the oppressive Ba’athist regime that 45

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has shaped Syria’s past and present for more than almost half a century (González Zarandona & Munawar, 2020) and suggest the re-erection of these statues question the purpose of destroying a statue in response to dismantling systems of oppression. In many Eastern European countries such as Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, a hard-fought independence from Russia in the early 1990s was expressed symbolically through the destruction and/or removal of statutes of Lenin and other monuments associated with communism (Mizoguchi & Smith, 2019). In Ukraine, a political repositioning away from Russia and towards Europe following the “orange revolution” (Wilson, 2006) and the Euromaidan Revolution of Dignity (Shved & Park, 2016) manifested in memorials and museums designed to strengthen Ukrainian identity (Smith & Glew, 2022). The major themes are commemorating those who died in the Euromaidan protests or in the Russia-Ukraine conflict following Russia’s invasion of Crimea (e.g., the National Memorial to the Heavenly Hundred Heroes and Revolution of Dignity Museum, 2022), erasing Russian identifiers, and bringing attention to suppressed national memories (e.g., National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, 2022). The complexity is demonstrated in the dismantling of a monument to a Soviet “Liberation Warrior” of the Great Patriotic War (as the Second World War is known) in the township of Stryi, near Lviv, on 22 February 2014 (Anonymous, 2014), the day after the routing of President Yanukovych. Writing during the early period of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Anna Glew highlights the specific knowledge required to correctly interpret such events: I think this monument was demolished because it is very politically charged: people in Western Ukraine do not believe that Western Ukraine was liberated by the Soviet Union in 1939, and instead see those events as an occupation. So, in this case the focus of the monument shifted from ‘soldiers who fought against Nazism’ to ‘soldiers who occupied us’ … The only WWII memorials that have been under threat or removed in Central Ukraine are those to individual generals, who, according to the current narratives, unjustifiably sent numerous soldiers to death in WWII. (email to Claire Smith, 17 March 2022) Heritage destruction and creation can have a predictive capacity. The construction of new memorials fostering Ukrainian identity accompanied by a cumulative erasure of Russian heritage can be read as a material indicator of the changes in social values that eventually prompted the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Similarly, the memorialising of individual citizens who died defending Ukraine’s liberation and continued independence and the commemoration of fallen soldiers by ordinary people (Glew, 2021) can be read as a predictor of the ability and willingness of ordinary Ukrainians to defend their country (Smith & Glew, 2022). Momentum increased after that the success of the Euromaidan protests in late 2013 and early 2014. Sergatskova (2022 p. online) argues that this precipitated a decolonisation of Ukraine’s culture in which “preservation activists felt that this was their new purpose: to reclaim the history of Ukraine and its legacy, to destroy the colonial patterns of the Soviet Union”. Sergatskova (2022) links this to the protection of historical buildings: Before 2014, we rarely saw public displays of interest in cultural heritage in Ukraine. The Maidan Revolution  that year, in which mass protests led to the ouster of a pro-Russian president, kick-started the development of civil society based on Western values, like freedom of expression and self-determination … Before the war, as soon as it became known that a Ukrainian building of historical significance was threatened with destruction, citizens immediately ran to it and stood up for its 46

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defense. And the fight for every single building taught us to fight for our homes, cities and country. (Sergatskova, 2022 online) Heritage destruction can also occur through neglect and/or denigration, either as an aspect of an armed conflict or during peacetime or in post-conflict landscapes. A current example of heritage destruction through neglect is the failure to record the graves of Aboriginal people in remote communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. While there is a legislative requirement for graves in settler townships to be recorded, there is not the same requirement for graves in remote Aboriginal communities (Ralph et al., 2019). The outcome is that the precise location of who is buried where becomes blurred through time, making it difficult for difficult to mourn properly for loved ones or to care for them by caring for their grave (Smith et al., 2018; Ralph et al., 2021). In Western Australia, González Zarandona (2021) argues that the concept of iconoclasm provides a strong analytical tool to understand the destruction of rock art as it draws attention to the attempted erasure of ideas that are symbolised by images, as well as the images themselves. He argues that “even those rock art images that are not destroyed, the fact that they are not really protected means that they are denigrated” (González Zarandona, 2021 p.152). A similar scenario of heritage destruction through neglect is apparent in a failure of the Libyan government to provide resources to protect Libya’s pre-Arab Roman sites. Then-president of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, viewed these sites as “imperialist” and a symbolic domination of the African land by Europeans (Mari, 2013). While he did not destroy these sites for political purposes, Gaddafi’s denigration of this heritage resulted in it falling into a state of neglect (Kila, 2012). Also, in relation to Libya, Cunliffe (2017) notes that the damage occurring to cultural property has less to do with conflict than with the security situation and economic difficulties that prevent laws from being enforced and heritage staff from accessing sites. This lack of security “occurs as a result of the enforced neglect of sites that may need maintenance, and from increasing illegal development and illegal agriculture” (Cunliffe, 2017 p.115).

Heritage destruction and human rights Heritage destruction creates heritage loss. A deeper understanding of how heritage loss can impact a community has emerged over the last decade as part of a shift in thinking from heritage as property to heritage as a human right (Nicholas & Smith, 2020). A human rightsbased approach to redressing heritage destruction takes into consideration accountability, reparations, and reforms. Joy (2020) develops these ideas in her framework for heritage justice, arguing for the compensatory mechanisms of recognition, economic reparation, and return. One of the main ways in which heritage loss is redressed is by rebuilding damaged or destroyed sites. The complexity of this process is exemplified in the rebuilding of the sixteenth-century Stari Most Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was intentionally destroyed in 1993 (Bevan, 2016). The process of rebuilding cultural and religious property destroyed during the 1992–1995 war was “a difficult, long-drawn-out, often violently contested process” (Walasek, 2019 p.273), not least because the reconstruction of high impact markers of community identity, such as mosques, engendered “large, violent and well-planned anti-Muslim riots” (Walasek, 2019 p.286). Moreover, a lack of consultation resulted in local people feeling “disconnected from the protection and reconstruction of what had once been their heritage” (Lostal & Cunliffe, 2016 p.2). Kalman (2017) identifies several physical and non-material ways in which heritage loss can be redressed: reconstruction, preservation, punishing the perpetrators, and returning the building to usable condition without removing evidence of the damage. 47

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Figure 2.3 Old Bridge of the City of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1890/1900 to 2018. From top left in a clockwise direction: (A) Painted rock memorial on Old Mostar Bridge [Stari Most]. Photograph by Claire Smith 2018. (B) Bullet holes, some partly patched, in the external wall of a house at Hrgića, Sarajevo, Federacija Bosne i Hercegovine, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Photograph by Claire Smith. (C) Memorial Stone remembering the act of “extremists who demolished this 427-year old bridge, which the whole world condemned” on 9th November, 1993. Mostar, Herzegovina-Neretva, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photograph by LBM1948, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. (D) Old Bridge of Mostar, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. Photograph by Gary Jackson 2018.

Figure 2.3 shows that while the rebuilt Old Bridge today nestles unobtrusively within the township (Figure 2.3D) following its reconstruction by UNESCO in 2004 (UNESCO, 2022B), its destruction in 1993 is not forgotten through memorial stones on site (Figure 2.3A and 2.3C). At the same time, the war is remembered – and to some extent perpetuated – through urban buildings with unrepaired bullet holes in Sarajevo (Figure 2.3B and 2.3D) and other parts of the country. Kalman (2017) highlights the value of maintaining the physical evidence of destruction: The resolve to rebuild Stari Most was as ideologically driven as the resolve to destroy it. Both acts were about culture and identity, not sticks and stones. Ironically, while the reconstruction of the destroyed historic bridge brought back an important part of Bosnian identity, it also eliminated physical evidence of the bombardment and erased memories of the Croatian aggression. If we are to learn from experience, the actions of both sides – the destruction and the rebuilding – should be remembered by posterity. (Kalman, 2017 p.540) 48

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A second major approach to mitigating heritage is preservation, a conservation treatment that stabilises damage but leaves the building or object unrepaired (Kalman, 2017). Recently, a new will to punish the perpetrators of heritage destruction culminated in the first case being heard by the ICC that was focused on the destruction of cultural heritage. This case was that of ancient mausoleums in the World Heritage town of Timbuktu in Mali in 2012. In 2017, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi (Al Mahdi) was found guilty “of the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against historic monuments and buildings dedicated to religion, including nine mausoleums and one mosque”2 and sentenced to nine years of imprisonment. In addition, Trial Chamber VIII of the ICC concluded that “Mr Al Mahdi is liable for 2.7 million euros in expenses for individual and collective reparations for the community of Timbuktu for intentionally directing attacks against religious and historic buildings in that city”.3 Noting that Mr Al Mahdi was indigent, the Chamber encouraged the Trust Fund for Victims to complement a reparations award.4 Heritage is a core aspect of identity. As such, it can be used to heal and to provide a sense of security and wellbeing in post-conflict situations. The capacity of heritage to act in this way is apparent in the critical role that the reconstruction of heritage places can play in the repopulation of a region. For example, after the Spanish civil war, the restoration of cultural heritage was crucial in encouraging displaced peoples to return to their former residences, especially in areas that were dominated by different ethno-nationalist groups (Viejo-Rose, 2011). In a similar vein, Walasek (2019) explores the meaning that the restoration and reconstruction of intentionally destroyed heritage had on populations forcibly displaced and ethnically cleansed in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992–95 war: The reconstruction of such intentionally destroyed religious structures became almost an imperative for the returning ethnically cleansed, not only as part of reestablishing a sense of home and belonging, but also as a powerful act of remembrance and bearing witness, to ensure that the rewriting of history by the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing was overturned. (Walasek, 2019 p.291) Another way to redress heritage loss is through temporary and digital reconstructions. These can be in a physical space or the digital reconstruction in a computer or a 3D scan. One notable example of a temporary reconstruction is Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi’s use of wire mesh to recreate the structure of an eleventh-century church in Puglia in southern Italy. Digital reconstruction can be either on site or in virtual media. One of the most publicised examples, the Bamiyan Buddhas, was reconstructed in situ using 3-D light projections against the cliff in their original locations (Nagaoka, 2020). This digital reconstruction was part of a wider study that is considering physical reconstruction, but there are many ethical issues to be considered: Before any specific reconstructions of the Buddha statues are commissioned, we should consider several alternative futures for the past: will there be new audiences for heritage among the growing populations of Asia? Will digital and interactive ways of presentation reduce the significance of genuine artefacts? Will the preference for dark and painful heritage grow and perhaps increasingly demand stories about the Taliban rather than about Buddhism? Or will heritage tourism come to an end altogether? (Holtorf, 2020 p.157) 49

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Some heritage loss can be addressed through transitional justice processes associated with post conflict policy. Lostal and Cunliffe (2016) contend that cultural heritage should be incorporated into peacebuilding processes through truth-seeking bodies, reparation programs, and institutional reforms and that this “can be used to acknowledge the significance of the loss and assist in society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation” (Lostal & Cunliffe, 2016 p.4; see also Saldin and Forbes 2018). Of course, not everything needs to be saved. The preservation of heritage is a values-based social and political act. Harrison et al. (2020) reflect on how a range of different heritage preservation practices assemble and resource different kinds of futures. They point to new dilemmas in the selection and storage of objects by museums due to contemporary material abundance and the democratisation of memory. Holtorf (2020) argues that material abundance makes heritage loss not only inevitable but also desirable and that heritage loss should be integrated into sustainable practices for the future.

Conclusion Destroying heritage is much more than destroying an object – it attacks the signifiers of a society’s history, its shared memories, its cultural values, and the ways in which life is imbued with meaning. There are many ways in which heritage can be destroyed in conflict. Heritage can be destroyed inadvertently as collateral damage within a conflict zone, or it may be destroyed intentionally, with the aim of weakening culture, religion and social social and political institutions. In addition, heritage may be erased through neglect or looting or as part of development pressures or social and political conflicts as a society reshapes its memories and remakes its identity. Heritage erasure can be subtle, as in a failure to commemorate the identity and memories of a particular group, or it can accompany major social transformations, such as the de-commemoration of communism in Eastern Europe. The symbolic power of heritage is demonstrated by the impact of its destruction in conflict situations, whether it be in an armed conflict or a social and political conflict.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to José Antonio González Zarandona, Emma Cunliffe, and Melathi Saldin for inviting me to write this chapter. This compelled me to draw together a range of disparate ideas into a single focus. Some aspects of my argument were first mooted in earlier publications, including my co-authored book, Global Social Archaeologies: Making a Difference in a World of Strangers (Mizoguchi & Smith, 2019).

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 International Criminal Court (ICC). (2022). Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi. Case No. ICC-01/12-01/15, paragraph 1. Case information sheet, Situation in the Republic of Mali, January 2022. 3 ICC. (2022). Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi. Case No. ICC-01/12-01/15. Case information sheet paragraph 17, on reparations, Situation in the Republic of Mali, January 2022. 4 ICC. (2022). Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi. Case No. ICC-01/12-01/15. Case information sheet, paragraph 17, on reparations, Situation in the Republic of Mali, January 2022.

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Claire Smith Harrison, R., DeSilvey, C., Holtorf, C., Macdonald, S., Bartolini, N., Breithoff, E., Fredheim, H., Lyons, A., May, S., Morgan, J., and Penrose, S. (2020). Heritage Futures. Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. London: University College London Press. Helm, J., Silverman, E., Rees Shapiro, T., and Brown, E. (2017). One dead as car strikes crowds amid protests of white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville, The Washington Post, 13 August. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fights-in-advance-of-saturday-protest-incharlottesville/2017/08/12/155f b636-7f13-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Hobsbawm, E.J., and Ranger, T. (1983). The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holtorf, C. (2020). Destruction and reconstruction of cultural heritage as future making. In: Nagaoka, M. (ed). The Future of the Bamiyan Buddha Statues: Heritage Reconstruction in Theory and Practice. Kabul and Paris: UNESCO Office and Cham: Springer, pp.157–172. House of Commons. (2015). Column 1002: Destruction of Historic Sites (Syria and Iraq), 12 February 2015. Available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm150212/ debtext/150212-0002.htm#15021269000002 [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Isakhan, B., and González Zarandona, J.A. (2018). Layers of religious and political iconoclasm under the Islamic State: Symbolic sectarianism and pre-monotheistic iconoclasm. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(1), pp.1–16. Jansen, M. (2009). Presentation of the culture master plan (Kabul 31 July, Bamiyan, 2 August 2006). In: Petzet, M. (ed). The Giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. Safeguarding the Remains. Berlin: ICOMOS, pp.123–1254. Joy, C. (2020). Heritage Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaldor, M. (2007). New and Old Wars. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kastenberg, J. (1997). The legal regime for protecting cultural property during armed conflict. The Air Force Law Review 42, pp. 270–277. Kalman, H. (2017). Destruction, mitigation, and reconciliation of cultural heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies 23(6), pp.538–555. Kila, J. (2012). Heritage Under Siege: Military Implementation of Cultural Property Protection Following the 1954 Hague Convention. Leiden, Boston, MA: Brill. Kohl, P.L., and Fawcett, C. (eds). (1995). Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lemkin, R. (2008 [1944]). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals For Redress. Clark, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange. Lostal, M., and Cunliffe, E. (2016). The aftermath of destruction of cultural heritage: Factoring in cultural rights in post-conflict recovery processes. Geneva: UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner Submission to Study on Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. Mari, L. (2013). “In the country of absences”. Ancient Roman and Italian colonial heritage in Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men (2006). Incontri Rivista europea di studi italiani 28(1), pp.7–15. Merari, A. (2007). Terrorism as a strategy of insurgency. In: Chaliand, G., and Blin, A. (eds). The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp.12–51. Mizoguchi, K., and Smith, C. (2019). Global Social Archaeologies: Making a Difference in a World of Strangers. London: Routledge. Moses, A. (2010). Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide. In: Bloxham, D. and Dirk Moses, A. (eds). The Oxford Handbook on Genocide Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.19–41. Mullins, P. (2018). The ruins of rebellion: Absence on the confederate memorial landscape. Available at: https:// paulmullins.wordpress.com/?s=conf irm+shifting+attitudes+toward+Confederate+heritage+e ven+as+they+continue+to+evoke+neo-Confederate+memory+and+spark+White+nationalis [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Nagaoka, M. (ed). (2020). The Future of the Bamiyan Buddha Statues: Heritage Reconstruction in Theory and Practice. Kabul and Paris: UNESCO Office and Cham: Springer. National Memorial to the Heavenly Hundred Heroes and Revolution of Dignity Museum (2022). Available at: https://www.maidanmuseum.org/en/node/348 [Accessed: 07 March 2022]. National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide. (2022). Available at: https://holodomormuseum.org. ua/en/ [Accessed: 07 March 2023].

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Heritage destruction in conflict Nemeth, E. (2011). Collecting cultural intelligence: The tactical value of cultural property. International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence 24(2), pp.217–238. Nersessian, D. (2005). Rethinking cultural genocide under international law. Human Rights Dialogue: “Cultural Rights” (Spring 2005). Available at: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/ archive/dialogue/2_12/section_1/5139 [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Nicholas, G., and Smith, C. (2020). Considering the denigration and destruction of Indigenous heritage as violence. In: Apaydin, V. (ed). Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage: Construction, Transformation and Destruction. London: University College London, pp.131–154. Noyes, J. (2013). The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam. London and New York: IB Tauris. Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe Recommendation 1687. (2004). Combating Terrorism through Culture. Available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/counter-terrorism/pace [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Ralph, J., Smith, C., Jackson, G., Pamkal, B., Rubio Perez, R., Kumar Kanungo, A., Choksi, N., and the Barunga Community. (2021). Recording unmarked graves in a remote Aboriginal community: the challenge of cultural heritage driving sustainable development. Archaeologies 17(1), pp.53–78. Ratnagar, S. (2004). Archaeology at the heart of a political confrontation: the case of Ayodhya. Current Anthropology 45, pp.239–59. Resnyansky, L., Smith, C., Taylor, C., Sulistianto, and Mjuahiduddin, P. (2022). Reasons behind reasons: A communitarian reading of women’s radicalisation and family bombings in Southeast Asia. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2022.2034229. Rogers, A. (2011). Art history and the war on terror: Foregrounding the symbolic in debates on religious extremism. In: Akgün, M. and Peťková, L. (eds). Young Minds Rethinking the Mediterranean. Istanbul: Istanbul Kültür University, pp.94–117. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/ default/files/RS-Eng.pdf [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Saldin, M. (2021). Excavating the Power Politics of Heritage in Post-War Sri Lanka: Hegemonic Narratives and Resilient Minorities. PhD thesis, Melbourne: Deakin University. Saldin, M., and Forbes, C. (2018). The role of cultural heritage in building peace and reconciliation: Conflict, disaster and the future of heritage. Historic Environment 30(3). Available at: https://australia. icomos.org/publications/historic-environment/he-vol-30-no-3-2018-going-to-delhi-australiancontributions-to-the-19th-icomos-general-assembly-delhi-india-2017/ [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Sauer, E. (2003). The Archaeology of Religious Hatred in the Roman and Early Medieval World. Stroud: Tempus. Schroer, M. (2013). Visual culture and the fight for visibility. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 44(2), pp.206–228. Schwartz, B., and Bayma, T. (1999). Commemoration and the politics of recognition. American Behavioral Scientist 42(6), pp.946–967. Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 26 March 1999. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protecting-heritage/convention-andprotocols/1999-second-protocol [Accessed: 07 March 202]. Sergatskova, K. (2022). We will fight for every brick of Ukraine, The New York Times, 3rd April. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/opinion/ukraine-war-cultural-heritage.html [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Shahab, S., and Isakhan, B. (2018). The ritualization of heritage destruction under the Islamic State. Journal of Social Archaeology. DOI: 10.1177/1469605318763623. Shved, Y., and Park, J.H. (2016). Ukraine’s revolution of dignity: The dynamics of Euromaidan. Journal of Eurasian Studies 7(1), pp.85–91. Silva, K.T., and Hasbullah, S. (2019). Sacred sites, humanitarian assistance and the politics of land grabbing in Eastern Sri Lanka: The case of Deegavapi. Sri Lanka Journal of Sociology 1(1), pp.62–86. Smith, C. (2015). Social media and the destruction of World Heritage sites as global propaganda. In: Castillo, A (ed). Proceedings of II International Conference on Best Practices in World Heritage: People and Communities. Mahón, Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain. Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, pp.27–50. Smith, C., Burke, H., De Leiuen, C., and Jackson, G. (2016). The Islamic State’s symbolic war: Da’esh’s socially mediated terrorism as a threat to cultural heritage. Journal of Social Archaeology 16, pp.164–88.

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Claire Smith Smith, C., and Glew, A. (2022). How Ukraine’s personal, grassroots memorials honour individual citizens who fought for their nation, The Conversation, 22 March. Available at: https://theconversation. com/how-ukraines-personal-grassroots-memorials-honour-individual-citizens-who-fought-fortheir-nation-178899 [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Smith, C., Jackson, G., Ralph, J., and Willika, J. (2018). A grave omission. The quest to identify the dead in remote Northern Territory, The Conversation, 2nd August. Available at: https://theconversation.com/ a-grave-omission-the-quest-to-identify-the-dead-in-remote-nt-100456 [Accessed: 7 March 2023]. Stone, P.G. (2012). Human rights and cultural property protection in times of conflict. International Journal of Heritage Studies 18(3), pp.271–284. Stone, P.G., and MacKenzie, R. (eds). (1990). The Excluded Past: Archaeology in Education. London: Routledge. Teeger, C., and Vinitzky-Seroussi, V. (2007). Controlling for consensus: Commemorating apartheid in South Africa. Symbolic Interaction 30(1), pp.57–78. Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. (2022). Map of Cultural Losses. Ukrainian Cultural Foundation website. Available at: https://uaculture.org/culture-loss/ [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. UNESCO. (2003). UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage, 17 October. Available at: https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irrc_854_unesco_ eng.pdf [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. ——— (2009). Cultural heritage definition. UNESCO Institute for Statistics website. Available at: http:// uis.unesco.org/en/glossary-term/cultural-heritage [Accessed 07 March 2023]. ——— (2022a). Damaged cultural sites in Ukraine verified by UNESCO, UNESCO website, 13 June. Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/damaged-cultural-sites-ukraine-verifiedunesco?hub=365 [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. ——— (2022b). Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar. UNESCO World Heritage Centre website. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/946/ [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. United States Marine Corps (1940). Small Wars Manual. Washington, DC: United States Government. Van Der Auwera, S. (2012). Contemporary conflict, nationalism, and the destruction of cultural property during armed conflict: A theoretical framework. Journal of Conflict Archaeology 7(1), pp.49–65. Vecco, M. (2010). A definition of cultural heritage: From the tangible to the intangible. Journal of Cultural Heritage 11(3), pp.31–324. Viejo-Rose, D. (2011). Reconstructing Spain: Cultural Heritage and Memory after Civil War. Brighton; Portland: Sussex Academic Press. Walasek, H. (2019). Cultural heritage and memory after ethnic cleansing in post-conflict BosniaHerzegovina. International Review of the Red Cross 101(1), pp.273–294. Weiss, T.G., and Connelly, N. (2017). Cultural cleansing and mass atrocities. Protecting cultural heritage in armed conflict zones. J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy 1. Available at: https://www.getty.edu/publications/pdfs/CulturalCleansing_Weiss_Connelly.pdf. [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Wilson, A. (2006). Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Woodley, J. (2017). Charlottesville, Virginia: The history of the statue at the centre of violent unrest, The Conversation, 15th August. Available at: https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-virginiathe-history-of-the-statue-at-the-centre-of-violent-unrest-82476 [Accessed: 07 March 2023]. Zelenskyy, V. (2022). Evil returns when human rights and the law are violated and culture is destroyed; this is exactly what happened to Russia—address by the President of Ukraine. Available at: https:// www.president.gov.ua/en/videos/zlo-povertayetsya-koli-znevazhayut-prava-lyudej-zakon-irujn-2429 [Accessed: 07 March 2023].

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3 TALKING ABOUT HERITAGE DESTRUCTION IN MARKET COUNTRIES Erin L. Thompson

Introduction “Mulch.” “Expensive Pink.” “Sushi Flower.” These were some of the labels on what seemed like hundreds of containers of eye shadow in the hair and makeup room at CNN headquarters in New York. It was September 2015, and I had been invited to appear on live television to comment on the recent destruction of cultural heritage in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria. The stylist picked up a brush and started pondering her choices. Fearing she would see me as a Mulch type of person, I closed my eyes and let the beautification begin. As a scholar specialising in the history of the deliberate destruction of art and the looting and smuggling of antiquities, I knew that the damage happening in Syria was no anomaly. Around the world, cultural heritage had long been under threat. The dangers range from conflict to market exploitation to development that disturbs culturally significant sites. But relatively few people had regarded this destruction as an urgent problem. This changed when the radical organisation known as IS1 used the chaos of a civil war to conquer parts of Syria and Iraq. In 2014, Western media began to report that IS was supporting itself in part through the sale of antiquities looted from archeological sites under its control (Al-Azm et al., 2014; Chulov, 2014). IS then carried out several deliberate destructions of the standing remains at cultural heritage sites. The destruction that garnered the most media attention in the West was IS’s detonation of explosives in Palmyra in August 2015. The explosions destroyed two of what had been the best-preserved Roman buildings in the world, the first-century CE Temple of Bel and the second-century CE Temple of Baalshamin. I began to receive interview requests from journalists suddenly interested in issues I had spent years trying to persuade even those in my own academic field of art history to care about. I soon found that the larger the potential audience of readers or viewers, the farther I had to depart from my usual way of discussing the issues. As I prepared to go on CNN, I knew that I would have only a handful of seconds, instead of a whole semester, to get my points 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-4

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across. Still, the opportunity to talk to millions of viewers seemed worth having to condense my thoughts and undergo the application of so much makeup. As the segment began, the host’s first question was, “Why do you care?” This, of course, was the essential question. Why should I, or any of his viewers, care about the destruction of cultural heritage? The answer, in the mind of most Western journalists in 2015, was that their audience should care about cultural destruction because of its link to terrorism. But I was attempting to use this established concern about terrorism as an opening to convince the audience to care about the destruction for other reasons, including the importance of Palmyra to Syria’s culture and economy. It has been several years since this wave of public interest in Palmyra, but the linkage of terrorism and the destruction of culture is still frequently made. This narrative, which I will call, for reasons I will explain more fully below, the vandalism discourse, forms the current dominant lens through which heritage destruction is conceived and discussed by the public in market countries (meaning, countries that import cultural heritage artefacts from source countries, often in the wake of events of heritage destruction, for display in public collections or purchase by private collectors; these countries include those in North America and Western Europe, as well as, increasingly in past decades, China, Russia, and many of the Gulf States). It is impossible to talk about the destruction of heritage in isolation, outside of a discourse that provides definitions of relevant terms, because “heritage” is a term with no fixed or universally agreed-upon definition. “Destruction” is also a labile term, with definitions ranging from complete physical destruction to vandalism and neglect, while, for others, the destruction of meaning by the removal of an artefact from its cultural context, or its reuse or appropriating use by another culture or owner, can be of even greater concern than physical destruction. Each discourse focuses on certain aspects of destruction and ignores or even erases other aspects. The way that certain pieces of information are either heavily weighted or entirely removed changes the results of the discourse by spurring participants to take different actions not only in relation to destruction but also to heritage as a whole. Often, the choice of discourse is motivated by a desire to justify already-completed actions, including the purchase of heritage items. This is not to say that all discourse participants are knowingly manipulating the discourse because they think their actions need to be justified. Individual participants have widely different levels of understanding of the global situation of heritage destruction. Some are purchasing heritage items without questioning the source or being aware of the problems of destruction. Others are aware of the problem in general, but think their own actions do not contribute to it, or do not contribute enough to outweigh the benefits of these acts. Still others, despite being fully aware that their involvement in particular transactions is directly linked to destruction, are motivated to conceal this involvement under a cloak of discourse. But regardless of the multivalent knowledges and motivations of individual participants, they participate in a common discourse. In the remainder of this chapter, I will discuss several major discourses that have been used in market countries to talk about heritage destruction. This focus sets aside the equally important discourses used in source countries, where the topic of destruction is, of course, even more urgent, whether among those who wish to preserve heritage or those carrying out the destruction. The explanations for heritage destruction given by those who carry it out are fascinatingly complex and often include political rationales (e.g., during the French Revolution or China’s Cultural Revolution), theological ones (including Byzantine and Protestant Reformation iconoclasm), and mixtures of the two (as when Taliban authorities explained that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas both pointed out their un-Islamic 56

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nature and sent a political message to the West). IS’s performative and carefully orchestrated heritage destruction discourse has been subject to especially sensitive analysis (Harmanşah, 2015; Elsner & Flood, 2016; González Zarandona et al., 2018; Tugendhaft, 2020). I will discuss three different market country discourses of destruction, naming them the discourses of necessity, preservation, and vandalism. I will analyse each by describing how they have been used by market country audiences during the long history of their interest in the site of Palmyra. However, readers should not think that these different discourses are associated only with certain historical periods. Instead, they ebb and flow, replacing each other as needed. Even more importantly than the definitions it offers, each discourse is a framework for values. They ask and answer the question the television host asked me: why does the destruction matter? In answering this question about what type of harm results from destruction, a discourse also pushes its participants towards assumptions about the identities of victims and perpetrators of this harm as well as the form that remedies to it should take. My experience participating in the vandalism discourse about the destruction in Palmyra showed me how difficult it is to disturb the patterns set by the discourse. A discourse, once selected, seems to lead its participants to its foreordained conclusion regardless of the facts of any particular destruction it encounters.

The necessity discourse In 41 BCE, Mark Antony, then ruler of Rome’s eastern provinces, led a raid to plunder the rumoured wealth of the oasis settlement that was not yet known as Palmyra (Sommer, 2017). But when he and his troop of cavalry arrived, they found only water and palms. The nomadic inhabitants received warning of the raid and packed up their belongings onto the backs of camels that plodded into the desert where the Roman horsemen could not follow. Palmyra came under Roman rule during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. A Roman legion was stationed there from 18 CE onwards. However, the city maintained an unusual level of independence. Its citizens were allowed to have their own militia, which they used to offer paid protection to caravans carrying trade goods over the land route connecting Rome to India. In the first and second centuries CE, the Palmyrenes used their resulting wealth to build magnificent temples, columnated streets, and richly decorated tombs – a cultural heritage that could no longer be protected by being packed up on camels. In 267 CE, the ruler of Palmyra died, and his widow, Zenobia, took power in the name of their infant son (Stoneman, 1995). Although her city had been ruled by the Romans for 250 years, she declared herself Augustus and used the Palmyrene army to conquer Egypt. By the next year, Zenobia was conqueror and queen of all of what is now Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, as well as much of Turkey. The Romans were too busy fighting on other fronts to pay much attention to their eastern provinces, but finally, the battle-hardened general Aurelian became emperor and, in 272 CE, turned his march towards Palmyra (Watson, 2004). Zenobia’s troops were defeated in a battle at Emesa, Syria (modern Homs), and she retreated to a fortified Palmyra. Zenobia was finally captured when she left the city to try to reach the Persians to make an alliance against the Romans. The Palmyrenes surrendered and opened the gates to their city. Aurelian marched back to Rome, taking Zenobia as his captive but leaving her city untouched. But when the Palmyrenes found someone else to crown emperor, and again declared their freedom, Aurelian turned back and razed the city. He did not want to risk the city using its cultural solidarity and wealth to mount an another bid for empire. 57

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In 2015, when international audiences mourned the destruction of Palmyra’s Roman architecture, they seem not to have been aware that it was the Romans themselves who carried out this first major, deliberate destruction at Palmyra (which, however, likely focused on marketplaces and other structures of economic or military importance, leaving the temples stripped of costly adornments but structurally intact). Aurelian’s actions show that, of course, IS was by no means the first military force to use deliberate destruction of cultural heritage as a means of carrying out war. The goal of such destruction is to demoralise the enemy by striking at what they hold dear while also cutting off what is often an important means of economic support. Often, heritage destruction is part of a larger campaign of limiting enemy resistance by dispersing population concentrations or, in the longer term, eroding community cohesiveness by decreasing the likelihood that future generations will identify with the attacked culture. Among many examples, the Khmer Rouge proclaimed a “Year Zero” and demolished many of Cambodia’s temples, mosques, and churches. Similar destructions took place in Tibet under Chinese rule; in former Soviet republics including Abkhazia and Azerbaijan; and in the former Yugoslavia, where the tribunal in the Prosecutor v. Kordic and Cerkez2 case explained that the targeting of mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina “amounts to an attack on the very religious identity of a people. As such, it manifests a nearly pure expression of the notion of ‘crimes against humanity’” (n.207). Although Aurelian left no surviving record of his justification for his destruction at Palmyra, it seems clear he would have regarded it in the same terms as so many other military commanders who have ordered similar heritage destruction. Whether they admire or abhor the heritage in question, these commanders insist on the necessity of destroying it to achieve other, more important goals. The discourse of necessity is enshrined today in the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention, 1954), the international treaty that purports to direct the conduct of military commanders, requiring them to refrain “from any act of hostility directed against” cultural property unless “military necessity imperatively requires … a waiver” (Art.4.2). In other words, we should not destroy heritage – unless we decide that we really need to do so. The discourse of necessity is also called into use in times of peace when discussing the destruction of heritage during development; for example, when an archaeological site is threatened by the expansion of a city or the construction of a mine or a dam. Here, more often than during war, the heritage in question is praised, and sometimes salvage operations are attempted, but the end result is the same: the destruction is deemed justified because the heritage is judged to be of less value than the goal that will be achieved thanks to its destruction. The function of the necessity discourse is to demonstrate that the value of the threatened heritage is less than the value of whatever will be achieved by its destruction. In some instances, the discourse achieves this ranking of valuations through depreciating the value of the heritage; at other times, the discourse elevates the value of the goal. There are no currently existing victims in the necessity discourse. Instead, the victims exist only potentially; they are identified as those who would suffer in the future if the heritage is not destroyed. Of course, there are often arguments about whether an actual instance of destruction will be or was actually justified on the basis of necessity. But those who are making the argument of necessity make an interesting separation of the actors who have or will carry out the destruction from those people they identify as perpetrating harm. Within

2 ICTY. (2001). Prosecutor v. Kordic & Cerkez. Case No. IT-95-14/2-T, Trial Chamber, Judgement, 26 February.

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the necessity discourse, it is those who claim they suffer because of the destruction of heritage who are identified as attempted perpetrators of harm because they try to stop destruction necessary to ensure the well-being of others.

The preservation discourse The British traveller and missionary William Wright explored the ruins of ancient Palmyra in 1874. In the memoir he wrote about his journey, he describes crawling into a hole at the base of a mound in one of the site’s ancient cemeteries (Wright, 1895). After dropping unexpectedly, Wright found himself in a burial vault “surrounded by the mouldering remains of one hundred and fifteen Palmyrans” lying on terracotta tiled shelves (p.91). After exhausting his supply of matches, Wright tried to climb back up to the high hole he had fallen from: I tried to set up the longest tiles on their ends, laying others across, and propping up the structure with shin bones and other fragments of skeletons; but the erection came down when I tried to mount it, and I found that it would be necessary to build up a solid mass of the tile shelves. The tiles were about an inch thick, and I knew that there were one hundred and fifteen, but some of them were so well cemented into their places that I could neither draw them out nor break them. (p.93) Wright spent an hour trying to escape, complaining that it “was not pleasant, in the darkness, to grope among the bony skeletons, sometimes putting my hands on a skull, and sometimes on the fleshless toes of a foot” (p.93). His destruction of the ancient remains and funerary architecture saved him – not by making a staircase up, but in the end, simply by making enough noise that his companions, whom he had not informed of his expedition, were finally able to locate him. Wright wanted to explore Palmyra because he knew and appreciated its ancient history from his readings. He wanted to collect artefacts from Palmyra to bring back to England to let other Englishmen who could not make the trip themselves engage more deeply with Palmyra. (Although Wright dreamed of discovering rich burial goods, even going so far as to bring ropes and grappling hooks to climb the highest of the city’s famed tower tombs, “which all my predecessors had sighed in vain to ransack”, he found that even “the highest recesses had been ransacked before I scaled them, and that nothing remained but a few mutilated mummies” (p.77, p.82). Just as he did when trapped underground, Wright could not resist tampering with the remains; he took a number of skulls, “choosing those that seemed most unlike each other”, to take home with him (p.82).) While few market-country inhabitants have described their destruction of ancient materials with such openness as Wright, the impulse to acquire cultural artefacts often results in the destruction of other, less desirable forms of heritage. Travelling collectors who themselves break some things in the process of acquiring others are relatively infrequent (although by no means unknown – even Gustave Flaubert crawled into a tomb in Egypt during his voyages, emerging with the foot of a mummy which he kept on his desk). More frequently, it is looters who cause damage while extracting artefacts for sale to buyers in market countries. Only a few categories of cultural artefacts – for example, sculptures, jewellery, or coins – are both portable enough to reach these buyers and aesthetically pleasing or historically interesting enough to engage them. The unmarketable elements of looted cultural sites are damaged by the extraction process or are left behind to decay. The artefacts that end up in market 59

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countries are then cherished, conserved, and displayed with pride. Damage is even a feature of modern archaeology, where often the upper layers of a long-inhabited site are scraped off and discarded to give the excavators access to the occupational stratigraphies of interest to them. I am not here making a moral diagnosis of the values of preservation and destruction in any of these cases. I am interested, instead, in the way that participants in a discourse assign these values. The preservation discourse is centered around a value that one participant called “too obvious to need elaboration” in an influential article purporting to identify the core values of cultural heritage (Merryman, 1989 p.355). For the author of this article, Stanford Law School professor John Henry Merryman, the primary value of cultural heritage is preservation; this value is so central that even to name it “is tautological; if we don’t care about its preservation, it isn’t, for us, a cultural object” (p.355). Thus, for Merryman, as for many other participants in this discourse, the “essential ingredient of any cultural property policy is that the object itself must be physically preserved” (p.355). But those who value preservation above all other aspects of their relationship with cultural heritage must still account for the destruction, whether incidental or major, that accompanies the movement of cultural artefacts from one location to another. This damage can stand in one of two positions in the preservation discourse, depending on the identity of the perpetrator. If it is the participants themselves who carry out the damage while believing themselves to be achieving the ultimate goal of preserving the past (or, at least, its more desirable artefacts), then the destruction is thought to be excused by necessity, if, indeed, it is even considered at all. (Here, as often happens, the discourses bleed into one another.) Much more frequently, destruction appears in the preservation discourse as an action that calls the preserver to action and justifies any such action the preserver might take. The history of Western collecting of antiquities is rife with accusations of the inhabitants of source countries of neglect or deliberate attacks on these artefacts. This insistence on destruction provides a justification for their rescue, even if achieving it involves some damage (not to mention theft, smuggling, bribery of officials, or other means of evading the laws of the source country or the expressed will of its citizens). For example, Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, reported to the British House of Commons in 1816 that while he had arrived in Athens planning merely to employ artists and draftsmen “to measure and to draw every thing that remained and could be traced” of the architecture of the Athenian Acropolis, he decided that he must remove the sculptures from the Parthenon when he saw the Turks have been continually defacing the heads; and in some instances they have actually acknowledged to me, that they have pounded down the statues to convert them into mortar. It was upon these suggestions and with these feelings, that I proceeded to remove as much of the sculpture as I conveniently could. (Report from the Select Committee, 1816 p.350) Yet, nearly 150 years before this, in 1674, Charles-Marie-François Olier, Marquis of Nointel, then France’s ambassador to the Ottomans, wrote home to ask (unsuccessfully) for funds to bring the Parthenon marbles to Paris: “There they would be safe from the insults and injuries done to them by the Turks, who, in their horror of what they call idolatry, deem it a worthy act to break off a nose or some other part” (Constantine, 1984 p.12). If the inhabitants of Athens were indeed happily mutilating all visible ancient sculptures, there would not have been enough left for either Olier or Elgin to covet. But they were each eager to point to signs of neglect and destruction as a justification for their wish to acquire the sculptures. 60

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The insistence among market country inhabitants on the desolate character of the ruins of the past is also a crucial part of the preservation discourse. To call a site ruined, forgotten, buried, or neglected is to call it, in effect, destroyed. To label it as such is to make a claim that this site is available for discovery and new ownership. Often, this claim involves ignoring the existence of others who might offer competing claims to the heritage. This insistence on prior destruction is clear in the very title of The Ruins of Palmyra (1753), the publication that brought Palmyra back to Western attention. The book was popular less for its short text than for its 57 large illustrations, ranging from details of carvings to panoramic views of the site, which were the first images of the site to reach modern Europe. For centuries, Palmyra had been known there only through written descriptions from ancient texts or the reports of a handful of Western travellers. The book was the product of a 1750–1751 expedition by two Englishmen, James Dawkins and Robert Wood. Dawkins was the Oxford-educated son of a family that had made its fortune as planters in the West Indies. He used this wealth, derived in large part from the labour of enslaved people, to finance a trip to Palmyra along with other classical sites along the Mediterranean and in the Middle East. Dawkins and Wood were hailed as discoverers after their return. A 1758 painting by Gavin Hamilton is even titled “James Dawkins and Robert Wood Discovering the Ruins of Palmyra”. The engravings in The Ruins of Palmyra support this perception of the site as desolate and forgotten, in need of discovery, by generally leaving out human figures. In the few panoramic views that include humans, the artist dressed them in ancient-style togas and robes, as if they were ghosts from empires past, come back to look at where they had once lived. The story of Palmyra, as told in the West, ignored the fact that the site did not need to be discovered by Dawkins and Wood. It was inhabited when they arrived. Palmyra diminished in population and size after the third century CE, but its natural spring meant that the site, which has been occupied since at least the Bronze Age, would never cease to be attractive to inhabitants. By the seventeenth century, Palmyra had become a village housed entirely within the enclosure walls of the sanctuary of Bel. The Temple of Bel itself had been converted into a mosque. Western visitors routinely commented on what they saw as the contrast between the modern inhabitants and the ancient ruins. One English visitor in 1691 described Palmyra’s population as a “poor miserable dirty people” living in “little huts made of dirt”, writing that never before had he seen such a mixture of “ye greatest state and magnificence together with ye extremity of filth & poverty” (Halifax, 1890 p.279). The story told about Palmyra was one of ancient masterpieces abandoned in a desert, scorned by a few ignorant and filthy inhabitants with no real connection to the past. No wonder that numerous explorers and dealers removed Palmyra’s more portable heritage to supply Western museums and collectors in the period. For example, most of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s relief portraits, which once adorned tombs in Palmyra, were purchased from the New York-based Lebanese dealer Azeez Khayat in the early twentieth century (Press, 2019). Khayat spoke openly about how he obtained antiquities through illegal excavations and then smuggled them out of the source countries by bribing officials. It is likely that both he and his customers would have justified breaking these laws by pointing to the greater value of preserving these works by rescuing them from what was perceived as a state of neglect or danger. The preservation discourse makes the artefacts themselves the victims. They must be protected, and this goal justifies any number of actions on the part of their self-appointed caretakers. 61

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The vandalism discourse The villains in the preservation discourse are rather amorphous. Sometimes they are identified as residents of source countries who deliberately harm antiquity because they do not understand its importance or stand in the way of its export to a more fitting Western collection because of a failure to see beyond irrational nationalistic greed. More often, the preservation discourse vilifies the mere fact of perceived neglect or general lack of attention to the artefacts of interest. By contrast, the vandalism discourse focuses very intently on its villains, identified as those who deliberately damage and destroy cultural heritage. The term “vandalism” itself was coined by the Abbé Grégoire to describe the destruction of aristocratic art during the French Revolution. He wished to defame all such destruction and thus associated it with an ancient Germanic tribe, the Vandals, notorious for their destructive conquest of the city of Rome (Gamboni, 2007). The vandalism discourse concentrates the blame on its villains so heavily that it refuses to ascribe any rational motivations to those who carry out destruction. It stands in contrast to the necessity and preservation discourses, which rush to supply rationales for destruction. By contrast, vandals are perceived as always acting in a sub-rational, nearly sub-human way. Thus, most Western commentators bemoaned the mindlessness of IS’s destruction without realising that IS leaders were engaged in highly planned operations that used destruction to activate these very stereotypes in Western media and thus gain exposure to potential recruits and donors (Harman şah, 2015; Elsner & Flood, 2016; González Zarandona et al., 2018; Tugendhaft, 2020). There are key structural reasons for the reluctance to see rationality in the actions of vandals. First, to admit that they are rational actors is to question the generally unquestioned value of preservation. If the value of preservation does not top all other possible values, then participants would have to reassess their past actions. But generally, they do not. For example, the Metropolitan Museum’s 2019 exhibition “The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East” included extensive discussion, in the form of texts and video interviews playing in the galleries, of IS’s destruction of heritage in the area. To illustrate the types of heritage threatened by IS, the museum displayed some of its funerary reliefs from Palmyra – reliefs which had most likely been, as I discussed above, illegally removed from the site and smuggled out of the country (Press, 2019). The exhibit condemned one form of destruction by proudly displaying the results of another form of destruction. But the similarities between the two were concealed by placing them within two different narratives: preservation versus vandalism. Second, to admit that vandals might be acting rationally is to open the door to a discussion of who bears the culpability for giving rise to their motivations. Thus, the Western media’s copious coverage of IS’s heritage destruction almost entirely failed either to link it to the long history of looting in the area to feed the antiquities market or to point out that the lack of stability in the region that allowed for the rise of IS was caused by an equally long history of dispute over its oil resources by Western powers. The vandalism discourse places blame on other people, never on the participants in the discourse themselves. These participants have another role to play: victims. To be sure, it is inanimate heritage itself that is attacked, but the vandalism discourse sees these attacks as aimed ultimately at the horrified, though distant, onlookers. Vandals are understood to be attacking artefacts when they cannot access the people who are their true targets. Thus, many Westerners who mourned the temples of Palmyra feared for their own lives. They feared becoming victims of terrorists strengthened by cultural destruction. 62

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The vandalism discourse is rhetorically powerful precisely because it addresses this fear while mapping on to powerful narrative archetypes, reducing of a complex story to stark good and bad, victims and evil-doers. In the United States and Western Europe, terrorism is conceived of as an attack by foreigners, by the “other”. When we seek to protect something against terrorism, we do so because of an identification with it – it is a part of our culture and needs to be saved from a hostile group attacking us through what we hold dear. It is no coincidence that the Western world expressed its greatest outrage over cultural destruction in the Syrian conflict when IS blew up Palmyra’s Roman temples. Rome is a part of the Western cultural imaginary, while the hundreds of Islamic sites also attacked by IS are not.

How discourses shape action Unlike the preservation discourse, where destruction is something that has already happened, the destruction in the vandalism discourse is conceived as ongoing. Accordingly, the discourse is performed in order to spur action. This, in part, is what made participating in the discourse so attractive to me in 2015. Connecting terrorism and antiquities protection made Western audiences pay attention to ongoing problems like antiquities looting – problems I and other scholars had long struggled to bring to public attention. Taking advantage of the attention seemed like a valuable way to raise funds, educate the public, and lobby for legislation in order to protect heritage more generally. For example, legislation requiring provenance documentation for sales of Syrian antiquities could be justified by explaining that it would prevent IS from profiting from looted antiquity, but would also prevent other looters from operating. Linking terrorism and heritage destruction has had important effects on shaping heritage policy, from changes in buying practices to strengthening international and national laws. But the vandalism discourse has shaped this policy in ways that address its central concerns. The reactions have focused on preventing destruction in limited target areas, in the present and immediate future, in order to prevent identified terrorist groups from benefitting from this destruction. Thus, new legal restrictions have almost exclusively targeted sales of cultural property looted from Iraq and Syria after the start of the conflicts of concern rather than from a wider geographical or temporal scope, as they would if the lawmakers were concerned about heritage damage per se. If the goal is to prevent IS from profiting through destruction, there is no call for restricting demand for looted antiquities in the future, after the defeat of IS, or for widening restrictions to cover antiquities looted in other areas that do not profit a feared terrorist group. Another problematic effect of all the discourses I have discussed is that they generally ignore the expertise and autonomy of residents of the country in which the destruction is occurring. The necessity and preservation discourses hardly even recognise the existence of residents of the source country who might understand or appreciate the heritage as much as residents of market countries. Meanwhile, the vandalism discourse sometimes acknowledges such residents only to use their ultimate helplessness as a call for Western intervention. Thus, many Western reactions to the destruction have taken the form of proposing to safeguard or otherwise collect Syrian antiquities, with no plans to return them. Another key commonality of all the destruction discourses I have discussed is that they scrupulously avoid placing blame on the speaker or audience – on the “us” in the discourse. The culpability of market countries is denied. Solutions to the problem of destruction proposed within these discourses never entirely forbid the purchase of cultural artefacts that have entered the market in circumstances of destruction. At most, the vandalism discourse seeks to ask buyers to avoid particular sellers but not purchases in general. 63

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The destruction discourses arise, and are changed one for another, as they become more or less useful to shift blame for any destruction further from the discourse-makers. While currently, the vandalism discourse is the most common, I suspect that the necessity discourse will arise again once a market country again directly invades a source country. Then, the destruction of heritage as collateral damage during the conflict, or even the deliberate targeting of a cultural site to achieve a combat purpose, will once again be regretfully blamed on necessity. In the end, we choose the discourse that best suits what we already want to do.

References Al-Azm, A., Al-Kuntar, S., and Daniels, B.I. (2014). ISIS’ Antiquities Sideline, The New York Times, 3 September. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/opinion/isis-antiquities-sideline. html [Accessed: 1 March 2021]. Chulov, M. (2014). How an Arrest in Iraq Revealed Isis’s $2bn Jihadist Network, The Guardian, 15 June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/15/iraq-isis-arrest-jihadists-wealthpower [Accessed: 1 March 2021]. Constantine, D. (1984). Early Greek Travellers and the Hellenic Ideal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protectingheritage/convention-and-protocols/1954-convention [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Elsner, J., and Flood, F.B. (2016). Debate: Religion and Iconoclasm. Religion and Society 7, pp.116–138. Gamboni, D. (2007). The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution. London: Reaktion Books. González Zarandona, J.A., Albarrán-Torres, C., and Isakhan, B. (2018). Digitally Mediated Iconoclasm: The Islamic State and the War on Cultural Heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(6), pp.649–671. Halifax, W. (1890). Relation of a Voyage to Tadmor in 1691. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 22(4), pp.273–303. Harman şah, Ö. (2015). ISIS, Heritage, and the Spectacles of Destruction in the Global Media. Near Eastern Archaeology 78(3), pp.170–177. House of Commons. (1816). Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Earl of Elgin’s Collection of Sculptured Marbles. London: J. Murray. Merryman, J.H. (1989). The Public Interest in Cultural Property. California Law Review (77.2), pp.339–364. Press, M. (2019). Investigating Origins and Cultural Heritage at the Metropolitan Museum, Hyperallergic, 2 May. Available at: https://hyperallergic.com/496610/the-world-between-empires-art-and-identityin-the-ancient-middle-east/ [Accessed: 1 March 2021]. Sommer, M. (2017). Palmyra: A History. London: Routledge. Stoneman, R. (1995). Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia’s Revolt against Rome. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Tugendhaft, A. (2020). The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Watson, A. (2004). Aurelian and the Third Century. London: Routledge. Wright, W. (1895). An Account of Palmyra and Zenobia. London: T. Nelson.

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4 DESTRUCTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN PEACETIME AND INTERNATIONAL LAW Lucas Lixinski

Introduction The intentional destruction of cultural heritage has received attention in international law through the standard-setting activities of UNESCO, but it has primarily focused on destruction that happens as a result of conflict. There is still an assumption among scholars and the international community at large that international law will only really be triggered in wartime (which is traditionally a domain of international law), whereas peacetime activity is shrouded behind the veil of state sovereignty. However, international law does have a lot to say about destruction in peacetime as well, which is where this chapter focuses. Peacetime destruction, while it does happen, has seldom been regulated in international law; UNESCO officers and diplomats have assumed that states would not want to destroy their own heritage, and that, at any rate, they would not agree to curtail their own sovereignty in this space through ratification of any such international peacetime legislation. On the latter, however, actions under several instruments, like adding properties to the World Heritage List, create an opening for a legitimate international legal interest in avoiding the destruction of heritage outside of conflict. If something is protected by an international mechanism like entry onto the World Heritage List, it means that the international community in general has an interest in its protection, and not just the nominating and territorial state(s). Over time, exclusive sovereignty has become porous, and more and more heritage has become internationalised with, for example, transboundary World Heritage nominations and international oversight. As heritage has become internationalised, so has the interest in preventing or avoiding its destruction. The culmination of international standard-setting in the field of intentional destruction of cultural heritage is UNESCO’s 2003 Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003 Declaration). This Declaration responds to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban regime in 2001, and applies, in its own terms, to destruction both in wartime and in peacetime.1 In other words, international law has now arguably blurred the distinction between peacetime and wartime destruction, at least within international heritage law (Vrdoljak, 2007). A further factor that drove this blurring of destruction in peacetime and wartime is the lack of clarity about the threshold for a conflict under international law – in other words, what type of aggressive actions amount to a conflict, DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-5

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as opposed to just skirmishes and isolated incidents of use of force (Vrdoljak, 2007), hence the ongoing confusion about the timing of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. This chapter examines the international legal regime applicable to the destruction of cultural heritage in peacetime. In particular, it focuses on the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention, WHC) and the 2003 Declaration. These two instruments help tease out key tensions including and beyond the issue of application of international law to state conduct in peacetime. I also highlight the protectiveness of these rules, which assume that the destruction of heritage is always fundamentally wrong and in violation of international law. This baseline is determined by what I call the conservation paradigm (Lixinski, 2019), which is the expression in law of Laurajane Smith’s authorised heritage discourse (2006). Specifically, international legal regimes tend to require prevention of all forms of heritage destruction. While an important goal, taken to its extreme, it can also exclude communities from controlling their own heritage, which may include the destruction of said heritage. I argue therefore that, while the legal presumption against destruction may be important to protect (vulnerable) communities’ interests over their own heritage, it can also trap those same communities in a conservation paradigm that is antithetical to the idea of heritage as living culture. In order to make this argument, the next section briefly examines the conservation paradigm and its origins in the legal protection of heritage in wartime. The following section examines the primary international treaty protecting heritage in peacetime, the WHC. I next move to a detailed examination of the 2003 Declaration, before addressing the human right to cultural heritage protected within the scope of the right of access to cultural life, and what that human rights framework has to say about intentional destruction. The final section draws some conclusions about these legal frameworks and points at directions for future developments.

The conservation paradigm and anti-destruction The conservation paradigm is the idea that the core purpose of legal protection or safeguarding of heritage is to ensure its continued existence. As such, once heritage has been protected under the law, there is little to no room for its modification, let alone destruction (Lixinski, 2019). It follows from the authorised heritage discourse (Smith, 2006), which exposes a set of discursive practices that selects or authorises what heritage is, what it means, and how it is used. International law (and frequently national law), as an authorising force, freezes heritage at a point in time, and therefore it seeks to protect that snapshot of heritage, including its uses and narratives, for the benefit of future generations. It is expert-driven, separating heritage from uses that go against a scientific desire to maintain heritage pristine and divorced from the commodifying forces of globalisation. This paradigm is set at the international level and implemented and controlled by states at the national level. However, international law relates (largely) to a higher threshold of “important” heritage, meaning importance nationally and internationally, whereas national heritage management subordinates heritage management to state frameworks that can accommodate different levels of relative importance for heritage. Regardless of the importance thresholds used, communities are often (although not always) excluded from management processes in favour of state-led heritage narratives and priorities, and many countries lack any route for community participation in heritage management (Lixinski, 2019). To be sure, the conservation paradigm allows for the conservation and restoration of heritage, largely to maintain or recover the specific moment of legal protection. And intentional 66

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destruction in peacetime can be caused by poor conservation and restoration efforts (Morezzi et al., 2014). But this specific framework is largely reactive (as is much of law), meaning that it only interferes with heritage after damage has been suffered. Other peacetime frameworks, like those related to disasters, are more attuned to the need for preventative measures (Bartolini, 2020). The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) and its Second Protocol (1999) also include brief measures on peacetime preparation for wartime (O’Keefe, 2006), which have served as a model for how international law regulates changes to heritage. The 1954 Hague Convention, too, has generally set another yardstick for the conservation paradigm. The Preamble begins with the phrase “cultural property … is in increasing danger of destruction” and goes on to stress that “the preservation of the cultural heritage is of great importance”, leading many to assume that all heritage destruction is a violation of international law because it was perpetrated in wartime (Lixinski, 2021). While this assumption makes perfect sense in a regime aimed at protecting cultural heritage during conflict because it was the first treaty adopted by UNESCO in pursuance of its culture mandate, it set the tone for international cultural heritage law since. In other words, a wartime regime that assumed heritage to be the victim of hostile invading states set the basic premises within which regimes dealing with cultural heritage in peacetime operate when there is no comparable crisis overtaking decision-making. This move effectively replicates a language of crisis in international cultural heritage law, which is a problem endemic to international law more broadly (Charlesworth, 2002). Other regimes have since perpetuated this assumption and crisis thinking, most notably for our purposes, WHC, the analysis of which is the object of the next section.

World Heritage Convention: Reinforcing the paradigm The WHC is the world’s most widely ratified cultural heritage treaty, with near-global participation. As such, despite its focus on a small subsection of cultural and natural heritage of “outstanding universal value”, it is a key point of reference for how heritage is regulated by both international and domestic law and arguably the most important legal instrument related to heritage in peacetime. In its text, there are only three references to destruction, two of which are in the same Preamble clause, which notes destruction as a threat to heritage: “Noting that the cultural heritage and the natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage or destruction” (emphasis added). Preambles to international treaties are important because they enunciate the treaty’s object and purpose and influence the interpretation of every provision in the treaty to ensure the object and purpose of the treaty is fulfilled. With this preambular clause, the WHC confirms the idea of destruction as a threat and undesirable, pinning down potential drivers of destruction to traditional decay and social and economic change. Social and economic change becomes charged with negative connotations and a wellspring of crises. There is only one reference to destruction in the actual WHC text in relation to the List of World Heritage in Danger (UNESCO WHC, Art. 11(4)). At the time of writing, this List includes 53 sites across 32 countries around the world (36 cultural and 17 natural). Article 11(4) of the WHC provision speaks of inclusion on the List of “threatened by serious and specific dangers, such as the […] destruction caused by changes in the use or ownership of the land” (emphasis added). While the WHC identifies a number of other causes of harm to heritage, destruction is only connected specifically to land law and management. The same sentiment 67

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is echoed in the Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the WHC, which, though not part of the Convention itself, should nonetheless be taken seriously in the interpretation of the treaty, as they are written by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, an independent body established in the Convention with the specific mandate to supervise the application of the treaty. The version at the time of writing of the Operational Guidelines only refers to destruction “following encroaching agriculture, forestry or grazing, or through poorly managed tourism or other uses” (UNESCO WHC, 2019 p.103). This reference is included in a section that offers guidance on how to fill out nomination forms for the World Heritage Lists in explanatory notes that are part of the template attached to the Operational Guidelines. It is largely directed at development pressures that affect the property as part of the state of conservation item in the nomination form. These rules focus on the issue of land use and add a dimension about the economic uses of heritage, which the practice of UNESCO (and international heritage law more generally) sees as a threat to heritage when viewed through the conservation paradigm (Lixinski, 2019). Further, the practice of the World Heritage Committee also suggests that modification or reconstruction of heritage at the local level can be seen as tantamount to destruction and stand in tension with legal obligations under the WHC. One clear instance of this behaviour is what happened with the Bagrati Cathedral in Georgia. Chosen as a symbol of the national identity of Georgia, the Cathedral was added to the World Heritage List in 1994 as a key example of medieval architecture. Its ruins were embraced and reconstructed by the national government to amplify its use as a national symbol, and the World Heritage Committee, alongside ICOMOS, deemed that the process greatly altered the authenticity of the site (a requirement for inscription on the List). As a result, the site was added to the World Heritage in Danger List, and in 2017, the boundaries of the site were substantially redrawn so as to exclude the Cathedral and only include a nearby monastery, which now stands alone as the world heritage site (Coster, 2019). In other words, the reconstruction of a building to better benefit the local population was seen as altering its heritage character so fundamentally as to make it no longer worthy of the heritage label. This focus on authenticity is highly problematic in the practice of the World Heritage Committee, in my view (Lixinski, 2021). In other words, the WHC’s references to destruction in the Preamble announce an emphasis on destruction as a threat, which creates crisis thinking, but the practice of the World Heritage Committee has largely focused and still focuses on destruction only in fairly specific contexts (primarily land title, land use, and development including tourism). International legal rules applicable during peacetime to heritage destruction seem to assume that destruction, which should be in the back of everyone’s minds as a threat, usually only happens during the conflict. Instead, it is left to other international rules, driven largely by this gap in the WHC system, to tackle the issue of heritage destruction more directly, driven by the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001 (which were not on the World Heritage List at the time but have since been added). The UNESCO General Conference, in its reaction to this incident via a document titled “Acts Constituting ‘A Crime Against the Common Heritage of Humanity’” (UNESCO, 2001), highlighted the centrality of the WHC, and the need to reinforce action under it, as part of “General principles of protection included in all UNESCO’s existing heritage conventions [which] clearly reject such destructive acts” (UNESCO, 2001 n.6(c)). As the Operational Guidelines (UNESCO WHC, 2019) show, however, the World Heritage Committee has largely failed to establish rules relating to destruction within the confines of the WHC for states to enact and enforce in their implementation of the treaty. Instead, a new instrument was developed, which is the object, alongside the context that led to its adoption of the next section. 68

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The 2003 Declaration: High threshold of heritage significance that excludes the community The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas triggered UNESCO’s Director-General to call for a new instrument to ensure the prevention and punishment of similar situations in the future (UNESCO, 2001 n.1). The Bamiyan Valley was subsequently also added to the World Heritage List, but, it is worth noting, as a cultural landscape, and not as a cultural site, since the latter requires, under the conservation paradigm and WHC rules, authenticity, which is impossible with the statues gone, whereas the category of cultural landscape only requires integrity. In other words, the conservation paradigm, seen through the lenses of the Bamiyan Valley World Heritage Site (officially registered as the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley), limits action in relation to intentional destruction, effectively shifting the available legal categories for heritage protection. Following this call by the Director-General, on 16 April 2002, the Permanent Delegate of Turkey addressed a communication to the Director-General of UNESCO, emphasising that “the intentional acts of destruction of cultural monuments in the last years had also indicated that the existing conventions and recommendations were not sufficient to preserve culturally important monuments and sites in times of peace” (UNESCO Executive Board, 2002 n.3(c)). In other words, there was a clear sense of gap, despite the existing WHC framework discussed above. Development of what became the 2003 Declaration faced one important initial obstacle from the perspective of international law: whether the instrument (particularly its language on peacetime, since wartime destruction, was already well covered by the 1954 Hague Convention) was developing new law, or it was a restatement of existing customary international law. Customary international law is law developed over time from widespread states’ practice and their concomitant belief that their practice is required by the law (as opposed to just being an act of comity or diplomatic kindness): it is the law with which all states must comply everywhere in the world. Generally speaking, “international legal instruments, such as UNESCO Declarations and Recommendations, are not binding on States, although they are viewed as standard setting and may become part of customary international law” (see Gerstenblith in this volume). If the Declaration was declaratory of custom, it would be much stronger; if not, the Declaration would be simply a list of aspirational principles which might one day become custom, but it would never be hard law in the same way as the WHC. In its own internal documents, UNESCO acknowledge this uncertainty in the drafting of the Declaration (UNESCO, 2003b n.9). Drafters were adamant that the Declaration should not create new laws or modify states’ existing international legal obligations (UNESCO, 2003b). Nonetheless, Francioni and Lenzerini (2003) argued that the Declaration was a declaration of customary international law (and Francioni was deeply involved in the negotiations), whereas O’Keefe (2004) suggested that the Declaration was not a crystallisation of custom, but rather a commitment to its future development, suggesting that “cultural heritage is the proper concern of the international community as a whole but it is not yet, in peacetime, the object of obligations owed to that community” (O’Keefe, 2004 p.207). This debate is still untested by UNESCO, but even O’Keefe acknowledges that there is at least a customary obligation of diplomatic mobilisation for the benefit of heritage threatened (O’Keefe, 2004 p.209). That the lowest common denominator on the question of customary status of the 2003 Declaration is in the realm of diplomatic mobilisation is potentially problematic, inasmuch as there is a blurry line between diplomatic acts forming law and diplomatic acts done in the name of comity, as indicated above. However, the fact that there is a UNESCO Declaration 69

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adopted by states (and therefore showcasing these states’ belief that, at least to a certain extent, the practice of prohibiting intentional destruction is required by law, which helps form customary international law) behind those acts of diplomatic mobilisation would suggest the legal weight necessary for the formation of proper international customary norms in this area since the international adoption of the 2003 Declaration. One can therefore claim that the instrument, particularly its provisions on the protection of heritage in peacetime, has established customary international law. One of the 2003 Declaration’s clear objectives is to encourage states not only to not intentionally destroy cultural heritage but also to become parties to UNESCO treaties (Hladik, 2004), drawing inspiration in particular from the WHC, the 1954 Hague Convention, and international criminal law norms (UNESCO, 2003a n.5). The focus on states’ actions and obligations underscores that the Declaration is state-centric and therefore not intended to function at the level of communities. Communities, as further discussed below, are excluded in favour of state-centric narratives of heritage’s relative importance. This exclusion is rather ironic considering that it was the destruction of heritage not deemed of international importance at the time of destruction that triggered the Declaration to come into existence. As discussed below, however, a threshold of international importance is necessary to limit the possibilities of international state responsibility for heritage destruction. Heritage is never actually defined in the 2003 Declaration, but it is meant to be interpreted broadly, including both cultural and natural tangible and intangible heritage (Hladik, 2004). It does include heritage affected during both peace and war but focuses on “particularly odious acts and not […] all acts of destruction of cultural heritage”, meaning the Declaration “does not refer to the destruction of cultural heritage […] in peacetime when cultural heritage is destroyed during lawful activities (e.g., authorised public works)” (Hladik, 2004 p.225). This narrowed scope is important, because it leaves out a range of actions in peacetime that do destroy heritage, but may not be particularly odious. Presumably, then, this odiousness threshold will be met, from a legal standpoint, in the connection between heritage destruction and international crimes committed in peacetime, like crimes against humanity and genocide (explored further below). Article 3 of the Declaration discusses the measures that are required to prevent, avoid, stop, and suppress the intentional destruction of heritage. Importantly for the purposes of peacetime application, this provision may include extraterritorial effects (meaning that one state may have responsibility over destruction happening to heritage in the territory of another), with the view of facilitating international cooperation and “mutual legal assistance” (UNESCO, 2003a n.16). Further, this extraterritorial effect might be useful in the context of destruction carried out by transnational corporations, even if the odiousness threshold might be difficult to meet in those circumstances. The Declaration also contains a specific provision on its application to peacetime activities. Article 4 requires states to take “all appropriate measures”, including compliance with the WHC and a range of other UNESCO Recommendations. It also refers to the entirety of international cultural heritage law applicable in peacetime. The only reason the 2001 Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention was not mentioned, for instance, is because it had not entered into force yet (UNESCO, 2003b n.20). In other words, new UNESCO instruments are also clearly applicable to shed light on states’ peacetime obligations with respect to heritage destruction. This provision was somewhat controversial among negotiators; however, it withstands scrutiny not only because of its role in developing customary international law but also because it would be illogical to offer more protection to heritage during conflict than during peacetime (Vrdoljak, 2007). 70

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Other important provisions in the 2003 Declaration for our purposes are Article 6 on state responsibility, Article 7 on criminal responsibility, and Article 9 on the application of international human rights law. In relation to state responsibility (Article 6), it is worth noting that the original draft of the Declaration made explicit reference to “cultural heritage which is of special interest for the community directly affected by such destruction” (UNESCO, 2003a n.23). This language was included in the draft in between brackets, which signals to the negotiators that the language is still controversial and not agreed upon. It was still considered as possible for inclusion until 11 days before the adoption of the Declaration (UNESCO, 2003a pp.4–5). The exclusion of the language on community was partly to do with an envisaged higher threshold of heritage types that were to be the object of the Declaration (which include, but are not limited to, properties on the World Heritage List) (UNESCO, 2003a n.24; Hladik, 2004). In other words, only heritage of a particular international importance falls under the protection of the Declaration, and that is heritage that has been endorsed by states; the heritage of minority groups that may be destroyed by the territorial state (such as the heritage of Armenian communities in Turkey, or of Indigenous peoples in Australia) is excluded from this regime (see also Huntley & Wallis, this volume, who discuss the destruction of Indigenous heritage). This narrowing of scope is particularly relevant with respect to triggering international state responsibility, which operates only at this higher threshold. In relation to individual criminal responsibility (Article 7), the drafters acknowledged that “acts of destruction taking place in peacetime are not included” in international legal frameworks authorising prosecutions and punishment of wrongdoers, and the Declaration was to fill that void (UNESCO, 2001 n.6(b)). This provision was also meant to include the heritage of particular importance to the community (UNESCO, 2003a n.29), but, as with state responsibility, the language was excluded in the end. The provision, however, does create universal jurisdiction over the intentional destruction of heritage in peacetime, meaning that, for any act of destruction that falls within the scope of the Declaration (odiousness and being heritage of international importance), any state in the world, connected or not to that heritage or act of destruction, may prosecute individuals responsible for said destruction (Hladik, 2004). Lastly, Article 9 determines that international human rights law should be considered when applying the 2003 Declaration, particularly in relation to “gross violations of human rights”. Once again, the odiousness criterion is included, or at least evoked, here. The peacetime regime created by the 2003 Declaration has some loopholes, and not just because of its uncertain customary status. Specifically, the exclusion of communities, as well as the thresholds of odiousness and international importance of heritage, can exclude communities from the conversation, which is particularly problematic if states target minority heritage. Nonetheless, the Declaration does broaden the concept of heritage to include intangible or living culture, which is important from the point of view of connecting to living practices and moving away from the conservation paradigm. International human rights law provides some means of plugging the gaps left in the Declaration, as well as making it more effective, and the next section discusses the applicable rules in peacetime within that area of international law.

The right to access to culture: From victimhood to control The 2003 Declaration’s reference to human rights is focused on criminalisation and punishment, as discussed above. As such, it seeks to instrumentalise international human rights mechanisms, which are more developed in international law (with their own courts, for 71

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instance) for the purposes of redressing the destruction itself. (For more on human rights and heritage destruction generally, see Lenzerini in this volume). However, there is more activity that places intentional destruction within a human rights framework with effects beyond enforcement, and this angle deserves analysis. The United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights has examined the issue of heritage destruction in two of her reports, albeit primarily in relation to conflict (United Nations HRC, 2016). Nonetheless, the Special Rapporteur made the issue of intentional destruction “an urgent priority” (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.45). Affirming “the importance of the 2003 UNESCO Declaration and calls for its full implementation” (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.60), the Special Rapporteur connected the intentional destruction of cultural heritage to a wide range of human rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of religion, participation in cultural life, and freedom from discrimination (UNGA, 2016 n.34). This wide range of rights goes far beyond the “right to participate in the cultural life of the community” as conferred in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the limitations that may be imposed on this right under international human rights law, building stronger momentum for the recognition of intentional destruction as a human rights violation, and possibly also broadening the scope of available remedies. It is noteworthy, however, that many of these are rights from which derogations are admissible in the context of an emergency. One important exception to derogations is the right to freedom of religion, meaning that religious heritage can receive stronger protection than other forms of heritage in the context of an emergency. The use of the derogations mechanisms means that, should crisis framings prevail around destruction in peacetime, the incidence of these rights can be set aside by states, and the human rights framing could potentially be rendered inapplicable. Beyond clarifying applicable human rights, though, the Special Rapporteur also brought to light important elements to operationalise a human rights framing on the regulation of intentional destruction. She suggested that the key foci of regulation should be on heritage defenders (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.74); punishment and anti-impunity (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.78), particularly “for holding non-State actors to account and preventing their engaging in destruction” (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.62); and prevention (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.79). In doing so, the Rapporteur broadens the regulatory responses beyond punishment, thinking about the people for whom heritage matters, and extends the framework to specifically highlight non-state actors, a notable omission in the 2003 Declaration, given the destruction of the Buddhas. This focus has subsequently been widened to include the need to go beyond the object and focus on the rights of cultural holders (UNGA, 2016 n.53); education, particularly teaching of history (UNGA, 2016 n.55); holistic strategies (UNGA, 2016 n.57); and community involvement (UNGA, 2016 n.58). In relation specifically to criminalisation, a strategy aligned with the 2003 Declaration’s reference to human rights, the Special Rapporteur stated the reasons for this focus as related to intentional destruction being a tool, in wartime and peacetime, for attacking cultural diversity and cultural rights; erasing memory of current and past events, civilizations and peoples; erasing evidence of the presence of minorities, other peoples, philosophies, religions and beliefs; or deliberately targeting or terrorizing individuals and groups on the basis of their cultural, ethnic or religious affiliation, or their ways of life and beliefs. These acts may be of different magnitudes, may be carried out systematically or sporadically, and may be part of a wider scheme to forcibly assimilate or deliberately kill a group of people. (UNGA, 2016 n.33) 72

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As to the implementation of the crime of intentional destruction in international law, she suggested that intentional destruction could be charged as crimes against humanity or even as evidence of genocidal intent, thus pushing intentional destruction outside the domain of war crimes where these acts have been addressed in international practice (Gerstenblith, 2016; Vrdoljak, 2017) and towards international crimes that happen in peacetime as well (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.64). Further, the Special Rapporteur affirmed that “destruction of property of cultural and religious significance is considered a significant indicator in the prevention of atrocity crimes” (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.64), since “Acts of deliberate destruction are often accompanied by other large-scale or grave assaults on human dignity and human rights” (United Nations HRC, 2016 n.82). Key to the human rights approach is consideration of the needs of the community, which, as discussed above, was intentionally excluded from the 2003 Declaration. Specifically, the human rights approach to cultural heritage obliges one to take into account the rights of individuals and communities in relation to such object or manifestation and, in particular, to connect cultural heritage with its source of production (UNGA, 2011). These include particularly Indigenous peoples and other groups in post-colonial societies due to the enduring effects of colonialism and dispossession (UNGA, 2016 n.43). In other words, to include communities requires also consulting the people who have particular connections with heritage, including for the purpose of understanding and incorporating the multiplicity of interpretations of that heritage, and determining whether (or not) they wish to rebuild, reconstruct and re-establish such a heritage and if so, how. Such consultations must include marginalized groups; further, women must be fully involved. Consultations must aim at obtaining free, prior and informed consent, in particular where the rights of indigenous peoples are at stake. (UNGA, 2016 n.58) The reference to community involvement and consent is a major contribution of the human rights approach not only to intentional destruction but also to cultural heritage governance more broadly (Lixinski, 2019). However, it can also be flawed since human rights law often requires cultural heritage interests to be translated through the lenses of available human rights, meaning a risk that heritage-specific nuances will be lost in the process (Francioni & Lixinski, 2017). Despite this potential risk, the human rights approach also presents a very promising avenue for involving communities in conversations about the intentional destruction of their heritage and for them to even have the agency to indicate their wishes regarding reconstruction (or not). Note, however, that the assumption that destruction is, or may be, a violation of rights is still present, but, in this case, this assumption can be justified on the basis that if the destruction were led by the community themselves, there would be no victims of a human rights violation to speak of, and this body of law would never be triggered. In other words, the human rights approach can be interpreted as offering a pathway to break away from the conservation paradigm. This approach, while still very much reliant on the criminalisation that is a key aim of the 2003 Declaration, also offers other avenues. Particularly with regards to the victimisation that is central to a criminal law approach, it adds the possibility for a community to control its own heritage. The human rights framing also pushes heritage markedly into the domain of living (intangible) culture because it connects communities, cultural creators, and practitioners inexorably to heritage, pulling it away from the grip of the state-managed conservation paradigm. 73

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Therefore, human rights may present a viable alternative to the conservation paradigm that can liberate communities to control their own heritage and its destiny in peacetime beyond the mentality of crises.

Concluding remarks The legal presumption against destruction, which follows from the conservation paradigm, does important work for international cultural heritage law. Specifically, it protects heritage, and vulnerable communities associated with it, by placing its destruction in a crisismanagement framework. However, these same communities can also be trapped by this paradigm and not be allowed to control their own heritage, adapt it to their needs, transform it, and, yes, destroy it. Crisis thinking in international law leads to the conclusion that all destruction is bad and should be prevented and punished. However, in peacetime, rules can and should apply differently. A human rights framing of intentional destruction, while still generally condemnatory, can also allow for greater community control over the fate of its heritage. It also allows heritage to be seen and treated as living (and therefore changing) culture, thanks in no small part to possibilities left open by the 2003 Declaration. Taken together, the 2003 Declaration and international human rights law can provide for a regulation of heritage destruction in peacetime that goes beyond, while still being ultimately subjected to, the language of crises. More work is needed to consider how living heritage challenges our assumptions about the conservation paradigm, and how heritage destruction can be treated as something that is not always (even if unfortunately often) a threat.

Acknowledgements I am very thankful to Letícia Haertel and the anonymous reviewers for their comments to the initial draft.

Note 1 In international law, a Declaration is a text that is not technically binding on states. It is what we would call soft law, as opposed to the hard law of treaties. That said, Declarations are a solemn type of soft law, which demonstrates a higher commitment to the ideas contained in the Declaration, meaning it can more quickly amount to customary international law (which is then binding or hard international law), as further discussed in this chapter.

References Bartolini, G. (2020). Cultural Heritage and Disasters. In: Francioni, F., and Vrdoljak, A.F. (eds). The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.145–168. Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention), 16 November 1972. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ [Accessed: 01 February 2022]. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: https:// en.unesco.org/protecting-heritage/convention-and-protocols/1954-convention [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Charlesworth, H. (2002). International Law: A Discipline of Crisis. Modern Law Review 65(3), pp.377–392. Coster, A. (2019). Stones of the Past: Intentional Peacetime Heritage Destruction and International Law. LLM thesis. Lund, Sweden: Lund University.

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Destruction of cultural heritage Francioni, F., and Lenzerini, F. (2003). The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and International Law. European Journal of International Law 14(4), pp.619–651. Francioni, F., and Lixinski, L.(2017). Opening the Toolbox of International Human Rights Law in the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage. In: Durbach, A., and Lixinski, L. (eds). Heritage, Culture and Rights: Challenging Legal Discourses. Oxford: Hart Publishing, pp.11–34. Gerstenblith, P. (2016). The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: A Crime Against Property or a Crime Against People? John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law 15, pp.336–393. Hladik, J. (2004). The UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. Art Antiquity and Law 9(3), pp.215–236. Lixinski, L. (2019). International Heritage Law for Communities: Exclusion and Re-Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——— (2021). Legalized Identities: Cultural Heritage Law and the Shaping of Transitional Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morezzi, E., Romeo, E., and Rudiero, R. (2014). Accidental Destruction & Intentional Destruction. Considerations for archaeological sites and monuments. In: Protection of Cultural Heritage from Natural and ManMade Disasters Conference Proceedings. Zagreb, Croatia, May 2014, pp.366–393. O’Keefe, R. (2004). World Cultural Heritage: Obligations to the International Community as a Whole. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 53(1), pp.189–210. ———(2006). The protection of cultural property in armed conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 26 March 1999. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protecting-heritage/convention-andprotocols/1999-second-protocol [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. UNESCO (2001). Acts Constituting “A Crime Against the Common Heritage of Humanity” (Resolutions of the Thirteenth General Assembly of States Parties and the Thirty-first General Conference of UNESCO). UNESCO. UNESCO Doc. 31 C/46. ——— (2003a). Draft UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage UNESCO Doc. 32 C/25, 17 October. UNESCO.. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ ark:/48223/pf0000130780 [Accessed: 01 January 2022]. ——— (2003b). Informal Meeting on the Draft UNESCO Declaration on the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. UNESCO. UNESCO Doc. 32 C/INF.14. UNESCO Executive Board. (2002). Establishment of a Working Group for Exploring and Examining Possible Ways and Means to Create Necessary Conditions for the Prevention of Intentional Destruction of Culturally Important Monuments and Sites. UNESCO Executive Board. UNESCO Doc. 164 EX/48. UNESCO WHC. (2019). Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. UNESCO World Heritage Committee. UNESCO Doc. WHC.19/01. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). (2011). Report of the independent expert in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed. United Nations General Assembly. UN Doc. A/HRC/17/38. ——— (2016). Promotion and protection of human rights: human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Cultural rights – Note by the Secretary-General. United Nations General Assembly. UN Doc. A/71/317. United Nations HRC. (2016). Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development – Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. United Nations Human Rights Council. UN Doc. A/HRC/31/59. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948). Available at: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declarationhuman-rights/ [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Vrdoljak, A.F. (2007). Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage and International Law. In: Koufa, K. (ed). Multiculturalism and international law. 1st ed. Thessaloniki: Thesaurus Acroasium, Vol. XXXV, pp.377–396. ——— (2017). The Criminalisation of the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. In: Bergin, T., and Orlando, E. (eds). Forging a Socio-Legal Approach to Environmental Harms: Global Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp.237–266.

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5 DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAW OF ARMED CONFLICT AS APPLIED TO CULTURAL HERITAGE Patty Gerstenblith

Early development The looting, theft, and destruction of cultural objects and structures during war have a long history. Cultural property embodies the past and, in the context of armed conflict, plays a role far beyond its economic value as prizes of war and symbols of victory. Looting and destruction during war and conquest can serve to punish the vanquished, glorify the victor, eradicate the memory of a subjugated people or nation, and allow victors to claim the mantle of legitimacy to rule by controlling the physical embodiments of the conquered people’s past. The history of the law of armed conflict demonstrates ambivalence toward the practice of cultural looting and destruction. In antiquity, there was no general prohibition on destruction of enemy property, but during the Roman Republic and Empire, principles evolved for the behaviour of a conquering army that limited how much booty could be taken and what could be done with it (Miles, 2008 pp.60–82). The legitimacy of cultural looting depended on whether cultural objects were taken from religious or non-religious contexts; whether they were taken for the victor’s personal benefit or for public benefit; and whether they were taken as the result of legitimate warfare, as individual action (which amounted to piracy), or during civil administration. Looting that fell outside of the rubric of authorised military conquest was disapproved of and often punished (Miles, 2008 pp.89–95). The triumphal procession depicted on the Arch of Titus, with the Menorah and other sacred implements from the Second Temple in Jerusalem, demonstrates the goals of cultural looting, while the booty was put to public purpose by funding construction of the Colosseum (Miles, 2008 pp.260–262). Greek and Roman historians sometimes expressed criticism of the looting of artworks. For example, Polybius wrote regarding the Greek colony of Syracuse on Sicily that “these remarks will serve to teach all those who succeed to empire, that they should not strip cities under the idea that the misfortunes of another are an ornament to their own country” (Miles, 2008 p.84). In 70 BCE, the Roman orator, Cicero, prosecuted Gaius Verres, the civilian governor of Sicily, for extortion and corruption. Although not part of the formal charges, Verres had enriched himself through wanton looting of both privately owned and publicly dedicated religious artworks. As he was not a conquering general, his depredations were more problematic and outraged the Sicilian people (Miles, 2008). Cicero’s Verrine orations were well-known by later Roman authors, such as Pausanias, Livy, and Pliny, and by authors and travellers in 76

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the late Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, particularly among those who visited Sicily (Miles, 2008 pp.286–294). Despite these occasional expressions of limits, in practice, cultural heritage was not protected during war and conflict. The armies of the Fourth Crusade devastated the cultural heritage of the eastern Mediterranean region, sacked Constantinople in 1204, and plundered palaces, churches, monasteries, and libraries (Verri, 1985 p.76). The booty included the famed ancient horses that were placed in the cathedral of St. Mark in Venice. The horses were, in turn, taken by Napoleon but returned to Venice at the end of the Napoleonic Wars (Miles, 2008 pp.280–281, 321). The French plundered artworks and libraries during the Italian wars in the late 1400s and early 1500s (Verri, 1985 p.79). German, Italian, and Spanish forces sacked Rome in 1527 (Verri, 1985 p.80). During the Thirty Years’ War, the armies of the Holy Roman Empire captured Heidelberg in 1622 and seized the famous library, the Palatina, of the Elector Frederick V. Pope Gregory XV ordered that the library be brought to Rome, where it became part of the Vatican collections (Bepler, 2001 p.955). Upon capturing Munich in 1632, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden seized the art collection of the Dukes of Bavaria (Bepler, 2001 p.956). His daughter, Christina, captured Prague in 1648, seizing the imperial collection there before the Peace of Westphalia could be concluded (Sandholtz, 2007 pp.33–34). The Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, dictated that plundered property would not be restored, but it allowed for the limited return of records, writings, documents, and other movables (Article CXIV) (Toman, 1996 p.5). Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, legal commentators were divided as to whether cultural sites and objects were legitimate war booty or a distinct form of property to be protected. Any actions necessary to accomplish the purposes of a just war were considered legitimate, but most commentators seemed to agree that destruction or appropriation of what we today call cultural property was not necessary to achieve these purposes (O’Keefe, 2006 pp.5–13). Hugo Grotius, the founder of modern international law, writing in the early and mid-seventeenth century in defence of the Dutch East India Company, justified the legal right to claim prizes. In the next century, however, the Swiss jurist, Emmerich de Vattel, distinguished between cultural objects and other types of moveable property which constituted legitimate war booty (O’Keefe, 2006 pp.10–11; Miles, 2008 pp.299–302).

From Napoleon through the Second World War The Napoleonic Wars The looting of cultural objects took on its modern form during the Napoleonic wars at the turn of the nineteenth century (McClellan, 1994 pp.114–123). The use of ancient historic and artistic objects as symbols of modern national identity and political legitimacy received a new incarnation in the Napoleonic dream of re-creating Paris as the “new Rome”. In pursuit of that dream, Napoleon took to Paris en masse artworks and other forms of cultural objects from throughout Europe (Quynn, 1945 p.443, 445; Miles, 2008 pp.320–324). During his Egyptian campaign, Napoleon’s armies took many antiquities, but these, such as the Rosetta Stone, were taken by the British forces from the French as war booty, following the Battle of Aboukir, and are now in the British Museum (Quynn, 1945 p.449; Miles, 2008 pp.327–329). A 1796 petition to Napoleon, signed by many of the great French artists of the day, presented remarkably modern justifications for this cultural looting (Gilks, 2012 pp.67–72). First, the justification focused on the benefits that accrue to a nation by taking possession of 77

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another nation’s cultural objects; second, at the same time, the petition asserted a right to the objects based on moral and intellectual superiority. The third element was an expression of altruism – because the possessor has a greater ability to care for the object, it is not acting primarily for its own benefit but rather for the benefit of everyone else (all humanity), including the original owner. Hence, the act of looting is done for the benefit of others, not just the looter, and is characterised as an act of rescue and stewardship. Napoleon’s attempt to re-create the new Rome in Paris was answered by the British desire to re-create London as the new Athens. Lord Elgin’s taking of the Parthenon sculptures to London and their later acquisition by Parliament for the British Museum fit into the contemporary political reality of the military rivalry between France and Britain in the early nineteenth century (Webb, 2002 pp.74–85). The presence of the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum endures even today, to some, as an act of rescue and, to others, as the preeminent symbol of cultural heritage dispossession. After Napoleon’s defeat, the victorious Allies demanded restitution of cultural objects during the Congress of Vienna in 1815, but only about half of the works were returned. However, the British did not return the objects of Egyptian origin that they had taken from the French, revealing a double standard in that restitution benefited only fellow European nations (Vrdoljak, 2008 pp.23–29). At the end of the war, the Duke of Wellington insisted on return of cultural objects to the places from which Napoleon had taken them and declined the opportunity to take any to England, thus demonstrating the first modern large-scale restitution of artworks following armed conflict and the principle that artworks do not belong to the victors (Miles, 2008 pp.329–341). The Duke’s refusal mirrored a legal dispute that arose during the War of 1812 when a British court in Canada held that cultural and artistic works should be treated differently from other types of property during war. British forces had seized a ship, the Marquis de Somerueles, which was carrying artworks from Italy to the newly founded Academy of Arts in Philadelphia. The Admiralty court held that the artworks should be returned to the Academy on the grounds that art and science were protected during war and were not to be treated as the property of a particular nation that could be plundered by enemy forces (Marquis de Somereules, [1813] Vice-Admiralty Court of Halifax, Nova Scotia Stewart’s Vice-Admiralty Reports 482).

The Lieber Code and early Hague Conventions Present at the Battle of Waterloo was a young Prussian soldier, Francis Lieber. After studying mathematics and history and fighting in the Greek War of Independence, Lieber moved to the United States, where he taught first in South Carolina and later at Columbia University (Witt, 2012). During the US Civil War, President Lincoln issued the first codification of the conduct of armies during armed conflict, Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field General Order No. 100 (1863), known as the Lieber Code. It explicitly acknowledged the need for a special status for charitable institutions, collections, and works of art. While the Code permitted a victorious army to appropriate public property (Article 31), publicly owned property belonging to religious institutions, hospitals, “other establishments of an exclusively charitable character”, educational institutions “or foundations for the promotion of knowledge, whether public schools, universities, academies of learning or observatories, museums of the fine arts, or of a scientific character” would be treated as private property. Such property could not be appropriated but could be “used when the public service may require it” (Article 34). Certain categories of cultural property, including collections of artworks, libraries, and scientific instruments, were to be protected “against all avoidable injury even when they are 78

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contained in fortified places whilst besieged or bombarded” (Article 35). Movable cultural objects could be seized if removal did not injure them, but they could not be sold, “privately appropriated, or wantonly destroyed or injured”. The ultimate disposition of such objects would be decided by the treaty of peace (Article 36). The protection given to immovables was from “avoidable injury” (Article 35), even if the cultural property was located in a legitimate target, thus establishing the standard of feasibility that appears in later legal instruments. The influence of the Lieber Code spread to Europe, and in the summer of 1899, Czar Nicholas II of Russia sponsored a conference of 24 countries at the Hague in the Netherlands. This resulted in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.1 The two conventions had substantially the same provisions with respect to cultural property. Article 27 of the 1907 Hague Convention Regulations stated that “[i]n sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes [and] historic monuments, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes”. These protections were limited in that the attacker need avoid harm to buildings only “as far as possible” and the nation being attacked must mark buildings to be protected, although the Convention did not establish a particular symbol to be used. Article 56 of the Regulations stated that “institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences” were to be treated like private property, even if they were State-owned. It also prohibited “[a]ll seizure of, destruction or wilful [sic] damage done to institutions of this character, historic monuments, works of art and science” and any violation was to “be made the subject of legal proceedings”. These Conventions constituted the applicable legal rules for all combatants for the protection of cultural sites, monuments, and objects of cultural property during both World Wars.

The World Wars During the First World War, the library at the University of Louvain, Belgium, was burned and the cathedral of Reims severely damaged by aerial bombardment (Toman, 1996 p.14). The Hague Conventions were utilised primarily only as a mechanism for restitution of cultural objects and for reparations when destroyed objects could not be returned (Bassiouni, 1983 pp.291–292; Toman, 1996 p.337). In 1935, 11 countries ratified the Washington Pact for the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and of Historic Monuments, also known as the Roerich Pact.2 However, it had little impact during the Second World War as only countries in the Americas were parties. In response to the Spanish Civil War (which began in 1936), the International Museum Office drafted an international convention, but the League of Nations was unable to take any formal action before the Second World War broke out. The Second World War saw the largest destruction and displacement of cultural sites and objects known to human history (Nicholas, 1994 O’Keefe, 2006 pp.61–91). Germany systematically plundered and looted artworks, particularly in Western Europe. At the same time, the Germans intentionally and indiscriminately destroyed historic structures, art collections,

1 Convention (II) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, adopted 29 July 1899, entered into force 4 September 1900, 187 CTS 429; Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, open for signature 18 October 1907, entered into force 26 January 1910, 187 CTS. 2 Adopted 15 April 1935, entered into force 26 August 1935, 167 UNTS 289.

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libraries, and archives in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. This led the Soviet Union to adopt a policy of retaliation and retention of cultural objects taken from Germany as unilateral reparations (Akinsha & Kozlov, 1995; Grimsted, 2010). During the war and in its immediate aftermath, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives officers worked with the Allied militaries to identify cultural sites that should be spared from damage and destruction to the extent possible and to collect and return movable cultural objects that had been stolen or otherwise displaced during the war (Nicholas, 1994 pp.330–361; O’Keefe, 2006 pp.77–78, 84–86). Following the war, the plunder of public and private property was included in the Nuremberg Charter and Control Council Law No. 10 as a war crime and, when accompanied by discrimination based on religion and when the impact on the victim was sufficiently severe, could be a crime against humanity. The Nuremberg International Military Tribunal convicted Alfred Rosenberg, the head of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), which was the primary organisation responsible for carrying out the confiscations of artworks and cultural objects, for war crimes and crimes against humanity under the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, as well as principles of customary international law. While the charges did not make explicit reference to the theft and destruction of cultural objects, the indictment stated that between March 1941 and July 1944, the ERR’s confiscations amounted to 29 large shipments, including 137 freight cars containing 4,174 cases of artworks.3 Confiscations of cultural objects, first by the French during the Napoleonic Wars, then by the Germans, and later the French during and after the Franco-Prussian War and the First World War, planted the seeds for the claims made later by Hitler to justify his seizures of artworks from France during the Second World War. German depredations in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union laid the basis for Stalin’s seizures of German artworks from collections located in the Russian zone of occupation at the end of the Second World War. Germany and other Europeans claim objects that were kept hidden in the Soviet Union for more than fifty years. More recently, conflicts in Cyprus, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine serve as continuing reminders that war often brings destruction to cultural sites, objects, and monuments.

The 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its protocols Only after the Second World War, with its massive destruction and looting of cultural objects and monuments, did the international community succeed in crafting a legal regime specifically for the protection of cultural heritage during armed conflict. The first international convention devoted exclusively to cultural heritage was adopted in 1954 – the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.4 The Convention’s First Protocol was drafted at the same time and deals exclusively with movable cultural objects.5 The 1999 Second Protocol6 strengthens the main Convention by responding to several perceived weaknesses, particularly those made evident during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s (Toman 1996; Toman 2009).

3 International Military Tribunal. United States et al. v Göring et al. 27, Indictment (E) 29, pp.55–60. Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg, 14 November 1945–1 October 1946). 4 Adopted 14 May 1954, entered into force 7 August 1956, 249 UNTS 240. 5 Entered into force 7 August 1956, 249 UNTS 358. 6 Adopted 26 March 1999, entered into force 9 March 2004, 253 UNTS 172.

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The main Convention The Preamble to the Convention refers to the “cultural heritage of [hu]mankind”, evincing the universality of the Convention, although other provisions belie some of its universal character. In the context of the law of war, the phrase “cultural heritage of [hu]mankind” comes from a tradition that imposes obligations on nations to care for the cultural heritage within their borders during both peacetime and military conflict. International law thus expresses a consistent message of preservation at the national level, thereby conferring a benefit to the historical and cultural understanding of all. The Convention defines cultural property as “movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular; archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books or archives …”, buildings whose purpose is to preserve or exhibit movable cultural property, such as museums, libraries and archives, and buildings intended to shelter movable cultural property during armed conflict (Article 1). The central obligations imposed by the Convention are for States Parties to safeguard and for all parties to a conflict to respect cultural property (Article 2; Article 19(1)). Article 3 requires States Parties to safeguard their cultural property by preparing during peace to protect it from “the foreseeable effects of an armed conflict”. Demonstrating respect refers to the actions that a State Party must refrain from taking to protect both its own cultural property and the cultural property of another State. This obligation is embodied in Article 4, which regulates the conduct of parties during hostilities, and Article 5, which regulates conduct during occupation. To fulfil the obligation of respect, the parties to a conflict that occurs within the territory of a State Party must refrain from the use of cultural property in ways that would likely expose it to harm in case of armed conflict and must refrain from any “act of hostility, directed against any such property” (Article 4(1)). However, these obligations may be waived in cases “where military necessity imperatively requires such a waiver” (Article 4(2)). This military necessity waiver has little definition and has been criticised because it grants considerable latitude to the parties to a conflict to decide what actions fall within the scope of this exception (Forrest, 2007). In a provision that attracted little attention before the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad in April 2003, Article 4(3) requires parties to a conflict “to prohibit, prevent and, if necessary, put a stop to any form of theft, pillage, or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property”. Article 5, which applies during military occupation, severely limits interference by an occupying power with the cultural heritage of occupied territory. It requires the occupying power to cooperate with and support any competent national authorities and permits only the “most necessary measures of preservation” when cultural property has been damaged by military operations. Article 6 provides for the optional marking of cultural property with the distinctive emblem of (what is today called) the blue shield. Article 7 requires States Parties to foster a spirit of respect in their military for culture and cultural property, introduce regulations concerning observance of the Convention, and ensure the presence in the military of qualified cultural property specialists whose purpose is to secure respect for cultural property and cooperate with civilian authorities. Article 19 applies the obligation of respect to armed conflicts not of an international character that occur within the territory of a State Party. Based on its wording, this obligation is interpreted to extend to non-State actors (Chamberlain, 2013 pp.52–55). Article 28 calls on States to prosecute breaches of the Convention under national 81

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law. The Convention’s failure to create criminal provisions, together with the military necessity waiver, has been much criticised.

First Protocol The First Protocol regulates the movement of movable cultural objects during occupation. Its core provision requires an occupying power to “undertake to prevent the exportation, from a territory occupied by it during an armed conflict, of cultural property” (Part 1, n.1). Any cultural objects removed during occupation must be returned at the end of the occupation, both by the occupying power and by any third State Party in which an illegally removed object appears. The second part requires any State that accepts cultural objects for safekeeping during a conflict to return the objects at the end of hostilities. While the First Protocol has fewer ratifying States than the main Convention, several market States, including Germany and the United Kingdom, have now ratified and implemented it (Gerstenblith, 2020 pp.22–28).

Second Protocol The Second Protocol strengthens and clarifies several of the provisions of the main Convention. It makes the military necessity waiver dynamic (in that it depends on the current use of the cultural property) and narrows the circumstances in which a nation can claim the military necessity waiver to situations in which “cultural property has, by its function, been made into a military objective” and “there is no feasible alternative available to obtain a similar military advantage to that offered by directing an act of hostility against that objective” (Article 6(a)). Article 7 imposes an additional obligation to avoid or minimise incidental damage to cultural property and to “refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental damage … which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”. The Second Protocol thus incorporates the customary principles of distinction (knowing which sites are protected cultural property), feasibility or precaution (avoiding harm to the extent possible), and proportionality (avoiding damage that would be disproportionate to the expected military advantage) (O’Keefe et al., 2016). Article 9 reiterates the principle of non-interference with the cultural heritage of occupied territory found in Article 5 of the main Convention and specifically prohibits “any archaeological excavation, save where this is strictly required to safeguard, record or preserve cultural property”. Article 10 establishes a system of enhanced protection for cultural property meeting strict criteria of importance and protection under domestic law. Any cultural property under enhanced protection is entitled to absolute immunity from attack except under narrow circumstances delineated in Article 13. Article 15 clarifies what constitutes breaches (referred to as “serious violations”) of the Second Protocol and the criminal responsibility of individuals, including “extending criminal responsibility to persons other than those who directly commit the act”. Unlike the main Convention, Second Protocol Article 16 requires States Parties to establish criminal offenses under their domestic law and to extend jurisdiction to non-nationals for certain offenses. Article 22 reiterates the applicability of the main Convention to conflicts not of an international character. Article 27(3) designates the International Committee of the Blue Shield (now Blue Shield International7) as an advisory body to the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, established in the Second Protocol.

7 www.theblueshield.org.

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The Hague Convention regime establishes norms for military conduct among its ratifying States Parties. It is used as a basis for military training and is often cited in both national and international documents. Because of its limited criminal provisions and the opacity of the military necessity waiver, it has had relatively little direct effect in prosecutions for destructions of cultural heritage or in the prevention of such destruction. Nonetheless, its principles have had a significant influence and have been adopted in other legal instruments.

Other sources of international law Customary international law International treaties and conventions are binding only on ratifying States and, if viewed by the ratifying State as executory (rather than self-executing), only to the extent of the provisions adopted through domestic legislation to implement the convention. However, treaty provisions that have become accepted as part of customary law are binding on all States, even without ratification. Customary international law is defined as “a general practice accepted as law” (Article 38(1)(b), Statute of the International Court of Justice). For a rule to be considered a part of customary international law, it must be a part of State practice (usus) and there must be “a belief that such practice is required, prohibited or allowed … as a matter of law (opinio juris sive necessitatis)” (Henckaerts, 2005 p.178). States that have not ratified a particular international convention can be held accountable for violations of those provisions of the convention that have been accepted as a part of customary international law. For example, Article 3(d) of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established intentional destruction of cultural heritage as a distinct crime, citing the 1954 Hague Convention as evidence of customary international law. Some suggest that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001 was a violation of customary international law protecting cultural heritage, although it is questionable whether it occurred during an armed conflict and therefore whether the Hague Convention applied to the destruction (Francioni & Lenzerini, 2003 pp.630–638). The destruction of the Buddhas led to UNESCO’s adoption of its Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003). International legal instruments, such as UNESCO Declarations and Recommendations, are not binding on States, although they are viewed as standard setting and may become part of customary international law. However, Francioni and Lenzerini (2003) argued that the 2003 Declaration was a declaration of existing customary international law, an assertion that has remained the subject of academic debate (for more on this see Lixinski, this volume). O’Keefe identifies the core principles of cultural property protection that apply as a matter of customary international law, which are, to a large extent, based on the provisions of the Hague Convention and its Protocols (O’Keefe, 2020 pp.52–60). These include a prohibition applying to all parties to the conflict on directing an attack against cultural property during conflict unless “the property constitutes a military objective and there is no feasible alternative” (O’Keefe, 2020 p.53) and on directing an attack against a military objective if the expected damage to cultural property would be disproportionately large in comparison to the expected concrete and direct military advantage. Customary international law also prohibits theft, pillage, misappropriation, and vandalism of cultural property carried out by one’s own military forces; a party to the conflict that is in effective control of territory must prohibit similar actions taken by others and prevent and put a stop to such acts, subject to an obligation “of due diligence” (O’Keefe, 2020 pp.58–59). Customary international law also regulates 83

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the conduct of an occupying power, requiring it to follow the laws of the occupied territory, enforce or assist the local authorities in enforcing these laws, and prevent the illicit export or other removal of cultural objects from the occupied territory. In two examples during the Balkan conflict, military leaders were indicted for the war crime of intentional destruction of cultural heritage. The best-known example was the shelling of the city of Dubrovnik, recognised as a World Heritage Site in 1979, for which no defence based on military necessity was considered plausible. Pavle Strugar and two other Serbian commanders, Vladimir Kovačević and Miodrag Jokić, were found guilty or pled to the charge (Prosecutor v. Strugar, Jokic and others8; Prosecutor v. Strugar 9). The second, and more complex, case involved the destruction of the Old Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Constructed in 1566, it spanned the Neretva River and was viewed as a link among the ethnically and religiously diverse neighbourhoods of Mostar before the conflict. During the fighting in Mostar in 1992 to 1993, religious structures belonging to all three faiths (Serbian Orthodox, Catholic, and Islamic) were destroyed. Croatian forces were responsible for the destruction of the Bridge in late 1993 (for more, see Walasek, this volume). Six of the Croatian commanders were convicted for crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and violations of the laws or customs of war, including murder, rape, inhumane treatment, persecution, and destruction or wilful damage to institutions dedicated to religion or education. However, the conviction for the Bridge’s destruction, which the Trial Chamber considered to be a crime of persecution, was reversed by the Appeals Chamber, which considered the Bridge to have been a legitimate military target at the time it was destroyed (Prosecutor v. Prlić et al.10).

Other international conventions Other international conventions touch on the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 omitted mention of cultural property; this omission arguably led to decreased emphasis on cultural heritage protection during military training. The 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit acts of hostility directed against historic monuments, works of art, and places of worship that constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples in both international (Article 53, Protocol I) and non-international armed conflict (Article 16, Protocol II), but these provisions are subordinate to the 1954 Hague Convention (O’Keefe, 2006 pp.207–218, 230–232; O’Keefe, 2020 pp.50–51). In addition, both movable and immovable tangible cultural heritage constitute civilian objects and therefore benefit from rules generally applicable to civilian objects. This includes the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks, the rule of proportionality, which requires weighing the extent of injury against the expected concrete and direct military advantage, and the requirement of taking precautions during attacks (O’Keefe, 2006 pp.202– 203; O’Keefe, 2020 pp.50–51). The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) omitted the concept of cultural genocide, but the ICTY used the intentional targeting of mosques and other structures devoted to religious uses as a basis for

8 ICTY. (2002). Prosecutor v. Strugar, Jokic and others. Case No. IT-01-42-AR72, Appeals Chamber, Decision on Interlocutory Appeal, 22 November. 9 ICTY. (2005). Prosecutor v. Strugar. Case No. IT-01-42-T, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 31 January. 10 ICTY. (2013). Prosecutor v. Prlić et al. Case IT-04-74-T, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 29 May, Vol. 3 n.1711, 1713; and ICTY (2017). Prosecutor v. Prlić et al. Case IT-04-74-A, Appeals Chamber, Judgment, 29 November, Vol. 1 n.423.

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establishing the genocidal intent of the Serbs against the Bosnian Muslims (O’Keefe, 2006 pp.355–356). The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides the primary contemporary means of criminal enforcement of international law. Article 8 includes, among war crimes, “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes [and] historic monuments … provided they are not military objectives”. This applies in both international (Article 8(2)(b)(ix)) and non-international (Article 8(2)(e)(iv)) armed conflict.11 The Rome Statute reverts to the wording of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions in protecting only specifically delineated locations and structures rather than utilising either of the more inclusive terms, cultural property or cultural heritage. The specific provisions of the Rome Statute also do not apply to movable objects, although its more general provisions prohibiting pillage and attacks on civilian objects would apply to both moveable and immovable cultural objects and sites. While the destruction of cultural heritage is primarily classified as a war crime, when the destruction of cultural heritage is part of a broader attack on a civilian population or is motivated by a discriminatory intent, it becomes a crime against humanity (Lenzerini, 2016 p.78). In 2021, the ICC published its Policy on Cultural Heritage proposing a broad approach to cultural heritage protection, utilisation of a broad range of international instruments, and coordination with other international and national bodies and law enforcement agencies to achieve greater protection for cultural heritage (ICC Office of the Prosecutor, 2021). The ICC has undertaken prosecutions of al Mahdi12 and al Hassan13 for the destruction of cultural heritage in Mali and the prosecution of Bosco Ntaganda for the commission of war crimes, including intentional damage to cultural heritage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, in the Ntaganda decision,14 the ICC limited the Rome Statute provisions applicable to cultural property by interpreting the term attack narrowly to mean only actions carried out directly during the heat of combat and excluding actions taken in the aftermath of conflict. Several amici curiae, including The Antiquities Coalition, Blue Shield International, and Heritage Watch, argued that a broader interpretation was necessary to ensure appropriate protection of cultural property.

UN Security Council Resolutions and peacekeeping UN Security Council Resolutions adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter are binding on all UN Member States. While the UN Security Council has adopted several resolutions that reference cultural property protection, the most significant of these, because of their specific requirements, were adopted in 2003 in the wake of the Gulf War (UNSCR 1483, 2003), 2015 with respect to Syria (UNSCR 2199, 2015), and 2017, the first Security Council Resolution to address exclusively cultural property (UNSCR 2347, 2017). The first two resolutions called on UN Member States to prohibit trade in cultural objects illegally removed from Iraq after 1990 and from Syria after 2011. Resolution 2347 (2017) called for several measures to prevent trade in looted artefacts as the looting helped to fund conflict and terrorism in Syria and northern Iraq while destroying archaeological sites and historic and religious structures (Mahnad, 11 Statute of the International Criminal Court, U.N. Doc. A/Conf. 183/9, 37 I.L.M. 999 (17 July 1998). 12 ICC. (2016). Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi. Case No. ICC-01/12-01/15. 13 ICC. (2020). Prosecutor v. Al Hassan, Case No. ICC-01/12-0/18. 14 ICC. (2021). Prosecutor v. Ntaganda. Case No. ICC-01/04-02/06-A-A2, Appeals Chamber, Judgement, 30 March.

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2019 p.1048). In addition, UNSCR 2100 (2013) condemned the destruction of cultural and historical heritage in Mali. It established the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). The mandate originally included cultural preservation by “assist[ing] the transitional authorities of Mali, as necessary and feasible, in protecting from attack the cultural and historical sites in Mali, in collaboration with UNESCO” (n.16 (f )). However, this provision was removed from the renewal of MINUSMA’s mandate in 2018.

Conclusion International humanitarian law (or the law of armed conflict) with respect to cultural heritage developed gradually over the past 200 years and is now embedded in both lex generalis and lex specialis, particularly the 1954 Hague Convention and its Protocols. While new international legal provisions are not a high priority, more attention paid to the training of military personnel and peacekeeping forces would likely be of significant benefit. More robust enforcement, both internationally and domestically, of existing legal provisions that restrain the conduct of conflict is also central to fostering greater protection and preservation of both movable and immovable tangible cultural heritage. The current conflict in Ukraine, which has seen extensive destruction of cultural sites and structures and the looting of museum collections, repositories, and religious items, demonstrates the shortcomings of the international legal instruments and the difficulty of achieving accountability for those who violate these principles.

References Akinsha, K., and Kozlov, G. (1995). Beautiful Loot: The Soviet Plunder of Europe’s Art Treasures. New York: Random House. Bassiouni, C. (1983). Reflections on Criminal Jurisdiction in International Protection of Cultural Property. Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce 10(2), pp.281–322. Bepler, J. (2001). Vicissitudo Temporum: Some Sidelights on Book Collecting in the Thirty Years’ War. Sixteenth Century Journal 32(4), pp.953–968. Chamberlain, K. (2013). War and Cultural Heritage: A Commentary on the Hague Convention 1954 and its Two Protocols. 2nd ed. Builth Wells, UK: Institute of Art and Law. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protectingheritage/convention-and-protocols/1954-convention [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 09 December 1948. Available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/vwTreatiesByTopics.xsp [Accessed: 01 February 2022]. First Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 14 May 1954. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protecting-heritage/convention-and-protocols/firstprotocol [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Forrest, C.J.S. (2007). The Doctrine of Military Necessity and the Protection of Cultural Property during Armed Conflicts. California Western International Law Journal 37, pp.177–211. Francioni, F., and Lenzerini, F. (2003). The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and International Law. European Journal of International Law 14, pp.619–651. Geneva Conventions (I–IV), 12 August 1949, and Additional Protocol I and II, 08 June 1977. Available: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/vwTreatiesByTopics.xsp [Accessed: 01 February 2022]. Gerstenblith, P. (2020). The Disposition of Movable Cultural Heritage. In: Carstens, A.M. and Varner, E. (eds). Intersections in International Cultural Heritage Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.17–55. Gilks, D. (2012). Art and Politics during the “First” Directory: Artists’ Petitions and the Quarrel over the Confiscation of Works of Art from Italy in 1796. French History 26(1), pp.53–78.

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Development of the law of armed conflict Grimsted, P.K. (2010). Legalizing “Compensation” and the Spoils of War: The Russian Law on Displaced Cultural Valuables and the Manipulation of Historical Memory. International Journal of Cultural Property 17, pp.217–255. Hague Convention (II) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 29 July 1899, 187 CTS 429. Available: https://ihl-databases. icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Treaty.xsp?documentId=CD0F6C83F96FB459C12563CD002D66A1& action=openDocument. [Accessed: 01 November 2022]. Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and Its Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 18 October 1907, 187 CTS. Available: https://ihl-databases.icrc. org/ihl/INTRO/195 [Accessed: 01 November 2022]. Henckaerts, J.M. (2005). Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law: A Contribution to the Understanding and Respect for the Rule of Law in Armed Conflict. International Review of the Red Cross 87(857), pp.175–212. Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field General Order No. 100 (1863). Available: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lieber.asp [Accessed: 01 April 2022]. ICC Office of the Prosecutor. (2021). Policy on Cultural Heritage. International Criminal Court: Office of the Prosecutor. Available from: https://www.icc-cpi.int/itemsDocuments/20210614-otp-policycultural-heritage-eng.pdf [Accessed: 1 March 2021]. Lenzerini, F. (2016). Terrorism, Conflicts and the Responsibility to Protect Cultural Heritage. The International Spectator 51(2), pp.70–85. Mahnad, P.L. (2019). Protecting Cultural Property in Syria: New Opportunities for States to Enhance Compliance with International Law? International Review of the Red Cross 99, pp.1037–1074. McClellan, A. (1994). Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in EighteenthCentury Paris. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.114–123. Miles, M.M. (2008). Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nicholas, L. (1994). The Rape of Europa: The fate of Europe’s treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. New York: Vintage Books. O’Keefe, R. (2006). The Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (2020). Cultural Heritage and International Humanitarian Law. In: Francioni, F., and Vrdoljak, A.F. (eds). The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.43–74. O’Keefe, R., Péron, C., Musayev, T., and Ferrari, G. (2016). Protection of Cultural Property: Military Manual. Paris: UNESCO; International Institute of Humanitarian Law. Quynn, D.M. (1945). The Art Confiscations of the Napoleonic Wars. American Historical Review 50(3), pp.437–460. Roerich Pact for the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions, 1935 (Washington Pact). Available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Treaty.xsp?documentId=EE57F295093E44A4C12 563CD002D6A3F&action=openDocument [Accessed: 01 April 2022]. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/ default/files/RS-Eng.pdf [Accessed: 07 January 2022]. Sandholtz, W. (2007). Prohibiting Plunder: How Norms Change (2007). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, 26 March 1999. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protecting-heritage/convention-and-protocols/ 1999-second-protocol [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. [Accessed: 01 April 2022]. Statute of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 (International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), S/RES/827, 25 May 1993. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instrumentsmechanisms/instruments/statute-international-tribunal-prosecution-persons-responsible. [Accessed: 01 April 2022]. Toman, J. (1996). The Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth. ——— (2009). Cultural Property in War: Improvement in Protection: Commentary on the 1999 Second Protocol to the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Paris: UNESCO.

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Patty Gerstenblith UNESCO. (2003). Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000130780 [Accessed: 01 January 2022]. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1483 (2003), adopted at its 4761st meeting, on 22 May 2003. Available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1483 [Accessed: 30 March 2022]. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2100 (2013), adopted at its 6952nd meeting on 25 April 2013. Available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1483 [Accessed: 30 March 2022]. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2199 (2015), adopted at its 7379th meeting on 12 February 2015. Available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2199 [Accessed: 30 March 2022]. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2437 (2017), adopted at its 7907th meeting on 24 March 2017. Available at: http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/2347 [Accessed: 30 March 2022]. Verri, P. (1985). The condition of cultural property in armed conflicts: From Antiquity to World War II (Part I). International Review of the Red Cross 25(245), pp.67–85. Vrdoljak, A.F. (2008). International Law, Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Webb, T. (2002). Appropriating the Stones: The “Elgin Marbles” and English National Taste. In: Barkan, E., and Bush, R. (eds). Claiming the Stones, Naming the Bones. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publishing, pp.51–96. Witt, J.F. (2012). Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History. New York: Free Press.

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6 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION AND HUMAN RIGHTS Federico Lenzerini

Introduction Most of the repeated instances of deliberate – and often systematic – destruction of cultural heritage of great importance for humanity which have shocked the international community had a minimum common denominator, represented by the iconoclastic and discriminatory purposes pursued by the perpetrators through their acts. This characteristic of heritage destruction determines huge prejudicial implications on the rights and dignity of the people for whom the heritage concerned is especially meaningful, translating the phenomenon in point into a human rights issue. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the relationship between heritage destruction and human rights, focusing on its main implications. To this purpose, I will first illustrate the ontological rationale of the conceptualisation of heritage destruction as a human rights issue. I will then translate the arguments previously developed into practice, describing the main human rights breaches which may occur in the real world as a result of heritage destruction. Subsequently, the issue of the applicability of international human rights law to instances of heritage destruction taking place in both peacetime and in the event of armed conflict will be investigated, complemented by a description of the advantages of a human rights approach to heritage destruction. Some short conclusive remarks will follow.

Heritage destruction: A crime against communities and persons and a violation of their human rights In his separate opinion on the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s Order of 18 July 2011 on provisional measures in the case of Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 in the Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (Cambodia v. Thailand), Judge Cançado Trindade emphasised that, in the context of the protection of the cultural and spiritual heritage, “[t]he human factor is the most prominent one […] It goes well beyond State territorial sovereignty, bringing territory, people and human values together” (Cançado Trindade, 2011 n.100). This statement symbolises the awareness matured in the last decades by the international community that the human dimension of cultural heritage transcends in terms of importance its significance under the perspective of State sovereignty, establishing a clear and strong link between cultural heritage protection and safeguarding and human rights. DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-7

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In fact, “[a]s a man-made means of expressing religious, cultural, or historical values, cultural heritage is […] inherently a human rights issue” (Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, 2020 p. online), and it “is impossible to separate a people’s cultural heritage from the people itself and that people’s rights” (United Nations, 2016a n.53). More specifically, “[c] ultural heritage […] is […] particularly important for its subjective dimension, in terms of how it is perceived by individuals and communities as being associated with their cultural identity and their sense of belonging to a community” (Donders, 2020, p. 380). “Both personal and community identities are [indeed] formed through [cultural] tangible objects and intangible cultural performances” (Silverman & Fairchild Ruggles, 2007 p.3). The aforementioned link is particularly evident in the context of intentional destruction of cultural heritage, because “when cultural heritage is under attack, it is also the people and their fundamental human rights that are under attack” (OHCHR, 2016). This is authoritatively confirmed by the Preamble of the 2003 UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (UNESCO 2003), which stresses that: “cultural heritage is an important component of the cultural identity of communities, groups and individuals, and of social cohesion, so that its intentional destruction may have adverse consequences on human dignity and human rights” (fifth recital of the Preamble). The same concept has been expressed by international human rights bodies. For instance, in 2014, referring to the situation of human rights in Iraq, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) qualified “the rampant destruction of monuments, shrines, churches, mosques and other places of worship, archaeological sites and cultural heritage sites” as a human rights violation (HRC, 2014 seventh recital of the Preamble). More recently, the HRC noted that: “the destruction of or damage to cultural heritage may have a detrimental and irreversible impact on the enjoyment of cultural rights, in particular the right of everyone to take part in cultural life, including the ability to access and enjoy cultural heritage” (HRC, 2018 sixth recital of the Preamble). At the regional level, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has declared that acts of intentional destruction of cultural heritage are “inconsistent with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other African and international legal instruments on human rights” (ACHPR, 2012 online). An equivalent position has been taken by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), for example, when it held that the destruction of the Stari Most in Mostar in November 1993 amounted to a violation of “the Muslim population’s basic rights to life, freedom and dignity”.1 Even the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has declared that “destruction of cultural heritage, which is representative of the diversity of human culture, erases the collective memories of a nation, destabilizes communities and threatens their cultural identity” (2015). It follows that “[e]vidence of crimes against cultural heritage committed during [an] attack may suggest that the civilian population was the primary target of the attack, given the collective importance of cultural heritage for civilian communities” (ICC Office of the Prosecutor, 2021 n.64). It is therefore evident that heritage destruction is principally and primarily a crime against communities and persons (Gerstenblith, 2016). In fact, the mens rea (criminal intent) characterising most instances of intentional destruction of cultural heritage: rests in the discriminatory intent of the perpetrators, who do not pursue the goal of destroying the cultural heritage as such but rather that of annihilating the communities

1 ICTY. (2013). Prosecutor v. Prlić et al. Case No. IT-04–74, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 29 May, Vol 3. n.1712.

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for which the latter is of special importance and by which it is perceived as an essential element of their own life, cultural identity, and distinctiveness. (Lenzerini, 2020 p.76) The mens rea of the perpetrators of most acts of deliberate destruction of cultural heritage, in other words, consists in the intention of producing a prejudice to a human community through targeting an element which is considered by such a community an essential component of its own cultural identity and existence. This is clearly demonstrated by the most infamous cases of heritage destruction which occurred throughout history: from the obliteration of the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria of Egypt in 391 CE – ordered by the Roman Emperor Theodosius to eradicate the last sanctuary of non-Christians – to the systematic destruction of mosques and other religious buildings during the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s (see Figure 6.1); from the demolition of the two ancient giant Buddhas in the valley of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, by the Taliban in March 2001 (Francioni & Lenzerini, 2003), to the systematic devastation of priceless cultural treasures by IS2 in the occupied territories in the Middle-East from 2014 to 2017. The ontological construction just proposed is confirmed by the practice of the ICTY consisting in considering heritage destruction as a crime against humanity – namely a crime of persecution – when it is carried out “with the requisite discriminatory intent”, as it “amounts

Figure 6.1 Bombed mosque in Ahmići, Central Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 1993. Photograph provided courtesy of the ICTY, via Wikimedia Commons.

2 This article uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

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to an attack on the very […] identity of a people”.3 It is evident that the qualification of heritage destruction as a crime against humanity straightaway derives from its human rights implications. In fact, the destroyed heritage and its obliteration are a medium between the discriminatory intentions of the perpetrators and the achievement of their goal, i.e., the violation of the fundamental rights of the people for whom such a heritage is particularly meaningful. This is further corroborated by the role played by heritage destruction in the context of another heinous human rights violation, the crime of genocide. Indeed, heritage destruction, when it is based on a systematic and deliberate plan and accompanied by physical or biological destruction of the targeted community, may attain the role of evidence of the intent to destroy a human community, i.e., of the specific intent to commit genocide (Prosecutor v. Krstić4; ICJ, 2007 n.344, 2015 n.390). As a matter of fact, acts of heritage destruction, especially of systematic character, pursue the intent of attacking “the cultural or sociological characteristics of a human group in order to annihilate these elements which give to that group its own identity distinct from the rest of the community” (Prosecutor v. Krstić n.580). For this reason, they deeply invade the human rights sphere of the latter and its members.

Identification of the main human rights implications related to heritage destruction As noted in 2016 by the (then) UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Karima Bennoune, cultural heritage “is a fundamental resource” for a number of human rights, including the right of access to and enjoyment of cultural heritage itself, “the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the economic rights of the many people who earn a living through tourism related to such heritage, the right to education and the right to development” (United Nations, 2016b n.51). This list, however, does not exhaust the number of multifaceted implications on human rights which may be determined by heritage destruction. In order to properly comprehend such implications, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the two key concepts involved in the present investigation: “intentional destruction” and “cultural heritage”. As far as the former is concerned, the 2003 UNESCO Declaration – at Article II.2 – defines intentional destruction as: an act intended to destroy in whole or in part cultural heritage, thus compromising its integrity, in a manner which constitutes a violation of international law or an unjustifiable offence to the principles of humanity and dictates of public conscience. (UNESCO, 2003 Article II.2) First of all, the reference to the “principles of humanity” in this definition makes it clear that heritage destruction may well determine some kind of human suffering, translating in legal terms into human rights breaches. Furthermore, it is important to emphasise that the meaning of the verb destroy is to be broadly conceived, such a meaning being directly influenced by the scope of the other key concept mentioned above, cultural heritage. In fact, the latter concept includes not only tangible expressions of heritage, e.g., sites, buildings, monuments, or objects of cultural, historical, religious, archaeological, or aesthetic significance, but also elements of intangible cultural heritage. 3 ICTY. (2001). Prosecutor v. Kordić & Cerkez. Case No. IT-95–14/2-T, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 26 February, n.207. 4 ICTY. (2001). Prosecutor v. Krstić. Case No. IT-98-33-T, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 2 August, n.580.

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The latter is conceived as “the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills — as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts, and cultural spaces associated therewith — that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage”, as specified by Article 2 of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. More precisely, cultural heritage, as an essential element of the cultural identity of a community, includes tangible cultural expressions and all intangible manifestations of a people’s distinctiveness, belief systems, ethics and moral values, ceremonies, sacred sites, human remains, as well as any other spaces and expressions shaping the specificity of the community itself. Consequently, heritage destruction encompasses not only the physical devastation of material entities – as the collective imagination is (understandably) used to perceiving it – but the situations in which the integrity of any element of intangible cultural heritage is compromised as well. The latter situation does not necessarily need to result from intentional actions aimed at damaging the heritage concerned, but may also ensue from any kind of active or passive behaviour leading to loss of heritage or simply contributing to it. It follows that – at least in the context of the relationship between heritage destruction and human rights – the meaning of destruction is to be considered equivalent to loss. This is all the more true with regard to certain human groups whose cultural identity is characterised by a high level of spirituality, particularly indigenous peoples, for whom the intangible component of heritage is especially significant (Lenzerini, 2023). For such groups, loss of cultural heritage – attaining a significance equivalent to heritage destruction in terms of human rights violations – may, for instance, occur when they are deprived of the possibility of exercising their cultural traditions. Examples are represented by: prohibition of traditional and cultural practices (such as the wearing of talismans or amulets and the practice of magic and witchcraft), prohibition of religious and cultural practices (such as prayers at mausoleums and tomb sites, as well as the manner of praying and the celebration of religious holidays). (ICC, Office of the Prosecutor 2021 n.73) With respect to the specific rights which can be infringed by heritage destruction, it must first of all “be considered as a violation of cultural rights” (United Nations, 2018 n.69). Among them, the right of everyone to take part in cultural life emerges – as expressed by Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by Article 15, n.1(a), of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). As elaborated by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) – the monitoring body established by the ICESCR – this right presupposes an obligation for States to guarantee that all people have access “to their own cultural and linguistic heritage and to that of others” (CESCR, 2009 n.49d). States are also bound to “[r]espect and protect cultural heritage in all its forms, in times of war and peace, and natural disasters” (CESCR, 2009 n.50a). Persons and communities must be guaranteed the right to maintain, control, protect, and develop cultural heritage, which “must be preserved, developed, enriched and transmitted to future generations as a record of human experience and aspirations, in order to encourage creativity in all its diversity and to inspire a genuine dialogue between cultures” (CESCR, 2009 n.50a). It is self-evident that when cultural heritage is destroyed, the right in point – in its multiple declinations – is irreparably prejudiced. The right in discussion also encompasses the right of minorities to enjoy their own culture, as expressed by Article 27 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which must be conceived under both an individual and collective perspective. Consistently, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR) has found that “protection of the right to culture goes beyond the duty, not to destroy 93

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or deliberately weaken minority groups, but requires respect for, and protection of, their cultural heritage essential to the group’s identity”.5 Meanwhile, the HRC has urged the need to protect “the cultural heritage of minority communities from intentional destruction aimed at erasing evidence of their presence and the engagement of indigenous peoples and local communities in international debates on cultural heritage protection” (HRC, 2018 nineteenth recital of the Preamble). Furthermore, heritage destruction normally produces prejudicial effects on the enjoyment of “rights that are intrinsically linked to the right to take part in cultural life, such as the rights to privacy, to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to freedom of opinion and expression, to peaceful assembly and to freedom of association” (HRC, 2018 n.19). With regard to the right to freedom of religion and belief in particular – especially its component right to manifest one’s religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance – it is evident that depriving a community of the elements of its own heritage “essential to the practice of [its] religion” – a deprivation which may well occur in consequence of the destruction of such heritage – would render “it virtually impossible for the community to maintain religious practices central to [its] culture and religion”6 (ACHPR, 2009 n.173), translating into a blatant violation of the right in point. In addition, the ICTY, as previously noted, has considered that attacks against cultural property of religious character, when perpetrated with a discriminatory intent, amount to an assault on the very religious identity of a people (see Prosecutor v. Kordić & Cerkez). The presence of such a discriminatory intent also determines a violation of the right to non-discrimination, which in the case of heritage destruction usually takes the form of discrimination based on either the cultural characteristics of the targeted community or on the racial, ethnic, or religious traits of its members. With respect to the right to freedom of expression, production of cultural heritage – in all its elements, tangible or intangible – represents one of the most formidable means into which the right in point concretely translates. As recognised by the Human Rights Committee (HRC), the expressions protected by this right actually include, among others, “cultural and artistic expression […] and religious discourse” (HRC, 2011 n.11). It follows that destruction of the heritage concerned directly annihilates the products through which individuals and communities give concrete realisation to their right to freedom of expression, eventually translating into a violation of this right. The right to property is also affected by heritage destruction. It is a right which: as it relates to cultural heritage, is mainly to be considered under a collective perspective. It is the right of a people or a community to keep possession of the cultural heritage of particular significance for its cultural identity, to preserve the social and spiritual connection existing with such a heritage, as well as to transmit it to future generations. (Lenzerini, 2020 p.88) This applies to all communities whose heritage is destroyed – like a religious community in the event of systematic destruction of the buildings devoted to its religion – or who are in any way deprived of their own heritage, consistent with the broad meaning of the term “destruction” as adopted in this chapter. In reality, in the latter respect, the relationship between 5 ACtHPR. (2017). African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Republic of Kenya. Application No. 006/2012, Judgment, 26 May, n.179. 6 ACHPR. (2009). Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group (on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council) v. Kenya. Communication No. 276/03, 25 November.

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cultural heritage and the right to property is circular and reciprocal. This means that destruction or loss of cultural heritage may determine a violation of the right to property and, at the same time, a breach of the right to property may lead to the loss of all the elements or values of cultural heritage existing in the property of which a given community is deprived. The concrete contours of such dynamics are egregiously exemplified by situations concerning indigenous peoples. The first circumstance occurs in the event of material destruction of tangible cultural sites or movable cultural objects, especially of ritual character, which, in addition of representing a deep offence to the cultural identity of the indigenous community concerned, translates into a violation of the collective right to property over the relevant site or object by such a community. As far as the second situation is concerned, it takes place when indigenous peoples are deprived of their own ancestral lands, a circumstance which the IACtHR – followed by other international human rights bodies – has qualified as a violation of the right to property. This legal construction is based on the fact that the above peoples maintain with their ancestral lands and natural resources a relationship which is not “merely a matter of possession and production but a material and spiritual element which they must fully enjoy, even to preserve their cultural legacy and transmit it to future generations”.7 Consistently, the IACtHR has emphasised that “the effective enjoyment and exercise of the right to communal ownership of the land guarantees that indigenous communities conserve their heritage” (The Yakye Axa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay8 n.146; The Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador 9). As a consequence: any denial of the enjoyment or exercise of their territorial rights is detrimental to values that are very representative for the members of [indigenous] peoples, who are at risk of losing or suffering irreparable damage to their cultural identity and life and to the cultural heritage to be passed on to future generations. (The Yakye Axa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay n.203) In some cases, such damage may even translate into a level of anguish reaching the threshold of inhuman treatment, one of the most intolerable offences against human rights. Indeed, depriving indigenous peoples of their heritage – particularly of intangible character – may lead their members to suffer “a number of ‘spiritually-caused illnesses’ that become manifest as actual physical maladies and can potentially affect the entire natural lineage” of the community, including future generations (The Moiwana Community v. Suriname10). Last, but not least, for indigenous peoples in particular (but not necessarily for such peoples only), heritage destruction may translate into a breach of the right of peoples to self-determination, particularly of the prerogative included in such right to freely pursue their cultural development. This is confirmed, among others, by Article 1 common to the ICCPR and the ICESCR and by Article 3 of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is indeed evident that the cultural development of a people may be seriously hindered when its own cultural heritage is destroyed. 7 IACtHR. (2001). The Mayagna (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua. Series C No. 79, Judgment, 31 August, Merits, Reparations and Costs, n.149. 8 IACtHR. (2005). The Yakye Axa Indigenous Community v. Paraguay. Series C No. 125, Judgment, 17 June, Merits, Reparations and Costs. 9 IACtHR. (2012). The Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador. Series C No. 245, Judgment, 27 June, Merits and Reparations, n.212. 10 IACtHR. (2005). The Moiwana Community v. Suriname. Series C No. 124, Judgment, 15 June, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs, n.98–99.

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Applicability of international human rights law to instances of heritage destruction occurring in peacetime and in the event of armed conflict The discourse concerning the relationship between heritage destruction and human rights only makes sense if international human rights standards are applicable – at least in abstracto – to concrete cases of destruction of cultural heritage itself. In this respect, apparently, the problem exists that human rights are conceived and structured to be applied in peacetime, while many cases of heritage destruction actually take place in the event of armed conflict, in the context of which protection of persons and property is in principle entrusted to international humanitarian law (IHL). This would imply that, although human rights would be perfectly applicable to instances of heritage destruction occurring in times of peace, the same could not be held for situations taking place during armed conflicts. The validity of this inference would be reinforced by the fact that, in principle, IHL would be better equipped than human rights to address situations occurring in the event of armed conflict, exactly for the reason that its rules are explicitly tailored to face such situations. This said, it is to be noted that recent international practice has confirmed that human rights are fully applicable even in times of war, in a relationship of complementarity with IHL, except for those human rights standards that may be legitimately suspended in times of public emergency, when the existence of such an emergency has been validly declared by the State(s) concerned. This has been established, in particular, by both the ICJ and human rights monitoring bodies – including the HRC, the Committee against Torture, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and African human rights bodies. It is notable that said monitoring bodies, in developing their practice concerning the applicability of human rights in times of war, have extended the concept of State jurisdiction to all situations in which a State has an effective control over parts of a foreign territory, especially in the case of military occupation. It follows that a human rights approach to heritage destruction makes sense in both times of peace and situations of armed conflict (Lenzerini, 2014).

Advantages of a human rights approach to heritage destruction Having established that human rights standards are, in principle, applicable to heritage destruction both in peacetime and in the event of armed conflict, it is now time to ascertain whether a human rights approach to heritage destruction in times of war would present concrete advantages in comparison to relying on IHL or other branches of international law. In this respect, it is important to emphasise that while cultural heritage protection (and/or safeguarding) is today recognised as one of the priorities pursued by the international community, the existing pertinent treaties are not effectively equipped with appropriate remedies in the event of breaches. This holds true, in particular, with regard to the prejudices directly suffered by individuals and/or communities affected by instances of heritage destruction, which cannot even benefit of the classical means of dispute resolution or of the countermeasures that, in principle, may be used by States. Also, in the context of IHL and international criminal law, it is true that perpetrators of heritage destruction may be prosecuted for their individual responsibility – within the limits of the competence of the existing international, mixed, or domestic criminal courts. However, the avenues for guaranteeing reparation in favour of the people directly prejudiced by the destruction are very restricted, being substantially limited, at the international level, to the mechanism provided for by Article 75 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998). Certainly, this mechanism must not be undervalued, as it undoubtedly represents a formidable outcome achieved by the international community. In the context of heritage destruction, it has been put in practice by the ICC, in particular, in 96

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its 2017 Reparations Order in the Al-Mahdi case.11 In this circumstance, the Court – adopting a marked human rights approach (Dijkstal, 2021) – emphasised that reparations for the destruction of ten buildings of religious and historical character by the defendant in the ancient city of Timbuktu, in Mali, in June–July 2012, “are designed […] to relieve the suffering caused by the serious crime committed […] enable victims to recover their dignity and deter future violations” (n.28). As a consequence, the ICC ordered individual, collective, and symbolic reparations for the community of Timbuktu affected by the destruction of its cultural heritage. Specifically, individual reparations were ordered “for those whose livelihoods exclusively depended upon the Protected Buildings” (n.83), and collective reparations for “the community of Timbuktu as a whole” (n.83), in light of “the mental pain/anguish and disruption of culture of [such a] community” (n.90). Individual reparations included redress for moral harm, “for the mental pain and anguish of those whose ancestors’ burial sites were damaged in the attack” (n.90). The latter aspect raised the interesting question of whether – considering that the rationale for the preservation of cultural heritage includes the protection of the interests of future generations – the individuals concerned should comprise unborn children descendants of the ancestors referred to by the ICC (Lostal, 2021 pp.845–847). In the end, the Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) established in 2002 by the ICC Assembly of States Parties, while “recognising the unique harm to direct descendants born after the destruction of the Protected Buildings”, considered that “the harm was more acute for those who were alive during the events and for who the state of affairs changed due to Mr Al Mahdi’s crime” (TFV, 2018 n.43). It, therefore, proposed to allow only children born before the time of the attack – 11 July 2012 – “to receive individual reparations in their quality of direct descendants in order to recognise this heightened degree of harm. However, all other minors, including those born after the events, will still be able to benefit from the existing collective reparations” (TFV, 2018 n.43). As praiseworthy as it is, the mechanism just described is only applicable in limited situations, being restricted to instances subsumed within the competence of the ICC. Finally, even the general competence of domestic courts to prosecute persons responsible of international crimes (which actually include acts of intentional destruction of cultural heritage, either in the form of war crimes or crimes against humanity), as based on the principle of the universality of jurisdiction, is mainly theoretical. Indeed, it is not adequately corroborated by relevant practice and, in any event, does not contemplate specific avenues for the redress of victims. Against this background, a human rights approach to heritage destruction would present the invaluable advantage of allowing individuals or communities that are victims of specific cases of heritage destruction to bring their claims before the existing international monitoring bodies, lamenting the violation of (any of ) the rights indicated in Section 2 of this chapter and/or of other human rights possibly affected by the destruction. Such bodies – depending on their respective competences – could recommend or even oblige the States directly or indirectly responsible for the violations (either for having committed the violation through their organs or for not having prevented the breaches perpetrated by private individuals or entities) to provide adequate redress in favour of the victims, when the protection and/or safeguarding of the cultural heritage of the latter has not been properly guaranteed. The human rights approach advocated here could even allow victims of wrongs to bring claims for heritage destruction before domestic courts, which could apply to such a destruction domestic legislation concerning human rights protection (Behzadi, 2021, who advocates the applicability of the US Alien Tort Statute, for violation of the law of nations, to cases of heritage destruction).

11 ICC. (2017). Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi. Case No. ICC-01/12-01/15, Reparations Order.

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The approach in point would therefore guarantee better effectiveness in the protection of the rights and interests of individuals and/or communities in cases of heritage destruction.

Conclusion The previous sections have shown that heritage destruction determines huge human rights implications, suggesting that it should be treated as a human rights issue. Such an approach would not only allow us to better comprehend the ontological nature and practical consequences of heritage destruction on human beings but also to provide the latter with concrete and effective avenues for obtaining redress for the prejudices suffered as a result of such a destruction. This would make the fight of the international community against heritage destruction more efficient because it would respond more properly to the effective needs of the members of the human family.

References ACHPR (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights). (2009). Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group International on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council v. Kenya. Communication No. 276/2003. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 25 November. Available at: http://www.worldcourts.com/achpr/eng/decisions/2009.11.25_CMRD_v_Kenya.htm [Accessed: 3 March 2023]. ACHPR (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights). (2012). Press release on the destruction of cultural and ancient monuments in the Malian city of Timbuktu, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 10 July. Available at: https://www.achpr.org/pressrelease/detail?id=292 [Accessed: 2 January 2022]. Behzadi, E. (2021). Destruction of cultural heritage as a violation of human rights: Application of the Alien Tort Statute. Rutgers University Law Review. Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3820038 [Accessed: 5 January 2022]. Cançado Trindade, A. (2011). Separate Opinion on the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s Order of 18 July 2011 on Provisional Measures in the case of Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 in the Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (Cambodia v. Thailand). ICJ Reports 2011, pp.566–607. CESCR. (2009). General comment No. 21, Right of everyone to take part in cultural life. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 15 Paragraph 1(a). UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. UN Doc. E/C.12/GC/21. Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 17 October 2003. Available at: https://ich. unesco.org/en/convention [Accessed: 12 February 2022]. Dijkstal, H.J. (2021). The ICC and Human Rights: The Crime Against Destruction of Cultural Heritage as Part of a Trend Towards Greater Human Rights Influence. Indiana International and Comparative Law Review 31, pp.379–408. Donders, Y. (2020). Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. In: Francioni, F., and Vrdoljak, A.F. (eds). The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.379–406. Francioni, F., and Lenzerini, F. (2003). The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in International Law. European Journal of International Law 14, pp.619–651. Gerstenblith, P. (2016). The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: A Crime against Property or a Crime against People? John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law 15, pp.336–393. HRC (2011). General comment No. 34, Article 19: Freedoms of opinion and expression. UN Human Rights Council. UN Doc. CCPR/C/GC/34. ——— (2014). Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 1 September 2014, S-22/1. Available at: https:// www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9% 7D/a_hrc_res_s22_1.pdf [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. ——— (2018). Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 22 March 2018, 37/17. Available at: https://www.right-docs.org/doc/a-hrc-res-37-17/ [Accessed: 8 April 2022].

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Heritage destruction and human rights ICJ (International Court of Justice). (2007). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia & Herzegovina v. Serbia & Montenegro). Judgment of 26 February. ICJ Reports 2007, pp.43–240. ——— (2015). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia). Judgment of 3 February. ICJ Reports 2015, pp.3–154. ICC Office of the Prosecutor. (2021). Policy on Cultural Heritage. International Criminal Court: Office of the Prosecutor. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/itemsDocuments/20210614-otp-policycultural-heritage-eng.pdf [Accessed: 30 January 2022]. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 16 December 1966. Available at: https:// www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx [Accessed: 14 February 2022]. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), 16 December 1966. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cescr.aspx [Accessed: 14 February 2022]. Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation. (2020). Cultural Heritage & Human Rights. The Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation website. Available at: https://www. culturalheritagelaw.org/Cultural-Heritage-and-Human-Rights [Accessed: 30 December 2021]. Lenzerini, F. (2014). From Jus in Bello to Jus Commune Humanitatis. The Interface of Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law in the Regulation of Armed Conflicts. In: Lenzerini, F. and Vrdoljak, A.F. (eds). International Law for Common Goods. Normative Perspectives on Human Rights, Culture and Nature. Oxford; Portland: Oxford University Press, pp.61–88. ——— (2020). Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. In: Francioni, F., and Vrdoljak, A.F. (eds). The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.75–99. ——— (2023). Destruction of Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Heritage and International Law. In: Powderly, J., and Strecker, A. (eds). Heritage Destruction, Human Rights and International Law. Leiden: Brill/Nijhoff. Lostal, M. (2021). Implementing Reparations in the Al Mahdi Case. A Story of Monumental Challenges in Timbuktu. Journal of International Criminal Justice 19, pp.831–853. OHCHR. (2016). UN rights expert calls to stop intentional destruction of cultural heritage, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 26 October. Available at: http://www. ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20767&LangID=E [Accessed: 30 December 2021]. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/ sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf [Accessed: 07 January 2022]. Silverman, H., and Fairchild Ruggles, D. (2007). Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. In: Silverman, H., and Fairchild Ruggles, D. (eds). Cultural Heritage and Human Rights. New York: Springer, pp.3–22. TFV (Trust Fund for Victims). (2018). Public redacted version of “Trust Fund for Victims’ submission of draft application form”. The Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi. ICC-01/12-01/15-289-Conf. International Criminal Court. UNESCO. (2003). Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage, 17 October 2003. Available at: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17718&URL_DO=DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html [Accessed: 8 February 2022]. United Nations. (2016a). Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. United Nations. UN Doc. A/71/317. ——— (2016b). Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. United Nations. UN Doc. A/ HRC/31/59. ——— (2018). Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights on her mission to Serbia and Kosovo. United Nations. UN Doc. A/HRC/37/55/Add.1. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly on 13 September 2007. Available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wpcontent/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf [Accessed: 14 February 2022]. Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 10 December 1948. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/ universal-declaration-human-rights/ [Accessed: 14 February 2022]. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 69/281, adopted by the General Assembly on 28 May 2015. Saving the cultural heritage of Iraq. Available at: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/794596?ln=en [Accessed: 8 April 2022].

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7 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION AND GENOCIDE Legal Resistance, Conceptual Resiliency Elisa Novic Introduction Intentional and gratuitous attacks against heritage often revive the cultural genocide rhetoric, be they the Taliban’s blowing up of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, the destruction of Timbuktu’s Sufi shrines and burning of the library in 2013, or IS’s1 demolition of some major pieces of heritage in Mosul (Iraq) and Palmyra (Syria) in 2014–2015. These destructions, and others, have been carefully staged and sometimes live-screened, causing public outrage throughout the world, supporting their status of “heritage of all mankind” as stated in the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Preamble n.2). Yet, none of these attacks have been considered under the genocide label under international law due to their rather indirect human dimension. If they did harm mankind or humanity, a connection with a living human group directly targeted for destruction – which is core to the legal definition of genocide – was more difficult to establish (see, for instance, Francioni and Lenzerini, 2003). Although genocide might be addressed differently through various disciplines, international law still provides the most stable – and arguably the most authoritative – definition of genocide to trigger a reflection on such an “essentially contested concept” (Gallie, 1956 p.169; Powell, 2011 pp.67–70). One source of contestation is the historical exclusion of attacks against cultural heritage from its legal scope. Beyond the rhetorical weight, cultural genocide does not entail any legal consequences, as it never received codification under international law. Conceptualised by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 together with the “generic” concept of genocide (Lemkin, 2008 [1944] p.80), cultural genocide did not survive the diplomatic filter and was excluded from the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereafter referred to as the Genocide Convention). Article 2 provides:

1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

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In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a b c d e

Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.2

This debate did not end there, as time for both implementation and interpretation of this definition only came in the 1990s, with the establishment of the two International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR), followed by many other ad hoc mechanisms and a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1948. All these courts’ statutes reproduced the 1948 legal definition of genocide (see, for instance, Rome Statute of the ICC, Article 6). Among the many definitional ambiguities, the meaning of group destruction received extensive attention, especially as to whether the crime of genocide may qualify processes which would not exclusively or predominantly rely on the physical and biological destruction of a given group’s members (see among others Schabas, 2009; May, 2010). While the legal definition of genocide was very much inspired by the Holocaust (or at least perceived as such), some long-marginalised communities have been gradually providing the space to promote an alternative vision of the group existence, whose foundations go beyond the lives of its physical individual members to rather rely on socio-cultural heritage and dynamics ( Jaulin, 1970; Powell, 2007; May, 2010). Attacks against any such groups’ socio-cultural foundations, such as Indigenous Peoples’ forced displacement from their ancestral lands, would be likely to threaten the life of the group as such and therefore amount to (cultural) genocide (MacDonald & Hudson, 2012; Mako, 2012). While other fields of international law have evolved towards encompassing contemporary evolutions of the concept of culture to encompass non- (or less) Western views of culture (Minority Rights Declaration; Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention; United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [UNDRIP]), the international law of genocide – especially international criminal law – still remains very much resistant to any such evolution. Against this background, this contribution discusses the extent to which the conceptual and legal spheres of genocide may open up to encompass instances of heritage destruction.3

Heritage destruction and genocide: A multilevel conceptual relationship Cultural genocide provides a relevant entry point to discuss the interconnection between heritage destruction and genocide. This concept is far from homogenously defined, varying between a technique of genocide and a form or process of genocide as such. 2 The requirement of an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part” a group is considered from a criminal law perspective as a special intent. The mental element is called mens rea, while the list of five acts constitutes the actus reus or material requirement. 3 Parts of this contribution build on and from Novic, E. (2016). The concept of cultural genocide: An international law perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Cultural destruction as a technique of genocide Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide” on the basis of a thorough empirical study, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in which he listed all the various laws and regulations imposed by Nazi Germany and its allies aimed at erasing the presence of human groups from the map of Europe. He defined this new crime broadly, as “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves” (Lemkin, 2008 [1944] p.79). He deconstructed the process under eight techniques: namely political, social, cultural, economic, biological, physical, religious, and moral genocide (Lemkin, 2008 [1044]). Personally affected by the Holocaust, Lemkin built on this scholarly work to advocate for the adoption of an international treaty (Moses, 2010). The negotiations of the Genocide Convention lasted for two pivotal years in world history. The preparatory works show how the polarisation of the Cold War blocks reflected on the discussions. This had a clear impact on the fate of the successive draft provisions on cultural genocide (UN Doc. E/447. 1947, and E/AC.25/SR.14. 1948 in Abtahi & Webb, 2008), which Lemkin, who was among the drafting experts, insisted on including together with provisions on physical and biological genocide. The content faithfully reflected the Holocaust experience, as evidenced in Axis Rule, by addressing, among others, the destruction of religious and cultural monuments, the prohibition on practicing one’s language in the public sphere, and the forcible transfer of children from one group to another. The majority opinion considered that these fell under the scope of international human rights law (UN Doc. E/CN.4/SR.73. 1948 in Abtahi & Webb, 2008), while the same delegations rejected a twin minority rights provision from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Morsink, 2000). These two parallel sets of diplomatic negotiations enshrined a Western view of human rights and dignity, and international law in general (van Krieken, 2004; Moses, 2010). When it comes to delineating the conceptual relationship between cultural or heritage destruction and genocide, the draft cultural genocide provision may have already given rise to some conceptual confusion. In Lemkin’s original work, cultural genocide would constitute a technique not amounting to genocide as such, though Lemkin did not define the cumulative level of techniques necessary for any genocidal threshold to be reached. The isolation of the cultural genocide provision within a separate provision would have made it an autonomous crime, had it been adopted, which was one of the reasons underlying Western delegations’ scepticism, and its eventual rejection. These discussions sow the seeds for a later revival of the concept of cultural genocide in cases unanticipated in the 1940s, and ultimately of genocide.

Cultural destruction as a form of genocide The idea of cultural genocide as a technique of genocide did not gain much attention until the 1990s and ICTY’s case law. A few attempts were made to put heritage destruction, especially of tangible items, back under the scope of genocide prevention (e.g., Committee on the Elimination or Racial Discrimination, 2005) through the establishment of typologies of stages of genocide in which heritage destruction would constitute a serious early warning to genocide and, allegedly, trigger the international community’s intervention. The definition of genocide and its core element of group destruction provided the basis for recognising the genocidal character of processes of Indigenous Peoples’ colonisation, though pushing for codifying cultural genocide under separate instruments. 102

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Throughout the negotiations of the Genocide Convention, State Parties to the United Nations (especially colonial ones) were also considering the need to avoid criminalising themselves (Powell, 2007). Still, in 1960, the International Commission of Jurists undertook one of the first attempts to implement the definition of genocide in the context of a colonial process after the People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet in 1949. In a 1960 fact-finding report, the Commission “found that acts of genocide had been committed in Tibet in an attempt to destroy the Tibetans as a religious group” (p.3). These acts included prohibiting the practice of Buddhism, killing religious figures, and the forcible transfer of “Tibetan children to a Chinese materialist environment” (1960 p.7). Such an attempt was reiterated and systematised in the 1970s by scholars who successively established a connection between processes of settler colonialism and the destruction of Indigenous groups as such ( Jaulin, 1970), through a “logic of elimination”, as Patrick Wolfe (2006 p.387) would write three decades later. Pierre Clastres (1988) especially used the term “ethnocide”, which he defined in a way that is reminiscent of Lemkin’s cultural genocide as “the systematic destruction of the modes of life and thought of people who are different from those who carry out this destructive enterprise. In short, genocide kills their bodies, while ethnocide kills their spirit” (p.52). The internationalisation of the Indigenous movement culminated with the adoption of UNDRIP in 2007, which not only states that Indigenous Peoples “shall not be subjected to any act of genocide” but also provides: 1 Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture. 2 States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of and redress for: a b c d e

any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities; any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories, or resources; any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights; any form of forced assimilation or integration; Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic discrimination directed against them (Art. 8).

In a draft version of Art. 8, UNDRIP initially protected Indigenous Peoples’ “collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethnocide and cultural genocide” (UN Commission on Human Rights, 1994 p.107). The declaratory form of UNDRIP means it is non-binding upon States, though eventually universally adopted in spite of initial reluctance. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States initially voted against the adoption but have all since “reversed their positions and expressed support for the Declaration” (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ website). UNDRIP enshrines the recognition of alternative conceptions of group existence and hence destruction. In the two quoted provisions, a strong emphasis is dedicated to “forcibly removing children of the group to another group”, echoing Art. 2(e) of the Genocide Convention, which is the only provision left from the draft cultural genocide provision. The emphasis is meant to respond to the widespread processes of the forcible removal of Indigenous children in North America and Australia throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, following the infamous doctrine of “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” (quoted in Wolfe, 2006 p.397). 103

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Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Indigenous children in North America and Australia were forcibly placed in either boarding schools or with white families. They were prohibited from speaking their own language and practicing any of their cultural traditions. Besides the harm resulting from family and cultural separation, many of these children suffered from physical, moral, and sexual abuses: the resulting intergenerational traumas continue to exist today. Such a process was long accepted by white/settler societies, before being cautiously labelled “forced assimilation”, a concept which is not addressed as such in either international criminal law or international human rights law. Australia and Canada especially engaged in processes of truth and reconciliation, with the establishment of commissions which respectively released their final reports in 1997 (Australian Human Rights Commission) and 2015 (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada). The Canadian report is especially noteworthy as it strongly condemns the process in the following words: States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to another. In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015 p.1) From a legal perspective, it would have probably been enough to label the process genocide, as the Australian Truth and Reconciliation Commission did. However, the addition of the cultural epithet helps streamline the whole report and recommendations around the crime of cultural destruction and its legacy in contemporary society.

From heritage destruction to genocide: Wandering in law The law of genocide has remained quite impervious to integrating alternative conceptions of group destruction. In contrast, the legal framework applicable to the protection of cultural heritage has gone through a process of “recalibration” (Vrdoljak, 2011 p.281). Systematic attacks against such groups’ culture have, in turn, given a new breath to developing a legal framework to address intentional attacks against heritage, though not necessarily through the genocidal lens.

The international (Criminal) tribunals’ relative imperviousness The legal definition of genocide is the result of a political compromise, which comes with a number of ambiguities, both at the level of its mens rea and actus reus. From a socioanthropological perspective, group destruction may take other forms than the mere killing of its members. This tends to be confirmed by the list of potential acts of genocide, which include non-physical acts, like Art. 2(b) of the Genocide Convention on “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and already-mentioned sub-paragraph (e) on forcibly removing children. In spite of these seemingly convincing elements, international criminal tribunals have remained reluctant to acknowledge what they perceive as an 104

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extension of the scope of the definition of genocide. The criminal nature of its codification comes with a number of legal principles, especially the legality principle (nullum crimen sine lege). To be legal, a crime must be foreseeable as one by the one who commits it, which means its definition needs to be clearly and narrowly defined. This means, in turn, that between two competing interpretations, the judge may opt for the narrower one (see European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 7(1)). This principle has been critical in the case law developed in the context of the Former Yugoslavia, especially in relation to criminalising what observers called ethnic cleansing,4 a term that would not echo in categories of international criminal law (essentially genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes). The main question was whether the intent to displace a group and ultimately cancel its presence from a given territory – as inferred by the extensive destruction of cultural and religious heritage (Riedlmayer, 2002) – could amount to intending to destroy, in whole or in part, that group. The first court to address the issue was the High Court of Düsseldorf in the Jorgic ́ case (1997)5 and it replied positively to this question. Nikola Jorgić was convicted for aiding and abetting genocide, which was confirmed by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in 20006 and the European Court on Human Rights in 2007.7 In the meantime, ICTY developed its own case law and settled the issue of interpreting the meaning of group destruction in the Krstic ́ case in relation to the events of Srebrenica. For a long time, this remained ICTY’s only conviction for genocide. Yet, this was also the judgment in which the Court took a firm stance against a socio-cultural interpretation of the mens rea in genocide: The Trial Chamber is aware that it must interpret the Convention with due regard for the principle of nullum crimen sine lege. It therefore recognises that, despite recent developments, customary international law limits the definition of genocide to those acts seeking the physical or biological destruction of all or part of the group. Hence, an enterprise attacking only the cultural or sociological characteristics of a human group in order to annihilate these elements which give to that group its own identity distinct from the rest of the community would not fall under the definition of genocide. The Trial Chamber however points out that where there is physical or biological destruction there are often simultaneous attacks on the cultural and religious property and symbols of the targeted group as well, attacks which may legitimately be considered as evidence of an intent to physically destroy the group. In this case, the Trial Chamber will thus take into account as evidence of intent to destroy the group the deliberate destruction of mosques and houses belonging to members of the group.8

4 Ethnic cleansing may be defined as the “attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship” (Andreopoulos, 2018 online). 5 Higher Regional Court at Düsseldorf. (1997). Jorgic ́ case. IV-26/96 2StE 8/96, Trial Chambers, Judgment, 26 September. 6 German Federal Constitutional Court. (2000). Jorgic ́ case. 2 BvR 2190/99, Constitutional Appeals, Judgment, 12 December. 7 ECtHR. (2007). Jorgic ́ v. Germany. Application No. 74613/01, Trial Chamber, Judgement, 12 July. 8 ICTY. (2001). Prosecutor v. Krstic ́. Case No. ICTY-98-33-T, Trial Chamber, Judgement, 2 August, n.580.

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This stance has been criticised for inadequately capturing what makes a group (see, for instance, Judge Shahabuddeen’s dissenting opinion in the appeal judgement 9) and some trial chambers have tried to reverse it, though in vain (ICTY, 2006,10 200711). In the specific case at hand, the Court still used the destruction of the mosque of Srebrenica as an evidence of the intent to destroy the group, in addition to the main crimes committed there, including the murder of over 8000 male individuals and the forced displacement of the remaining Muslim Bosnian population. ICTY rejected the idea of cultural genocide as a process, and in doing so revitalised the idea of cultural genocide as a technique of genocide. This interpretation again very much derived from criminal law imperatives, though it was later endorsed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in an inter-State (and therefore non-criminal) context when deciding upon Serbia’s responsibility for the crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ICJ, 2007; 2015; ECCC, 201812). The understanding of genocide as “the crime of crime” (Schabas, 2009), and its concurrent exceptional character, may have implicitly driven the judges’ interpretation, though this would confirm the Western bias underlining such a hierarchy of seriousness and gravity. As Larry May writes, “[t]he destruction of a group, in which individuals are not killed, is more difficult to see as a great crime” (2004 p.24).

The persistence of cultural genocide at the margins of the law of genocide In parallel to the relative failure to reincorporate cultural genocide within the law of genocide, other branches of international law have evolved in relation to addressing intentional attacks against heritage beyond the adoption of – often non-binding – international instruments, such as the 2007 UNDRIP or the UNESCO (2003) Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage. Looking back at ICTY case law, the refusal to acknowledge cultural genocide as falling under the definition of genocide does not mean that crimes of either cultural destruction or forced displacement were left unpunished. ICTY rather addressed them through either the categories of war crimes (e.g., Jokic ́, 200413; Strugar, 200514) or crimes against humanity of persecution (e.g., Krajišnik, 200615). The ICC confirmed this trend in the landmark Al Mahdi judgment,16 a case involving the destruction of the shrines of Timbuktu and the Office of the Prosecutor’s 2021 policy on cultural heritage (ICC Office of the Prosecutor 2021).17 The very prosecution of crimes against heritage, independently from any other physical crimes, has sent a strong signal in light of the persistent impunity for such crimes.

9 ICTY. (2004). Prosecutor v. Krstic ́. Case No. IT-98-33-A, Appeals Chamber, Judgement, 19 April, n.54. 10 ICTY. (2006). Prosecutor v. Krajišnik. Case No. IT-00-39, Trial Chamber. 11 ICTY. (2007). Prosecutor v. Blagojevic ́ & Jokic ́. Case No. IT-02-60, Appeals Chamber, Judgement, 9 May. 12 ECCC. (2018). Case 002/02. File No. 002/19-09-2007/ECCC/TC E465, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 16 November. 13 ICTY. (2004). Prosecutor v. Jokic ́. Case No. IT-01-42/1, Trial Chamber. 14 ICTY. (2005). Prosecutor v. Strugar. Case No. IT-01-42, Trial Chamber. 15 ICTY. (2006). Prosecutor v. Krajišnik. Case No. IT-00-39, Trial Chamber. 16 ICC. (2016). Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi. Case No. ICC-01/12-01/ 15, Trial Chamber VIII, Judgment and Sentence, 27 September. 17 The policy, which aims at guiding the investigation and prosecution of crimes against or affecting cultural heritage, addresses the crime of genocide as a potentially relevant category for such crimes through embracing ICTY and the ICJ’s interpretation that “acts of genocide are limited to those seeking the physical or biological destruction of a group” (n.37).

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At the human rights level, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has developed a consistent body of case law, to protect Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ heritage from both genocide, as legally understood, and ethnocide, as defined above. The Court did not use any of these terms as such, as they are not included in its Statute (ACHR, 1969). Yet, in light of the facts at hand, its legal rationale would strongly echo the definitions of both concepts. In the genocidal type of cases, the Court condemned States such as Suriname (see i.a. The Moiwana Community v. Suriname18), Colombia (see i.a. The “Maipiripán Massacre” v. Colombia19) and Guatemala (see i.a. Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala (Merits)20) for attacks on the right to life of some community members. The judges especially acknowledged the cultural dimension of massacres and their consequences on the community’s existence, recognising, in some cases, the State’s aggravated responsibility and its impact on the reparations ordered. In the Plan de Sánchez Massacre case, for instance, the Court took into account the “cultural vacuum” which resulted from “the death of the women and the elders, oral transmitters of the Maya-Achí culture”.21 In the ethnocidal type of cases, which involved Indigenous Peoples’ land grabbing, the IACHR developed a cultural interpretation of the right to property (ACHR, Art. 21): “Disregarding the ancestral right of the members of the Indigenous communities to their territories could affect other basic rights, such as the right to cultural identity and to the very survival of the Indigenous communities and their members”.22 In this statement and others, the Court explicitly recognised the right of collective existence of Indigenous communities, and the possibility for this right to be threatened through attacks other than physical annihilation of its members. Such case law remains quite contextual, though both international criminal law and international human rights law now seem to possess adequate tools to address intentional attacks against heritage that are likely to harm the very existence of groups who rely on it.

Conclusion The issue of whether attacks against heritage may be addressed under the definition of genocide cannot be dissociated from the long-lasting debate on cultural genocide. The reasons behind the legal resistance to cultural genocide are primarily explained in a historical fashion: this is not what the drafters of the Genocide Convention meant when they codified the concept of genocide. Notwithstanding historical interpretation being a subsidiary method of interpretation according to international law (VCLT, Art. 32), this argument is actually more political than historical. It comes back to the dynamics and asymmetry of power in the making of international law. A few breaches to reincorporate cultural genocide in international law have still been opened, in light of the Inter-American Case law and the Canadian approach to its own colonial past, which all contribute to developing an alternative body of customary international law more in line with less represented groups’ own vision of rights and existence.

18 IACHR. (2005). The Moiwana Community v. Suriname. Series C No. 124, Judgement, 15 June, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. 19 IACHR. (2005). “Maipiripán Massacre” v. Colombia. Series C No. 134, Judgement, 15 September, Merits, Reparations and Costs. 2 0 IACHR. (2004). Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala. Series C No. 105, Judgement, 29 April, Merits. 21 IACHR. (2004). Plan de Sánchez Massacre v. Guatemala. Series C No. 116, Judgement, 19 November, Reparations, n.87(b). 22 IACHR. (2001). The Mayagma (Sumo) Awas Tingni Community v. Nicaragua. Series C No. 79, Judgment, 31 August, Merits, Reparations and Costs, n.144.

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Cultural genocide is a concept as old as genocide, though the absence of codification has allowed for its essence to evolve and adapt to realities which were not considered in the 1940s so as to now be shaped as a process of its own, or ethnocide. In this regard, the mainstreamed interpretation of the definition of genocide may be deemed unsatisfactory from a socio-anthropological perspective, as well as from a legal one in light of the evolution of other branches of international law related to collective cultural rights ( Jakubowski, 2016). If groups’ cultural existence has been acknowledged, the potential for their cultural destruction should be too.

References Abtahi, H., and Webb, P. (2008). The Genocide Convention – The Travaux Préparatoires. 2 vols. Leiden; Boston, MA: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), 22 November 1969. Available at: https://www. cidh.oas.org/basicos/english/basic3.american%20convention.htm [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Andreopoulos, G.J. (2018). Ethnic cleansing. Encyclopedia Britannica website. Available at: https://www. britannica.com/topic/ethnic-cleansing [Accessed: 31 October 2021]. Australian Human Rights Commission. (1997). Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. Australian Human Rights Commission. Available at: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/bringing-them-homereport-1997 [Accessed: 8 May 2021]. Clastres, P. (1988). Ethnocide. Art & Text 28, pp.51–58. First published: De l’Ethnocide. L’Homme 14(3–4), pp.101–110. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. (2005). Decision on Follow Up to the Declaration on the Prevention of Genocide: Indicators of Patterns of Systematic and Massive Racial Discrimination. UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. UN Doc. CERD/C/67/1. Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights, as amended), 4 November 1950. Available at: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_ eng.pdf [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, 17 October 2003. Available at: https://ich. unesco.org/en/convention [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention% 20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of %20the%20Crime%20of %20Genocide. pdf [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protectingheritage/convention-and-protocols/1954-convention [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious, and Linguistic Minorities, 18 December 1992. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/minorities. aspx [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. European Court of Human Rights (2007). Jorgic ́ v. Germany. Application No. 74613/01, Trial Chamber, Judgement, 12 July. Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (2018). Case 002/02. File No. 002/19-09-2007/ ECCC/TC E465, Trial Chamber, Judgment, 16 November. Francioni, F., and Lenzerini, F. (2003). The Destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan and International Law. European Journal of International Law 14(4), pp.619–651. Gallie, W.B. (1956). Essentially Contest Concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56, pp.167–198. International Commission of Jurists. (1960). Tibet and the Chinese People’s Republic. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists. ICJ (International Court of Justice). (2007). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia & Herzegovina v. Serbia & Montenegro). Judgement of 26 February. ICJ Reports 2007, pp.43–240. ——— (2015). Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia). Judgment of 3 February. ICJ Reports 2015, pp.3–154.

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Heritage destruction and genocide ICC Office of the Prosecutor. (2021). Policy on Cultural Heritage. International Criminal Court: Office of the Prosecutor. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/itemsDocuments/20210614-otp-policycultural-heritage-eng.pdf [Accessed: 31 October 2021]. Jakubowski, A. (ed). (2016). Cultural Rights as Collective Rights: An International Law Perspective. Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill. Jaulin, R. (1970). La Paix Blanche. Introduction à l’Ethnocide. Paris: Seuil. van Krieken, R. (2004). Rethinking Cultural Genocide: Aboriginal Child Removal and SettlerColonial State Formation. Oceania 75(2), pp.125–151. Lemkin, R. (2008 [1944]). Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation – Analysis of Government – Proposals for Redress. 2nd ed. Clark, NJ: Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. MacDonald, D.B., and Hudson, G. (2012). The Genocide Question and Indian Residential Schools in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science 45(2), pp.427–449. Mako, S. (2012). Cultural Genocide and Key International Instruments: Framing the Indigenous Experience. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 19, pp.175–194. May, L. (2004). How Is Humanity Harmed by Genocide? International Legal Theory 10, pp.1–25. ——— (2010). Genocide: A Normative Account. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Morsink, J. (2000). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Origins, Drafting and Intent. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Moses, A.D. (ed). (2010). Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. New York: Berghahn Books. Powell, C. (2007). What Do Genocides Kill? A Relational Conception of Genocide. Journal of Genocide Research 9(4), pp.527–547. ——— (2011). Barbaric Civilization: A Critical Sociology of Genocide. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Riedlmayer, A.J. (2002). Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992–1996: A PostWar Survey of Selected Municipalities. In: International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Exhibit Number P486. Available at: http://heritage.sensecentar.org/assets/sarajevo-national-library/ sg-3-01-destruction-culturale-en.pdf [Accessed: 8 May 2021]. Schabas, W.A. (2009). Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (2015). Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future – Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Available at: https:// publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.800288/publication.html [Accessed: 4 April 2022]. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 13 September 2007. Available at: https:// www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenouspeoples.html [Accessed: 8 May 2021]. United Nations Commission on Human Rights. (1994). Report of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities on the Work of its Forty-Sixth Session. United Nations Commission on Human Rights. UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/56. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Indigenous Peoples. (n.d.). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. United Nations website. Available at: https:// www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenouspeoples.html#:˜:text=Since%20adoption%20of%20the%20Declaration,have%20also%20endorsed% 20the%20Declaration. [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. UNESCO. (2003). DRAFT Declaration concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage, UNESCO Doc. 32 C/25, 17 October. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000130780 [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/ about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights [Accessed: 15 March 2022] Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties ( VCLT), 23 May 1969) https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/ english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Vrdoljak, A.F. (2011). Cultural Heritage in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. In: Ben-Naftali, O. (ed). International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, pp.250–302. Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native. Journal of Genocide Research 8(4), pp.387–409.

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8 METHODS, MOTIVATIONS, AND ACTORS A Risk-Based Approach to Heritage Destruction and Protection Emma Cunliffe Introduction The destruction of cultural heritage receives significant attention, resulting in new laws to govern norms of behaviour, national and international funds for protection, and academic studies, such as those evidenced throughout this volume. Most focus on specific actors and their motivations, specific heritage types, damage types, areas, and/or circumstances. Such studies are invaluable, identifying subtle variations in practice that enable detailed engagement in their context. However, few studies have attempted to encompass the full array of damage circumstances, rendering them incomparable. This chapter places existing academic macro-scale damage assessment frameworks in a general (yet comprehensive) comparative framework of risk drivers applicable to all types of heritage across the cycle of peace and conflict to consider the risk of heritage damage1 as a first step to prioritise mitigation of future risk, focussing on broad themes rather than specific assessments. Damage is an all-encompassing term for a scale of effects on heritage sites that range from small and reversible, such as graffiti, to complete destruction. Although expressed in different ways, the goal of most academic studies is to understand damage to better prevent it in future. Damage mitigation is most effectively achieved by considering damage through the lens of risk management, though few expressly use that approach or terminology. (Notable exceptions are Teijgeler, 2006; Sabucco, 2022.) This chapter takes the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) and International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) ABC risk management approach (2016) as a departure point for considering future risks to heritage, informed by previous studies of damage. Risk is defined (2016 p.17) as “the possibility of a loss of value to the heritage asset”, including loss of physical and intangible elements. The ABC approach to risk management is a five-step process (2016 pp.21–22), which is used to frame this chapter: 1 Establish the context: How do we move from damage to risk? What heritage is included and what is its value? What is the timeframe? Who are the stakeholders, and what is their role in this process? What additional constraints are placed on this process? 110

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2 Identify the risks: From the previous review of existing frameworks, this section creates a new risk driver framework. 3 Analyse the risks: Quantifying the risk to estimate the magnitude of each risk on cultural heritage. 4 Evaluate the risks: Against each other to determine priorities. 5 Treat the causes: Preventing or mitigating the risk as far as possible. This chapter considers risk and damage at the macro-scale rather than at the level of heritage institutions, owners, or managers, so it primarily focusses on stages one and two: establishing the context of risk, and identifying it, with only brief consideration of the other stages.

Establishing the context Risk mitigation requires a holistic consideration of context: who are the stakeholders in destruction; what is lost; when does it occur; where is it most likely to occur; how does it occur; and why is it destroyed. This section reviews key studies and concepts of these contexts to create a new framework of risk drivers in the next section.

Who: Participants, actors, and stakeholders Before considering damage and risk, the stakeholder groups must be established. In risk assessment, stakeholders are the people or organisations who can be impacted by or cause an impact (positive or negative) on the activities of the organisation and the risk assessment (CCI & ICCROM, 2016 p.44). The first are those who use, own, or experience heritage (here termed participants): worshippers at religious sites, visitors to museums, etc. Participants are a constraint on risk management (and sometimes a risk). For example, collections would be safest if never seen or studied, but that would defeat their purpose. It is participants who give cultural heritage its value and who are most affected by its loss. However, if cultural heritage is not owned by Ministries of Culture, any damage is less likely to be highlighted in heritage circles, limiting the national and international significance attached to the loss, and evidencing the tension between national and local narratives. For example, a local religious building or war memorial may have more community significance than a nationally managed historic listed building, but the owning Ministry has the resources to draw attention to damage to their building. Given this power imbalance, greater attention should not be assumed to mean the latter has more value. Participatory community engagement is essential when assessing risk: participants perceive value differently because they have different needs, interests, value systems, and assumptions (see Leloup, Rosén, and Hernández Llosas, this volume). The second are those who may damage heritage (deliberately or otherwise), creating risk (actors). The ideal, of course, is for an actor to become a stakeholder in risk mitigation. For example, armed forces cause damage during conflict, but so do city planners and private individuals during urban development. However, it is not enough to identify potential actors; understanding their motivation(s) for causing damage is essential to mitigate risk (discussed below). The third set of stakeholders are those with responsibility to mitigate risk. Many World Heritage sites, for example, contain multiple buildings and museums with individual management teams or private owners. There may be a site Management Committee with representatives from government ministries, emergency response teams, town planners, and private owners. The Ministry of Culture may be responsible for overall management, and it 111

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reports to the international World Heritage Committee. Each of these local, national, and international people and institutions bears some responsibility for risk mitigation. National and international laws stipulate measures for the protection of specific designated tangible and intangible heritage. These include the international conventions protecting heritage in conflict, World Heritage, intangible heritage, cultural expressions, underwater heritage, preventing illicit trafficking, several UN Security Council Resolutions, and national heritage management legislation.2 The extent to which these may mitigate risk depends on highly variable national implementation, and some laws lack enforcement mechanisms (see examples in Pickard, 2000; Rogers, 2021; Cunliffe & Fox, 2022). Nonetheless, understanding the legal obligations and recommendations is essential in determining responsibility for action. However, much significant heritage (tangible and intangible) may fall outside both national and international legal systems: religious heritage, culturally significant landscapes, traditions, and practices, for example, may not be managed by a government Ministry or have an authority responsible for them. This does not mean they are not well managed day-to-day, but it can result in them being overlooked in state managed development planning laws, implementation of legislation designed to protect heritage, and allocation of national and international aid. Stakeholders will mitigate harm to cultural property based on assessments of risk relating to their own activities; each defining risk differently. When training soldiers to protect heritage in armed conflict, the heritage protection organisation Blue Shield International created the Cultural Property Protection (CPP) Estimate, a risk-based process encouraging armed forces to include CPP in their operational planning process. Risk management was defined using a modified NATO (2012) definition as “the process of identifying, assessing, and controlling risk arising from operational [CPP] factors, and making informed decisions that balance risk cost with mission benefits” (Fox & Blue Shield, unpublished). The focus was on how both loss and protection could impact the military mission. For example, a critical impact could be: “damage, destruction or inappropriate use will cause moral outrage and fracture alliance/ coalition/host nation/community relationships, and/or will compromise the attainment of campaign objectives”. Without understanding stakeholder perspectives of risk, it will be difficult to engage with them to prevent heritage loss.

What: Value and loss Understanding what could be lost is essential to managing risk. Value is not intrinsic, and it constantly changes in response to an often-uncomfortable truth: not all heritage is equal. There is extensive literature (referenced throughout this volume) on the complexities of national and international systems and the tension with local values. Not all sites are the Syrian World Heritage site, the Ancient City of Palmyra, for example, damage to which was mourned not only among Syrians, but also internationally (Cardoso & Brites, 2017) – although this was in no small part due to the widespread attention given to the site (see Rosén, this volume, for more). Many sites are one of the thousands of religious buildings or war memorials which may be unknown outside their community, or minor pottery scatters, or the archetypal series of small walls frequently recorded during development and then systematically destroyed. Nor is all moveable heritage considered worthy of display; storage facilities are full of pottery fragments, but there is only one Mona Lisa. Without specific reference to what is lost, comparisons are impossible. There are a wide variety of institutional systems and academic frameworks to assess value and loss, usually based on complex expert assessments. Period, rarity, diversity, survival, ensemble value, documentation, condition, and even insurance value, have all been used to 112

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evaluate tangible heritage (Darvill & Fulton, 1998; Vecco & Imperiale, 2017; Yıldırım Esen & Bilgin Altınöz, 2021). Such valuations often correlate to legal protection. For example, internationally, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention) (1954) envisages a three-tier system to protect cultural property of “great importance to the cultural heritage of every people” (Article 1), of “very great importance” (Article 8), and of “the greatest importance for humanity” (Second Protocol, 1999 Article 10), to enable prioritisation of resources, while the World Heritage Convention (1972) protects heritage of “outstanding universal value”. However, Holtorf (2014, and with Kristensen, this volume) questions the conservation paradigm of most current heritage practises. Loss, he notes, does not always directly correlate to loss of value, and indeed in some cases, results in the creation of new heritage and cultural practices, and an increase in value (at least to some stakeholders). Value and loss, and their impact, are relative, and the significance and risk, varies by stakeholder. Damage to a World Heritage site during conflict may spark international condemnation, but damage to locally significant heritage may still result in local distress, and possible antagonism towards an armed force on the ground, risking troop lives and complicating the mission (Berends, 2020). Values are also often contested; this may result in damage to sites embodying such values in, for example, ethnic conflicts, further escalating community tension (e.g., Bevan, 2006; Viejo-Rose, 2013; Walasek, 2015). Estimations of future loss can be based on previous assessments of damage but must include an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of such assessments, which are dependent on the method chosen (or available) to collect data. For example, ICCROM (Tandon, 2018) published guidance for rapid but (relatively) detailed on the ground recording primarily aimed at built heritage; Darvill and Fulton (1998) visited a variety of site types and simply estimated percentage area loss. Both are extremely time-consuming if done at multiple sites. Remote assessments allow rapid assessment of multiple sites but are limited by the top-down view provided by imagery, and level of detail and methods vary. They cannot assess the depth of loss or damage on tall sites, or internal damage to buildings (Parcak, 2009; Contreras & Brodie, 2010; Cunliffe, 2014; UNITAR UNOSAT, 2014; Casana & Laugier, 2017; UNESCO et al., 2018). Considering loss as a purely physical affect, several functional approaches consider the impacts/effects of various damage types. Zaina (2019), Zaina and Nabati Mazloumi (2021),), and the Endangered Archaeology from the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project 3 reviewed multiple heritage impacts including varying levels of detail on the ensuing loss. Extent of loss recorded varies according to the method and granularity of the assessment, but also the underpinning information. For example, many assessments state that development results in loss (sometimes presumed to be total). However, Cunliffe (2013, pp.46–52) collated examinations of peacetime damage effects on archaeological sites around the world. For example, only certain types of construction require deep foundations (usually from 10 to 30 m, though large buildings with basements may go up to 100 m deep), meaning archaeological loss is dependent on site depth. Additional construction effects can include soil mixing and displacement (of areas up to four times the diameter of the original pile construction); leached fluids; changes in soil acidity and hydrology; compression; and non-physical effects such as inaccessibility. Likewise, modern ploughing, which is often ignored, causes the most damage when previously unploughed areas are taken into cultivation, affecting approximately 25–50 cm of topsoil. Regular ploughing affects 12–30 cm of topsoil, but intensive ploughing can result in increased erosion. Other effects include alteration of terrain; artefact mixing, damage, and dispersal of up to 10 m. This level of specificity can provide significant detail to loss estimates and nuanced risk assessments when applied to the type of site affected. 113

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Unfortunately, such cross-comparisons require considerable information, which is rarely available. The Historic England Monuments at Risk Survey (Darvill & Fulton, 1998) took years to collect and standardise comparative data on a statistically valid sample of thousands of scheduled monuments and relict landscapes, assessing the importance, condition, and damage sustained. Most sites globally lack that level of data, but baseline information is essential to mitigate risk.

When: Time cycles and the time horizon There are various ways to consider time in a risk assessment. The first step is to establish at what point damage is assessed in terms of risk. CCI and ICCROM (2016) stress that risk includes rare, frequent, and cumulative events, and that what might be considered rare (not even every 100 years) in a local context becomes commonplace when considered nationally. Damage may occur instantly (the striking of a bomb) or result from unavoidable ongoing processes (cumulative decay). There are no absolute measures of survival because the concepts of time and survival are relative. Processes are unique to each site, and its cycle of construction, use, reuse, desertion, dereliction, decomposition, deterioration, and disappearance. A curated ruined castle, open to the public, for example, may be viewed as destroyed when compared to its original condition but should be considered whole for the purposes of evaluating risk and reporting future damage. Damage can only be predicted against the current state of the heritage to inform future considerations of risk in terms of what may be lost. The time horizon frames the likelihood of an event occurring in a given period of time based on the frequency of the event (i.e., hazard) that may cause the damage. No time horizon is considered here as it depends on the assessment scope and unique situation. Stakeholders must evaluate their own context and consider that risk of loss if an event were to occur. The likelihood and impact of risk and threat also fluctuate in a cycle: During periods of political and economic stability, a country experiences urban, agricultural, industrial, and transport expansion and intensification. Unless properly managed, these can be detrimental to [heritage]. Small sites and off-site features, which form a significant part of the archaeological landscape, are most at risk and experience serious attrition. During periods of unrest, law enforcement decreases while looting and (in recent years) unapproved building increases. When unrest becomes direct conflict, larger, more visible, and (arguably) more culturally significant sites are damaged by military installations and occupation, ballistic damage, and armed conflict; looting becomes widespread. Once conflict decreases and stability increases, society rebuilds, and peacetime threats once again spread. (Cunliffe, 2014, pp.230–231) Of course, peace following conflict may be tentative or geographically specific, and areas often move back into conflict: there are no clear demarcations. Periods of civil unrest also technically occur in peace but share traits with periods of conflict and post-conflict (Cunliffe, 2017). In the post-conflict period (which may be localised), significant damage may occur as a result of reconstruction (Gottlieb, 2005; Bevan, 2006; Viejo-Rose, 2011, 2013; Walasek, 2015). There is a danger that isolating risks into specific time periods may result in a failure to understand the root cause of a problem. Illegal development, for example, frequently occurs in peace in areas with insufficient or poorly resourced staff (see examples in Cunliffe, 2014; Zaina, 2019) but may worsen during the decreased security of conflict. 114

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However, the characteristics of different periods may only become visible during or after the event, while this chapter’s goal is to predict future risk at the macro-scale by establishing a framework of drivers. Time here is best considered as what risk assessment terms a magnifying or reducing factor, causing events to escalate, or minimising escalation (CCI & ICCROM, 2016 p.83).

Where: The geography of damage Broad generalisations into war and peace also neglect the geographical aspect of damage and risk. Wilkinson (2003) divided archaeological landscapes into zones of preservation and destruction, distinguishing between areas of long-term cultivation, marginal settlement, and dense settlement (although recent studies (EAMENA, n.d.) indicate that agricultural and mining intensification are now placing mountain and desert sites increasingly at risk). Similarly, warfare has the greatest effect in urban areas, damaging built structures and moveable objects, but not all urban areas are affected. Away from the combat line, life continues, albeit potentially with decreased security (Cunliffe, 2011, 2017). Risks to specific heritage types are strongly related to area, and assessment and predictions must be clear on specific contexts and should not be generalised.

How: How damage occurs Cunliffe (2013) and Zaina and Nabati Mazloumi (2021) compiled early systematic attempts to classify various destructive processes, noting that although they were a significant advancement, they were mostly limited to environmental and armed conflict-related risks, and lacked consistency regarding terms such as threats, hazards, risks, and actions. Most recent frameworks relate primarily to conflict. Viejo-Rose (2007 p.104) identifies ten destructive actions: plunder and looting; deliberate targeting; deliberate misuse/reuse; neglect and selective memory; vandalism; collateral damage; military reasons; iconoclasm; official cultural policy; failure to safeguard. Stone (2015) considers seven reasons: it is not regarded as important enough to include in pre-conflict planning by governments and militaries; lack of military awareness; specific targeting; collateral damage; looting; pillage or spoils of war; and enforced neglect. Frigerio (2014 pp.1–2) distinguishes between intentional and unintentional damage, noting that, in the aftermath, it may not be possible to distinguish between the two. Unintentional causes include collateral damage from combat or terrorist activities; damage from the movement of vehicles and heavy weapons; construction of military facilities close to heritage sites. Intentional causes are military necessity, psychological warfare, inter-ethnic hatred, religious radicalism, and planned/opportunistic looting. While these are in broad agreement, they often combine action (e.g., looting) with the motivation for action (military necessity). Some terms also contain assumptions: for example, damage caused by the movement of vehicles and heavy weapons or construction of military facilities close to heritage sites may not be unintentional damage but military necessity; military necessity is a motivation, not a type of damage. Heritage professionals often assume heritage may never be a target, but an attack against a heritage site, or use of it, may be necessary to prosecute the conflict. Even if the site itself is not a target, military definitions of collateral damage refer to unintentional or incidental damage occurring to facilities, equipment, personnel, or civilians, which are not themselves military targets, but which are damaged as a result of military actions directed against targeted enemy forces or facilities (see ICRC, n.d.; US DoD 2013: D5) (though see Smith, this volume for an alternative definition). Armed forces adhering to the Laws of Armed Conflict should assess the potential collateral damage 115

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before undertaking a strike to reduce unintentional or excessive damage in relation to the military advantage, but it may not be possible to remove it entirely; incidental damage may knowingly occur to the location. Ultimately, both deliberate targeting and collateral damage refer to forms of attack; whether it is deliberate or not is a matter of motivation. Other terms are unspecific: Lemkin (2008 [1944] p.91) defined vandalism as the malicious destruction of works of art and culture because they were created by particular groups; but it more commonly means to intentionally damage property belonging to other people (usually referencing smaller-scale damage, like paint). Similarly, iconoclasm is usually defined in art historical circles (Brubaker, 2012; Freedberg, 2021) as the destruction of religious images, but the term has also come to signify the destruction of images for political, religious, and general purposes (Boldrick & Clay, 2007; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). Many “conflict goals” are equally likely to be conducted in peacetime; for example, the heritage of minority groups may be as deliberately erased by state policies as by armies. States, state identity, and nationalism can then spill back into conflict, depending on the fragility of the state (Van Der Auwera, 2012; Cunliffe, 2017). State stability (or lack thereof ) is critically linked to conflict and to capacity to enforce law in peace (Viejo-Rose, 2007; Van Der Auwera, 2012); it is a magnifying or reducing factor in risk assessment. Some attempts have been made to quantify it (e.g., Tikuisis et al., 2015), but accurate predictive assessments of state capability are difficult internally, and external assessments are highly contentious. Nonetheless, it cannot be entirely ignored. Studies of peacetime damage are less referenced. CCI and ICCROM (2016 p.70) identify “agents of deterioration”: physical forces; thieves and vandals; fire; water; dissociation (an often forgotten yet important risk, this is the risk of identifying documentation being lost or destroyed); pests; pollutants; light, UV and IR; incorrect temperature; incorrect relative humidity (RH). The UK Monuments at Risk Survey systematically categorised peacetime damage (Darvill & Fulton, 1998); Cunliffe (2013) built on their approach to quantify peacetime damage in Syria using remote sensing. That data informed the EAMENA approach. Several major remote sensing projects, such as EAMENA (Zerbini, 2018), and ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives (ASOR SHI et al., 2015), have created typologies of damage using the CiDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM)4 developed for ARCHES, an open-source heritage inventory package developed by the Getty Conservation Institute and the World Monuments Fund (Myers et al., 2016). These projects use a relational database to link damage Causes to damage Effects, so for example, Construction may cause Earth displacement, Loss of archaeological material, and Alteration of terrain (Zerbini, 2018). This approach provides a detailed and flexible understanding of the functional causes and consequences of damage. The Heritage and Threat (HEAT) project5 have created one of the strongest typologies in terms of the interrelation of causes to consequences (Threat, 2018; Zaina, 2019; Zaina & Nabati Mazloumi, 2021). Their typology uses a multi-tier framework for the study of endangered archaeological sites, which are frequently affected by multiple drivers, threats, and/or actions (Zaina & Nabati Mazloumi, 2021). •

• •

First tier: drivers, defined as a condition, necessity, or decision causing one or more subsequent processes (illicit trafficking; conflict; economic development; and environmental processes). Second tier: each driver may trigger subsequent threats, defined as risks and damage related to specific drivers, although many are interconnected. Third tier: dangerous physical actions deriving from or generated by the threats, meaning the tangible activities jeopardising the archaeological sites’ preservation. 116

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The model was developed further (Branduini et al., 2021 p.146). The framework was separated into natural and human induced risk and damages and included a fourth tier: types of impact, cumulative effects of all actions. Some actions (such as decay) were then reframed as impacts. These existing frameworks are unsuitable for assessing risk across the spectrum of peace and conflict for all types of heritage, though all include critical elements. A new framework is necessary to enable cross-comparison.

Why: Motivation It is not enough to understand what is damaged and how; the motivation for damage is also key to mitigation. Stone (2015) (unsuccessfully) asked US and UK armed forces to buy produce from starving Iraqi farmers in 2003 to prevent the latter from looting for money; hence he separates looting from the military taking of spoils of war in his risks to cultural property. Both are the act of illegally removing objects, but distinguished by motivation, and mitigation is dependent on that understanding. Many of Stone’s seven reasons (above) are distinguishable by motivation rather than effect, or the motivation is a significant component of the action. Motivation is critical when distinguishing between legal and illegal action in conflict. Attacks on cultural property in the 1954 Hague Convention are (simplistically) legal if the attack is considered necessary to prosecute the conflict (Convention Article 4, Second Protocol Article 6), a matter of judgement and intent (for more, see Cunliffe & Fox, 2022). Establishing motivation is also essential for prosecution, which, although not strictly an element of risk management, can act as a deterrent to minimise risk. For example, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) references deliberate action, knowledge, and intent in its definitions of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The intent in this article is not to categorise damage as legal or illegal, or to cast those responsible as criminals, only to highlight that legality does not mean the damage is culturally acceptable; and that, conversely, damage widely criticised by some may be entirely justified and legal to others. Understanding the motivations of others is key to mitigate the risks they present, and perception of motivation can sometimes be as relevant as the motivation itself. Several authors have developed frameworks to consider motivations (Viejo-Rose, 2007; Brosché et al., 2017; Verrall et al., 2019). However, as they all note, caution is necessary: motivations may be multifaceted and may be obscured by propaganda, mythology, and bias. To give an example, groups such as the so-called Islamic State (IS6), famous for their mediatised destruction of heritage, have comprehensively studied motivations. Frequently framed by the media as wanton destruction and barbarism, financed by the artefact sales from widespread looting, such attacks signal intent and achieve specific conflict goals (see Brosché et al., 2017 p.249). They are part of complex political and religious ideologies that deliberately target both communities that do not conform to their ideology, humiliating them, and sites and artefacts that pre-date monotheism to attack global narratives of universality and reject secular narratives of nation state, while also encouraging recruitment (Cunliffe & Curini, 2018; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018; Jones, 2018). Yet, under IS, looting is often conducted by others and taxed by IS: motivations for the actual looting are highly varied. Several studies disentangle the economic motivation commonly assumed to underpin looting, into, for example, greed, economic stress (such as unemployment), or environmental stress (such as drought and low crop yield) (Brodie & Sabrine, 2018; Fabiani, 2018). 117

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Motivations are not simple: they are complex, overlapping, and changeable. Nor are they always conscious, deliberate, or malicious. Damage can be caused by disinterest and neglect, or lack of available resources, as easily as active targeting. It is not the purpose of this brief review to develop a fully comprehensive set of motivations applicable in all circumstances. Reviewing existing frameworks offers insight into the array of disciplinary perspectives into motivations for heritage damage, further explored throughout this volume.

Identifying a framework for risk In the second stage of the risk management process, specific risk scenarios are identified that are meaningful and unambiguous. They must: identify the hazard, describe the potential damage caused and to which heritage asset; estimate how soon or how often it will happen; and estimate the potential loss in value (Antomarchi et al., 2005 cited in CCI & ICCROM 2016 p.99). Figure 8.1 brings these areas together to place risk drivers in a comparative framework.

Figure 8.1 Factors influencing risk of loss. Image by Cunliffe (2023).

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Three key magnifying or reducing factors affect the risk drivers: • • •

Time period (e.g., peace, conflict, post-conflict); Geographic area (e.g., urban, cultivated, marginal); State stability.

These affect broad risk drivers: • • • • • •

Type of heritage Actor (e.g., civilian, military, independent, management) Motivation Risk context (e.g., agricultural, conflict, funerary) Risk event (e.g., construction or reoccupation) Time horizon (likely frequency of event – rare, common, cumulative).

Table 8.1 provides a list of the most common factors in each risk driver, drawn from the review of literature above. The list is not comprehensive, and any individual site may be affected by multiple factors. While there are similarities in the circumstances, ultimately, the context is unique and changeable. However, it provides an initial framework for those prioritising risk mitigation strategies by placing the drivers of risk in a comparable framework. So, for example, one risk to heritage buildings may come from government bodies who see political gain in historical revisionism. This occurs in both peacetime and conflict, and it is a cumulative event that is highly context specific, enacted by both stable and fragile states. Alternatively, an independent civilian’s disinterest in heritage could result in agricultural clearance of an archaeological site. Such activity is common in cultivated areas in peace in fragile states with limited law enforcement but rarer in conflict. (Types of heritage are not listed: there are many typologies, with varying levels of detail, that can be used to complete the first column.) Notably, the effect of loss is blank. Loss is context specific, and any attempt to categorise loss will be unsatisfactory. What is the scope of the assessment, defined at the start? What heritage is under consideration? Who are the communities of interest affected? What value has been calculated for the heritage? Without such constraints, estimates of loss are meaningless.

Analyse and evaluate The next stage in risk management is to quantify the risk and compare it. Risks are ranked on a scale, according to the magnitude of the risk (CCI & ICCROM, 2016 p.17), in order to apply limited resources effectively. The consequence or impact (loss of value) is considered against likelihood of the risk occurring, noting the difficulties of adopting a common scale to convert predicted deterioration into predicted loss of value (CCI & ICCROM, 2016 p.23). Risk and loss are then evaluated against each other and against the scope defined at the start. What is the greatest hazard facing the heritage? What is the loss should it occur? What is the most important heritage? What are the most likely risks to it? By placing all risks in a comparative framework, those conducting a risk assessment can consider how to treat them.

Treatment This chapter cannot advise on how to treat the risks identified: they are unique to each type of heritage and situation. To return to the examples above; risk mitigation in the first example could involve copying key documents, storing them off site, or even out of the 119

Table 8.1  The most common factors in risk Heritage type Actor

Risk context

Risk event

International organisation Access to basic needs Military force (state) Cultural appropriation

Agriculture Clearance

Military force (non-state)

Disinterest (neglect)

Domestic

Military force (militia)

Breaking Bulldozing/levelling (of or into sites/buildings) Construction (buildings/ infrastructure) Construction (road/rail)

Economic gain Funerary/memorial (employment) Economic gain (greed) Industrial/commercial/ Deposition/desertification domestic Economic gain Management/ Dissociation (necessity) institutional Ideological gain Maritime Drilling

Post-conflict

Inter-ethnic tension

Military/armed conflict Dumping

Common

Lack of awareness (lack of planning) Lack of funding/ resources Political gain Poor policy/ management Psychological warfare

Natural/geological

Earthworks/landscaping

Cumulative

Political

Erosion (wind/water)

Strategic military gain

Unknown Vandalism (low-level)

Independent actor (terrorist) Criminal organisation

Social/cultural/tourism Excavation/digging Theft/looting Explosive (“kinetic”) weaponry Transport Explosives/IEDs/bombs Flood/water Fuel spillage/chemical leaching Graffiti/paint Grazing/animals

Effect of loss magnifying/reducing factors Time period Peace Conflict

Time horizon Rare

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Governing/management body (international) Governing/management body (national) Governing/management body (regional/local) Governing/management body (private/civil) Civilian (Independent) Emergency/Uniformed Services

Motivation

Area Urban Marginal (mountains/ deserts) Cultivated

State stability (Continued)

Table 8.1  (Continued) Heritage type Actor

Motivation

Risk context

Risk event

Methods, motivations, and actors

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Gunfire/shrapnel/light weaponry Heavy vehicle movement Historical revisionism Improper management/ reconstruction Inundation Irrigation (centre pivots) Irrigation (channels) Irrigation (dams) Landmines Landslide Military proximity Mining/quarrying Orchards Ploughing Reoccupation Restricted access Seismic activity/volcano Stone robbing Storage environment (light, temperature, humidity, pests) Theft Tourism Tunnelling

Effect of loss magnifying/reducing factors

Emma Cunliffe

country. The second, the farmer extending his field into an archaeological site, requires stronger government investment in education and increased site guards if the problem is severe. An understanding of the value of the sites and the likelihood of each occurring can prioritise activity. Such activity must begin far in advance of any anticipated risk, putting in place procedures, building networks, allocating resources, and practicing plans. Once disaster strikes, it is too late. Collating prioritised inventories of cultural heritage can take years; networks take time to establish (Stone, Preface, in Cunliffe & Fox, 2022). It may even be that when loss is assessed and risks are ranked, priority is given to peacetime stabilisation, rather than post-conflict reconstruction.

Conclusion This chapter collated a range of studies of damage to different types of heritage in different contexts across the cycle of peace and conflict, ranging from heritage management, archaeology, criminology, and even defence studies. It has brought together and disentangled a complex context in which damage to cultural heritage occurs, establishing broad risk drivers and their magnifying and reducing factors. Going further, it suggests a list of terms for each driver, which provide a detailed view of potential risks to sites and enable cross-comparison. Only by understanding the interrelation of risk drivers can we approach risk mitigation. It is not enough to know that damage happens; we must learn from why and how to prevent future occurrences. Placing drivers in a standardised framework enables a cross-comparison of risks and threats that gives peacetime risks equal prominence with the more visible conflict risks and may nuance predictions of heritage damage to reflect the specifics of site types and locations, ultimately potentially helping to tailor interventions to manage or mitigate loss. Including heritage participant valuations of loss alongside actors and their motivations will also nuance and deepen understanding of risks, enabling targeting strategies to mitigate them with stakeholders. Money is not infinite: prioritisation is essential. Given the significant investment of resources required to protect heritage, a standardised framework to evaluate risk, placing conflict damage alongside peace, archaeological sites alongside archives, and damage as just one aspect of loss, is needed to underpin protection. This chapter represents a step in doing so.

Acknowledgements Thanks are owed to my family, Beth, Women in Academia Support Network, and the Academic Women Online Writing Retreat. Thanks also to the UK AHRC for funding my PhD and beginning this research; to my colleagues in the Durham University Fragile Crescent Project and my PhD supervisors, especially the late Professor Tony Wilkinson; to my former colleagues in the EAMENA Project – my work with them on terminology significantly influenced this chapter; and to Professor Stone, President of the Blue Shield and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Property Protection and Peace, who also provided conceptual and developmental support for my explorations into CPP. Finally, thanks to my co-editors: their insights have significantly improved this chapter.

Notes 1 This chapter avoids illicit trafficking, focussing on direct site damage. For more on illicit trafficking, see Oosterman and Yates (2021) or the ICOM International Observatory on Illicit Traffic in Cultural Goods: https://www.obs-traffic.museum/

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Methods, motivations, and actors 2 UNESCO maintains an online Database of National Cultural Heritage Laws: https://en.unesco. org/news/unesco-database-national-cultural-heritage-laws-updated/ 3 https://eamena.org/publications and on the website more generally. 4 A widely adopted ISO standard for describing cultural heritage data, designed to facilitate standardisation and searching across diverse datasets: http://www.cidoc-crm.org/ 5 https://ccrs.ku.dk/research/centres-and-projects/heat/ 6 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

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PART II

Manifestations of Destruction

9 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION, NATURAL DISASTERS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT Geological Disasters Tom Dawson Introduction Natural events become disasters when they have a significant negative impact on the things that humans value (Guthrie, 2013). There are two principal groups of natural disaster, and this chapter will focus on geological disasters (i.e., volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis), which often cause rapid and catastrophic damage. The next chapter (Chapter 10) will discuss atmospheric or climatological disasters, which can either take the form of extreme weather events (i.e., hurricanes and floods) or processes which cause slower, incremental damage, such as sea level rise or desertification. Over time, these can increase the likelihood of extreme events happening and the severity of their impacts. Taken together, natural disasters and longer-term environmental processes present some of the most widespread threats to heritage discussed in this volume. Cultural heritage encompasses many different things, ranging from objects to landscapes to traditions. The US National Park Service listed five types of resources when discussing threats to heritage; archaeological sites, buildings and structures, ethnographic resources, cultural landscapes, and museum collections (Rockman et al., 2016). This list is very similar to that compiled by Mcintyre-Tamwoy (2008) when considering threats to heritage in Australia. Cultural heritage assets are important for many reasons and their destruction can have ramifications that are greater than the loss of individual structures or objects. Buildings and traditions help to link different generations (Rockman et al., 2016) and create or reinforce national identity (Rowland, 1999). Heritage structures are major societal assets, often places where cultural practices take place (Shrestha et al., 2017; Dewi & Rauzi, 2018) and their destruction may erode cultural identity (Rowland, 1999). Heritage sites can also drive tourism, an important source of revenue and the basis for other commercial activities (Rowland, 1999). Archaeological excavation and the scientific analysis of material retrieved can answer important societal questions about past climate change and adaptation (Rowland, 1999), while Indigenous knowledge systems can provide important lessons on how populations, with a close relationship with natural processes, are adapting to current changes (Head et al., 2014). DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-11

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There is evidence that natural catastrophes are becoming more common, and in the 30-year period ending in 2005, there was a fourfold increase in the number of events reported (IEG, 2007). Geological disasters and extreme weather events cause massive destruction, and the widespread devastation can kill many thousands of people and destroy entire settlements. This is especially true of geological events, as there is often little warning of an impending disaster, leaving people with limited opportunity to prepare or evacuate. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, initial attention is directed to the adverse effects on human populations and livelihoods, and rescue efforts are focused on searching for survivors and providing shelter and food. It is after the situation has begun to stabilise and emergency relief is given, that assessments of heritage loss usually start. Much of the heritage research in the aftermath of a natural disaster has focused on the physical damage to iconic places, such as World Heritage Sites. Inventories are made of damaged or lost buildings, and reports compiled on how best to rebuild structures. However, for the populations affected, the loss of other types of heritage has profound emotional consequences (Dewi & Rauzi, 2018). Rituals and ceremonies, in themselves an integral part of a place’s cultural heritage, are often performed in heritage buildings, and these places also house objects with great social value. The destruction of familiar landmarks, places engrained in the local population’s memory, can prevent traditional activities, compounding other losses and adding to the trauma of the disaster. Conversely, rebuilding heritage sites and restarting traditional activities is often an essential part of the process of recovery (Dewi & Rauzi, 2018). In this and the following chapter, the impacts of natural processes on heritage sites will be discussed. Examples from past disasters will highlight what has already happened, providing an insight into what may yet occur. As the literature is more focused on the loss of iconic structures, archaeological sites, and artefacts, these will feature heavily in the following summary, but with every event described, it must be remembered that the physical loss of buildings or objects is often associated with a far greater loss for the affected community.

Geological events, introduction Geological disasters affect every continent, and although some impacts are felt at long distances from the event (i.e., tsunamis triggered by underwater earthquakes or volcanic ash clouds that affect weather conditions many hundreds of miles away), many disasters originate in areas close to tectonic plate boundaries. This is where volcanoes and the most common types of earthquakes occur (Guthrie, 2013), and these areas are usually where the greatest devastation is recorded.

Volcanoes There are about 1400 active volcanoes around the globe (Gaddes et al., 2019). They are formed along tectonic plate boundaries and can be divided into two groups. The first are created when tectonic plates diverge, and material rises to fill the gap, forming mid-oceanic ridges on the seabed. Although often active, these volcanoes generally cause little disturbance to humans. Volcanoes within the other group occur where tectonic plates collide. They are generally found on land, with many located in curving island chains, such as Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines (Cottrell, 2015). Millions of people live near these potentially dangerous volcanoes, partly as past volcanic activity has improved the fertility of the soil (Cottrell, 2015). Eruptions are generally infrequent, and there are often signs of an impending event, such as plumes of steam or gas and earth tremors. It is not unusual for communities to trust in these 130

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clues, but when volcanoes do erupt, the damage can be devastating. There are several different damaging processes that happen during an eruption, and the scale of destruction they cause has been revealed through observation and archaeological excavation. Archaeological evidence for a devastating eruption has been found on the Greek island of Santorini. Numerous settlements are constructed on the slopes of an active caldera which last erupted in 1950. Millions of tourists arrive each year to view the volcano, and many also visit the excavation of the Minoan town known as Akrotiri. This was buried during an enormous eruption between 1627 and 1600 BCE, and the streets and houses were covered in a layer of tephra (volcanic ash) up to 60 m thick. Archaeological investigation since 1969 has uncovered the buildings, revealing well-preserved wall paintings and an array of artefacts within the houses. The finds show how people lived at the time, while the depth of the tephra layers demonstrates the massive size and force of the eruption. Despite the destruction caused, it is thought that people had enough warning to flee the town (although not necessarily get to safety), as no skeletons have been located during the excavation (Gaki-Papanastassiou & Papanastassiou, 2014). This was not the case at Pompeii in Italy, and archaeological excavation has revealed the remains of many victims found hiding in houses or caught in the streets. The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE is one of the most famous volcanic events in history, described by Pliny the Younger and leaving evidence buried under layers of tephra and ash up to 9 m deep. However, this was just one of many eruptions of Vesuvius, and a further 16 relatively major eruptions have occurred in the last 400 years alone. Two of the most destructive happened in 1906 and 1944 (Arrighi et al., 2001), and detailed accounts of these relatively recent eruptions have aided understanding of the damage volcanoes cause. Airborne particles can travel many tens of kilometres, and their weight causes structures to collapse. During the 1944 eruption, ash and lava fragments led to roofs collapsing in the village of Nocera, 20 km from Vesuvius. Structural collapse destroys heritage structures but is often deadly too, and more than 100 people died in 1906 when the roof of the historic church at San Giuseppe Vesuviano failed (Cole & Scarpati, 2010). In Naples, many people were killed when the roof of the market of Monte Oliveto fell in, despite the depth of ash being less than 30 mm. In both cases, poor building design, construction, and maintenance probably contributed to the structural collapse (Hobbs, 1906). In the case of San Giuseppe Vesuviano, the local priest warned people sheltering in the church about the state of the roof, but the local congregation ignored the advice, wanting protection from their patron saint (Chester & Duncan, 2007). Similar cultural practices were noted during the 1906 eruption by a British military attaché to the Italian government, Lt. Col. Delme-Radcliffe. He noted that processions of mainly women and girls, carried images of saints in front of lava flows, presumably to prevent damage (Chester & Duncan, 2007). If a lava flow reaches a settlement, it can engulf structures, and during the 1906 eruption, the town of Boscotrecase was covered to a depth of 3.5 m, with contemporary accounts stating that structures in its path were “fractured and toppled over from the pressure exerted against them” (Hobbs, 1906 p.648). The intense heat from these pyroclastic flows also causes fires, igniting timber structures and burning other inflammable objects (Baxter et al., 2008). This was noted at Boscoreale in 1906, where Delme-Radcliffe observed ruined and burnt buildings, many of which had to be demolished (Chester & Duncan, 2007). Herculaneum was engulfed in a flow of mud and ash during the 79 CE eruption of Vesuvius (Hobbs, 1906). Such flows are often caused by heavy rainstorms, which result from the condensation of steam or from ash clouds forming raindrops (Baxter et al., 2008). This 131

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process has been described during eruptions of some of the 17 volcanoes found within the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. During the 1902 eruption of Mont Pelée on Martinique, parts of the settlements of Grand Riviere, Macouba, Basse Pointe, and Le Precheur were destroyed after heavy rainfall caused a mudflow (Fisher et al., 1980). When clouds of hot ash and gas are coupled with flows of ash and blocks, the pyroclastic flow is often called a nuée ardente. This was described during the same eruption of Mont Pelée and the town of St Pierre was destroyed under a fast-moving pyroclastic flow (Fisher et al., 1980). In 1995, the Soufrière Hills Volcano on the island of Montserrat buried Plymouth, the island’s capital, and covered the populous southern half of the island in ash and rock (Ryzewski & Cherry, 2012). Many archaeological sites were lost in this and subsequent eruptions in 2007, 2009, and 2010, including the significant prehistoric site of Trants, one of the earliest in the eastern Caribbean. Additionally, numerous colonial period plantations were buried, including the seventeenth-century Galways Plantation, the focus of a long-running archaeological investigation (Ryzewski & Cherry, 2012). A volcanic eruption in 1994 on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, shows how the various elements of an eruption can affect a place and demonstrates the longer lasting effects of a volcanic eruption on heritage tourism. The town of Rabaul is built within a caldera and is surrounded by several active volcanic cones. After the town was captured by the Japanese during the Second World War, fortifications were built to defend the Japanese fleet within the harbour. Despite this, many of the ships sank during heavy bombing raids. After the war, the historic fortifications and sunken ships became a tourist attraction, especially for divers visiting the wrecks, forming an important revenue stream for the townsfolk. During the 1994 eruption of the Rabaul volcano, about 80% of the buildings were destroyed, but good evacuation planning meant that only five people were killed. Much of the initial damage was caused by the weight of tephra and a number of the wrecks were covered in volcanic ash. Other buildings were destroyed during the wet season a few months later when mudflows engulfed parts of the town. Many hotels and guest houses were lost, and the badly damaged airport was eventually rebuilt in a new position further to the east. As there has been relatively little investment in rebuilding the tourist infrastructure of Rabaul, the town has been unable to re-establish its once-thriving tourism industry, despite its wealth of cultural and natural resources, and is still suffering the long-term effects of the eruption a quarter of a century later (Blong, 2003; Prideaux, 2014).

Earthquakes Earthquakes are also associated with plate tectonics, often occurring in the same regions as volcanoes. Earthquakes can lead to structural collapse, and although damage is partly related to building materials, all types of structures are vulnerable. Over the years, many societies in vulnerable areas have adapted their traditional building techniques to help reduce the impact of earthquakes, but lessons from the past are not always followed. Many traditional Nepalese buildings are constructed of brick, reinforced with a wooden frame. The timber helps give protection as it provides greater flexibility during seismic events (Weise, 2015; Shrestha et al., 2017). In April 2015, the Gorhka earthquake, with its epicentre close to Kathmandu in Nepal, caused considerable damage. The earthquake and subsequent aftershocks resulted in the deaths of almost 9000 people, and there was great disruption to power generation, water networks, and transport access. Subsequent studies found that, in general, buildings constructed with unreinforced brick or stone walls were the most likely to collapse, followed by structures with a reinforced concrete frame. The building that generally 132

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performed the best were the traditional wooden-framed constructions (Lizundia et al., 2017). Despite this, over 700 historic monuments were damaged in the Kathmandu valley with more than 200 buildings either totally or partially collapsing (Weise, 2015; Shrestha et al., 2017). A number of buildings within existing World Heritage monument zones or listed on the World Heritage Tentative List were amongst those lost (Weise, 2015). One contributory factor to the loss of traditional buildings was a lack of maintenance, especially for wooden elements (Shrestha et al., 2017). Research after the earthquake found that changes in building materials during previous renovations had also contributed, for example, the use of different types of mortar had created stresses within buildings (Shrestha et al., 2017). After emergency rescue work in the aftermath of this earthquake, the immediate response from cultural heritage agencies focused on preparing certain sites for the oncoming monsoon season, as it was recognised that the heavy rains would further damage partially collapsed structures (Weise, 2015). The priority for members of the local population, however, was the clearance of rubble from some traditional structures. This was because they wanted to perform traditional rituals and festivals and continue intangible heritage practices within these buildings (Weise, 2015). While clearing the buildings, local community members ensured that wooden elements from damaged structures were set aside, indicating a desire to rebuild according to traditional methods (Weise, 2015). In Myanmar, over 4000 Buddhist temples were constructed over the Plains of Bagan between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. More than 2000 of these survived and they attract large numbers of tourists to the area. The area was Myanmar’s major tourist attraction, an important industry that contributes to the national economy. Earthquakes in 1975 and 2016 caused significant damage to numerous temples, with over 300 brick pagodas damaged in 2016 alone (Kraak, 2018). Much of the economic activity in the area related to hotels, restaurants, and tour operators, and the earthquake had a serious effect on these activities (Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, 2018). This led to immediate efforts to rebuild structures and tourist infrastructure, but some of the rebuilding work has been controversial, leading to strong local and international criticism. It has been claimed that monuments were rebuilt using inappropriate materials and based on poor archaeological evidence, and following the 2016 earthquake, there was a plea that subsequent rebuilding work should not glitter up the temples (Kraak, 2018). Italy, a country with the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world, has witnessed numerous earthquakes. Between May 1997 and April 1998, over 2000 monumental buildings, including 1500 churches, were damaged in the Umbria – March region of central Italy (Parisi & Augenti, 2013). The 2009 L’Aquila earthquake also damaged hundreds of monumental structures, as well as sculptures and paintings housed in the historic Spanish Fortress, home to the National Museum of the Abruzzo (Parisi & Augenti, 2013). One reason for the large amount of damage was that some timber roofs and floors had been replaced using heavier modern materials. This added substantial stress to load-bearing walls, causing them to fail. For example, a reinforced concrete roof that had replaced the timber roof of the thirteenth-century Church of Santa Maria di Paganica was a contributory factor in the collapse of the roof, dome, bell tower, and left aisle in 2009 (Parisi & Augenti, 2013). An earthquake can be devastating, but the aftershocks that follow can cause even greater damage to buildings that survived the initial event. Many of the 1200 buildings that collapsed in the 2012 Emilia Romagna earthquake were undamaged during the initial episode but collapsed nine days later (Parisi & Augenti, 2013). The Anglican Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, was left relatively unscathed by the September 2010 earthquake, with damage increasing after an aftershock in December 2010. In February 2011, another aftershock caused 133

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the bell tower to collapse; and the main façade and its rose window partially collapsed after another event in June 2011. This was followed by the total collapse of the main façade in December 2011 (Parisi & Augenti, 2013). Earthquakes can also trigger other natural disasters, such as landslides and tsunamis. In Japan, the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake was felt up to 500 km away. Approximately 700 nationally designated cultural properties were devastated, including five National Treasures (Okamura et al., 2013). The location of the earthquake’s epicentre, in the North Pacific Ocean off the east coast of Honshu, meant that this event is now better remembered for the devastating tsunami that followed.

Tsunamis The 2011 Tohoku Tsunami, triggered by an undersea earthquake, killed more than 20,000 people and devastated a large area along Japan’s east coast. In the immediate aftermath of the tidal wave, there were reports of damage to hundreds of designated sites, with both buildings and movable heritage destroyed (ICOMOS Japan, 2011). The cultural storage facility in Yamada was washed away, together with much of its contents, while treasures within the Onagawa Museum were soaked in deposits of crude oil and rotten fish that washed in from the port (Okamura et al., 2013). Following the tsunami, heritage protection laws were relaxed, and proposals to rehouse large numbers of people on higher ground led to the government easing planning regulations, and Okamura notes that important buried cultural sites could be lost without archaeological investigation (Okamura et al., 2013). An even more devastating tsunami occurred on Boxing Day 2004. Caused by a massive underwater earthquake off the Indonesian coast, the tsunami spread across the Indian Ocean and killed approximately 230,000 people (Rabinovich et al., 2015). Banda Aceh in Indonesia was one of the most affected cities with more than 130,000 people killed and 250,000 houses destroyed (Dewi & Rauzi, 2018). The impact of the Indian Ocean Tsunami affected 14 countries and was felt for thousands of miles. For example, the south and east coasts of Sri Lanka were badly affected, with many people killed, homes destroyed, and historic buildings and temples damaged. In Galle, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, parts of the rampart of the Dutch Fort World Heritage Site were breached, affecting the foundations and raising concerns about the stability of the wall. The newly constructed Marine Archaeology Laboratory, built on one of Galle’s piers, was destroyed and many of the artefacts undergoing conservation were washed away (Wijeratne, 2008). The huge scale of the disaster led to many external agencies joining together to provide relief, and in Indonesia, one of the largest humanitarian aid projects of all time helped to rebuild homes and infrastructure. This included some elements of the cultural environment, vital for intangible heritage activities and for providing continuity and a link to the past (Dewi & Rauzi, 2018).

Landslides Rock avalanches and landslides can be triggered by earthquakes or by climatic events (Canuti et al., 2009; Mineo and Pappalardo, 2020) and provide good examples of the interrelation between different natural events to cause destruction. In 1786, an earthquake triggered the Dada rockslide in China, which killed approximately 100,000 people (Strom, 2009), while the 2005 Kashmir earthquake is estimated to have killed 87,000 people, of which over 25,000 are thought to have been killed in landslides (Strom, 2009). 134

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Even small landslides can affect heritage sites, and numerous events have affected historic sites around Taormina in southern Italy (Mineo & Pappalardo, 2020). The Saracen Castle above the town was closed after boulders damaged the ancient pathway, while the neighbouring pre-Hellenic settlement of Castelmola, described as one of the most beautiful villages in Italy, remains at grave risk from rockfalls (Mineo & Pappalardo, 2020). Landslides can lead to the damming of rivers, which can result in catastrophic outburst floods. The 2007 landslide, that struck San Juan de Grijalva in Mexico, was triggered by intense rainfall, but contributory causes included geological faults and fractures in the geological layers, topography, deforestation, and riverbank erosion (Alcántara-Ayala & Domínguez-Morales, 2008). Over 55 million cubic metres of material was displaced, and the Grijalva river was blocked. Although the landslide struck a rural area, subsequent flooding killed several people, damaged houses and a church, and led to the evacuation of thousands of houses (Alcántara-Ayala & Domínguez-Morales, 2008; Strom, 2009). For those unable to return to their homes, new communities were built, but Alcántara-Ayala and Domínguez-Morales (2008) note that during such rebuilding projects, there is a need to ensure that social and cultural settings are also recreated alongside the construction of new houses. Loss of vegetation, weathering, and human activities have contributed to landslides elsewhere, and in Cameroon, agricultural activity within the Bambouto caldera was a contributory cause of over 100 separate landslides in 2003. People had been attracted to the caldera because of the fertile soil, but the resulting deforestation, soil disintegration, and degradation of the steep caldera edges led to landslips and subsequent flooding that killed 23 people, destroyed numerous houses and washed away more than 50 bridges (Strom, 2009). Heritage sites built on top of unstable rocks are also at risk, as landslides below can cause structures to collapse. This has been documented at medieval sites in Slovakia, including the World Heritage Site of Spis Castle (Canuti et al., 2009). Buildings at Machu Picchu, Peru, show evidence of cracks and deformation due to ground instability, and landslides have damaged the road and railway that bring tourists to the site. Research by Vilímek et al. (2007) suggest that the most likely causes of future landslides would be either an earthquake or the loss of vegetation cover, perhaps due to wildfire, the likelihood of which has been increased by drought and rising temperatures.

Conclusion The examples above show that geological disasters can result in massive destruction and widespread loss of life. The devastation overshadows impacts on cultural assets and in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, the initial focus is on saving lives and providing food and shelter. Over time, however, the importance of heritage comes to the fore. Heritage structures and activities have an important role in helping societies rebuild, and communities often want to continue their traditions and ceremonies after a disaster. Traditional activities and buildings link people with the past, and their restoration or continuation can help bring relief in a time of crisis. The above also shows the interplay between different events, with earthquakes triggering tsunamis, heavy rainfall causing mudslides during volcanic eruptions, or wildfires increasing the chances of landslips. Geological events can be highly destructive on their own, but the damage can be magnified by other processes. Amongst these, weather conditions are a major factor, as rain, floods, storms, or other meteorological events can enhance damage to already weakened places. 135

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References Alcántara-Ayala, I., and Domínguez-Morales, L. (2008). The San Juan de Grijalva catastrophic landslide, Chiapas, Mexico: Lessons learnt. Proceedings of the First World Landslide Forum, pp.96–99. Arrighi, S., Principe, C., and Rosi, M. (2001). Violent strombolian and subplinian eruptions at Vesuvius during post-1631 activity. Bulletin of Volcanology 63, pp.126–150. Baxter, P.J., Aspinall, W.P., Neri, A., Zuccaro, G., Spence, R.J.S., Cioni, R., and Woo, G. (2008). Emergency planning and mitigation at Vesuvius: A new evidence-based approach. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 178(3), pp.454–473. Blong, R. (2003). Building damage in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, 1994. Bulletin of Volcanology 65, pp.43–54. Canuti, P., Margottini, C., Fanti, R., and Bromhead, E.N. (2009). Cultural Heritage and Landslides: Research for Risk Prevention and Conservation. In: Sassa, K., and Canuti, P. (eds). Landslides – Disaster Risk Reduction. Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer, pp.401–433. Chester, D., and Duncan, A. (2007). Lieutenant-Colonel Delmé-Radcliffe’s report on the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius, Italy. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 166(3–4), pp.204–216. Cole, P., and Scarpati, C. (2010). The 1944 eruption of Vesuvius, Italy: Combining contemporary accounts and field studies for a new volcanological reconstruction. Geological Magazine 147(3), pp.391–415. Cottrell, E. (2015). Global Distribution of Active Volcanoes. In: Shroder, J.F., and Papale, P. (eds). Volcanic Hazards, Risks and Disasters. Amsterdam; Boston: Elsevier, pp.1–16. Dewi, C., and Rauzi, E.N. (2018). Architectural heritage in post-disaster society: A tool for resilience in Banda Aceh after the 2004 tsunami disaster. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 352, pp.1–7. Fisher, R.V., Smith, A.L., and Roobol, M.J. (1980). Destruction of St. Pierre, Martinique, by ash-cloud surges, May 8 and 20, 1902. Geology 8(10), pp.472–476. Gaddes, M.E., Hooper, A., and Bagnardi, M. (2019). Using machine learning to automatically detect volcanic unrest in a time series of interferograms. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 124, pp.12304–12322. Gaki-Papanastassiou, K., and Papanastassiou, D. (2014). Volcano Tourism in Greece: Two Case Studies of Volcanic Islands. In: Erfurt-Cooper, P. (ed). Volcanic Tourist Destinations. Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer, pp.69–87. Guthrie, R. (2013). Geological/Geophysical Disasters. In: Bobrowsky, P.T. (ed). Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards. Dordrecht; Heidelberg; New York; London: Springer, pp.387–400. Head, L., Adams, M., McGregor, H., and Toole, S. (2014). Climate change and Australia. Faculty of Social Sciences – Papers, 621 5(2), pp.175–197. Hobbs, W.H. (1906). The Grand Eruption of Vesuvius in 1906. The Journal of Geology 14(7), pp.636–655. ICOMOS Japan. (2011). Tohuko Pacific Earthquake, 11 March 2011 Reports. ICOMOS Japan. Available at: https://www.icomos.org/risk/2011/ICOMOS_ Japan_%20201103_earthquake_reports_20110331. pdf [Accessed: 23 February 2022]. IEG (Independent Evaluation Group). (2007). Development actions and the rising incidence of disasters. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Kraak, A.-L. (2018). Heritage destruction and cultural rights: insights from Bagan in Myanmar. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(9), pp.998–1013. Lizundia, B., Davidson, R.A., Hashash, Y.M.A., and Olshansk, R. (2017). Overview of the 2015 Gorkha, Nepal, Earthquake and the Earthquake. Earthquake Spectra 33(S1), pp.S1–S20. McIntyre-Tamwoy, S. (2008). The impact of global climate change and cultural heritage: grasping the issues and defining the problem. Historic Environment 21(1), pp.2–9. Mineo, S., and Pappalardo, G. (2020). Sustainable fruition of cultural heritage in areas affected by rockfalls. Sustainability 12(1), pp.1–17. Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture. (2018). Bagan disaster risk management plan. Nay Pyi Taw, Ministry of Hotels and Tourism 34, pp.735–760. Okamura, K., Fujisawa, A., Kondo, Y., Fujimoto, Y., Uozu, T., Ogawa, Y., Kaner, S., and Mizoguchi, K. (2013). The Great East Japan Earthquake and cultural heritage: Towards an archaeology of disaster. Antiquity 87(335), pp.258–269. Parisi, F., and Augenti, N. (2013). Earthquake damages to cultural heritage constructions and simplified assessment of artworks. Engineering Failure Analysis 34, pp.735–760.

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Heritage destruction, natural disasters, and the environment Prideaux, B. (2014). Rabaul: Papua New Guinea. In: Erfurt-Cooper, P. (ed). Volcanic Tourist Destinations. Berlin: Springer, pp.247–250. Rabinovich, A.B., Geist, E.L., Fritz, H.M., and Borrero, J.C. (2015). Tsunami science: Ten years After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Volume I. Pure and Applied Geophysics 172, pp.615–619. Rockman, M., Morgan, M., Ziaja, S., Hambrecht, G., and Meadow, A. (2016). Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy. Washington, DC: National Park Service, pp.1–51. Rowland, M.J. (1999). Accelerated climate change and Australia’s cultural heritage. Australian Journal of Environmental Management 6(2), pp.109–118. Ryzewski, K., and Cherry, J.F. (2012). Communities and archaeology under the Soufrière Hills Volcano on Montserrat, West Indies. Journal of Field Archaeology 37(4), pp.316–327. Shrestha, S., Shrestha, B., Shakya, M., and Maskeyd, P.N. (2017). Damage assessment of cultural heritage structures after the 2015 Gorkha, Nepal, Earthquake: a case study of Jagannath Temple. Earthquake Spectra 33(S1), pp.S363–S376. Strom, A.L. (2009). Catastrophic Slides and Avalanches. In: Sassa, K., and Canuti, P. (eds). Landslides – Disaster Risk Reduction. Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer, pp.379–399. Vilímek, V., Zvelebil, J., Klimeš, J., Patzelt, Z., Astete, F., Kachlík, V., and Hartvich, F. (2007). Geomorphological research of large-scale slope instability at Machu Picchu, Peru. Geomorphology 89(3–4), pp.241–257. Weise, K. (2015). Nepal: Cultural Continuity in Post Gorkha Earthquake Rehabilitation. In: Machat, C. and Ziesemer, J. (eds). ICOMOS Heritage at Risk: World Report 2014–2015 on Monuments and Sites in Danger. Berlin: Hendrick Bäßler Verlag, pp.102–109. Wijeratne, P. (2008). Post-Tsunami Redevelopment and the Cultural Sites of the Maritime Provinces in Sri Lanka. In: Meier, H.R., Petzet, M., and Will, T. (eds). Cultural Heritage and Natural Disasters; Risk Preparedness and the Limits of Prevention. Dresden: TUD Press, pp.101–108.

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10 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION, NATURAL DISASTERS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT Atmospheric Disasters Tom Dawson Introduction In addition to geological disasters (Chapter 9), atmospheric or climatological processes play a major role in degrading heritage places (Berenfeld, 2008). Decay due to such processes is natural, and over time, a state of relative equilibrium is often achieved. This balance can be upset by extreme weather events or longer-term cycles of climatic change (UNESCO, 2006). Weather describes atmospheric conditions at a specific time, whereas climate is a measurement of average weather conditions over a period (30 years for the World Meteorological Organisation). Extreme weather events (i.e., hurricanes, floods) can cause rapid devastation, whereas incremental damage caused by climate change, such as sea level rise or desertification, may be much slower. Strictly speaking, slower climatic events may not constitute a disaster, but for the purposes of this chapter, they are included as the threat to heritage is just as grave. Concern that anthropogenic factors are influencing climate change has resulted in a large body of research, modelling what may happen in the future. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has taken the lead; reporting observed changes since pre-industrial times and providing models of future change based on different scenarios. The reports provide evidence that most regions have seen a warming trend, precipitation patterns have changed, and sea levels have risen (IPCC, 2014), and it is thought that these trends will lead to an increase in extreme weather events (IPCC, 2014). This chapter will discuss observed impacts on heritage, but it is generally accepted that past destruction is a forewarning of increasing change in the future.

Temperature change and the cryosphere The remarkable preservation of archaeological material and environmental evidence within the cryosphere (areas of frozen water such as glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost) is caused by cold temperatures and high water content inhibiting the decay of organic material (FengerNielsen et al., 2020). There are an estimated 180,000 archaeological sites recorded in the Arctic alone and finds from frozen contexts include Medieval textiles from Norway, wellpreserved human remains from Greenland, and ivory objects from Alaska and Arctic Siberia 138

DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-12

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(Hollesen et al., 2018). However, temperature increases can cause frozen organic material to thaw, resulting in rapid decay (Dixon et al., 2014). The Arctic is experiencing much faster rates of temperature rise than the estimated average global increase of 1.0°C since pre-industrial times. This has caused glaciers and ice caps to shrink, sea ice to diminish, and permafrost to thaw, changes that have been noted through instrumental surveys and observations by local populations (Dixon et al., 2014). These changes will result in the destruction of organic remains, material that is of significant value to Indigenous groups and which can provide a wealth of information on past climatic conditions. The remains of a late Neolithic man, named Ötzi, were discovered near thawing ice in the Ötztal Alps in 1991. Killed by an arrow over 5000 years ago, Ötzi was frozen within a glacier which preserved his flesh, clothing, and the food and medicinal plants that he carried (Dickson, 2017). In 1999, a body located on the edge of a melting glacier in the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations (CAFN) in British Columbia, Canada, was named Kwäday Dän Ts’inchi, or long-ago person found by CAFN members. In addition to tools, a hat, cape, and pouch that possibly contained medicinal herbs, a number of wooden artefacts were located in the immediate vicinity of the body. Radiocarbon dating revealed that the person was approximately 500 years old, but many of the objects were older. It is possible that the intensive search of the area, following the initial discovery, resulted in the large number of artefacts located; under normal circumstances, these may have remained otherwise undocumented before decaying (Beattie et al., 2000). Further evidence of the benefits of deliberate searches in areas of melting ice is provided by a Norwegian project looking at snow patches. These are found in high latitude and highaltitude places, including mountainous parts of Norway, Canada, Switzerland, and the US Rocky Mountains. Animals were attracted to the snow in the summer, which attracted hunters, resulting in large numbers of artefacts becoming buried in ice. Volunteers in Oppdal, central Norway, have recovered over 230 artefacts from snow patches, with increasing numbers of objects retrieved in recent years. Prior to 2006, most artefacts were dated to the Iron Age or later (500 BCE–1500 CE), but recent discoveries have included Neolithic material (4000–1800 BCE), suggesting that rising temperatures are causing more ice to melt, thus releasing older material (Callanan, 2013). Another problem for arctic areas is the thawing of permafrost, leading to an increase in the depth of the layer of soil that thaws and freezes (the active layer). Studies in the Nuuk fjord region of south-west Greenland has shown that most Paleo-Inuit, Thule/Historic Inuit, and Norse settlement sites are being impacted by permafrost thaw and microbial degradation, resulting in the loss of organic material (Fenger-Nielsen et al., 2020). Another problem is the decline in sea ice. This acts as a barrier to storm damage, and its loss is increasing erosion rates along some Arctic coastlines. Measurements at Nuvuk, on the tip of Barrow Point, Alaska, have revealed erosion rates of up to 10 m per year, leading to the excavation of 85 burials, the earliest dating to 810 cal. CE ( Jensen, 2017). Stanford’s 1960s excavation of Walakpa (Ualiqpaa), south of Barrow, recorded occupation dating back 4000 years. Until recently, the deeply stratified site was covered in vegetation and thought to be relatively stable, but storms since 2013 have revealed the remains of a wooden house and destroyed large parts of the site, including layers relating to the earliest occupation ( Jensen, 2017). On Herschel Island (Qikiqtaruk) in Canada’s Yukon Territory, the low-lying Simpson Point is home to numerous Thule and Inuit archaeological sites, together with remains associated with nineteenth-century whaling activities. To combat the threat from erosion, the territorial government has relocated the Northern Whaling and Trading Company store twice, but many other assets remain vulnerable (Olynyk, 2008; Radosavljevic et al., 2016). 139

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Temperature changes elsewhere In other parts of the world, rising temperatures are leading to desertification, a process where the boundaries of a desert are extended as sand inundates neighbouring landscapes. Founded in the thirteenth century, Chinguetti in Mauritania is considered one of Islam’s seven holy cities. The Chinguetti Mosque was a centre of medieval pilgrimage, and a major collection of early Islamic manuscripts are housed in the city. Located on the western edge of the Sahara, Chinguetti is continually inundated with sand, and the threat posed by desertification is so grave that Chinguetti was highlighted by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site at risk from climate change (UNESCO, 2006; Berenfeld, 2008; Maglaty, 2009). Despite this attention, desertification continues and the Mauritanian President noted in 2015 that the city remains at grave risk. In Sudan, on the southern edge of the Sahara, Meroe was once the capital of the Kingdom of Kush. To the east of the Royal City is a cemetery containing Nubian pyramids and over 1000 graves dating to between 250 BCE and 350 CE. The pyramids were built of local sandstone and were originally painted, while chapels and monumental gateways were decorated with relief carvings. Photographs taken from 1900 onwards demonstrate the rapidity of change, with early images showing grass and low bushes surrounding the pyramids giving way to accumulations of sand from the 1960s onwards. By the 1980s, archaeologists started warning that the site was at risk from sand inundation. Windblown sand also causes major damage to the surfaces of structures, as it abrades painted and decorated surfaces, a process similar to being sandblasted. At one chapel, observations showed that it took just six years for 90% of the relief decoration to be lost (Riedel, 2015). Temperature increases and drought can also lead to increases in wildfires (IPCC, 2014), which pose an existential threat to flammable structures and artefacts. 19 historic nineteenth and twentieth-century huts located in Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales, Australia, were destroyed by a bushfire in 2003 following a period of prolonged drought (Pearson, 2008). Although some were subsequently rebuilt, several more huts were burned in bush fires in 2020 (New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 2021). Surface scatters of objects can also be damaged. For example, obsidian, a volcanic glass used to produce tools, is vulnerable to fire. After the 1996 Dome Fire in New Mexico’s Santa Fe National Forest, obsidian scatters at the Capulin quarry site were described as having been transformed into “frothy puffs of bubbled glass” (Steffen, 2002 p.159). Fire can also crack and damage rock surfaces containing petroglyphs and other art. This has been documented widely across the United States, including damage to Pueblo rock art (associated with twelfth to fourteenth-century occupation) in the Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado (Ryan et al., 2012), where the Battleship Rock Panel was significantly damaged in the 1996 Chapin 5 fire (NPS, 2007).

Coastal processes There are tens of thousands of vulnerable heritage sites in coastal areas, many of which are specific to their maritime location. For example, around 2000 shell middens have been recorded along the coast of Maine alone (Dawson et al., 2020). Coastal processes can reveal new discoveries, and the World Heritage Site of Skara Brae, a Neolithic village in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, was first revealed during a mid-nineteenth-century storm (Historic Scotland, 1998). Many thousands of other sites await discovery (Erlandson, 2012) and dedicated surveys of 30% of the Scottish coast revealed over 12,000 sites in a 50 m-wide coastal corridor, many of which were new discoveries (Dawson, 2014). Unfortunately, large numbers of buried heritage sites are lost every year without ever being recorded. 140

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Despite regional variations, sea levels have increased in many of the world’s oceans due to thermal expansion and the adding of water to the system due to melting ice. Rising sea levels can cause damaging floods, saltwater incursions, and the eventual submersion of heritage assets. Inundation is a slow process, but the damage that will result is evident at the Campi Flegrei caldera in the Bay of Naples, an area subjected to the slow vertical movement of ground, known as bradyseism. The sea covers Roman and Medieval structures, including the settlement of Baiae. Submergence is enhancing decay, while currents and tides erode the seabed. Numerous stone sculptures and mosaic floors have been affected by bioerosion caused by sponges and bivalves, and about 20% of the white marble statue of Ulysses in the Baiae Museum has been lost (Ricci & Davidde, 2012). An increase in ocean acidification due to climate change can result in the dissolution of artefacts on the seabed (Rockman et al., 2016; Harkin et al., 2020). Before being completely inundated, sites may be flooded as the sea’s reach extends further inland. This can result in saltwater intrusion and Indigenous communities have reported the adverse effects of this on sacred places in Australia’s Northern Territory (Carmichael et al., 2017). Wetland zones have great cultural significance for Aboriginal people, and in Kakadu National Park, almost 200,000 hectares of low-lying land are vulnerable to sea level rise. Saltwater encroachment will have a great impact on plants and animals and may affect traditional hunting. Combined with damage to culturally significant sites, the result could be the relocation of settlements and changes to traditional activities (Pearson, 2008). Storms can also cause coastal flooding, and in 2003 thousands of artefacts were damaged at Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, when Hurricane Isabel caused flooding that affected the museum and reconstructed glassblowing factory (Holtz et al., 2014). In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated much of the eastern coast of the US, damaging the iconic Statue of Liberty and neighbouring Ellis Island. Although higher wind speeds had been recorded in New York in the past, the tidal surge flooded most of Ellis Island and three-quarters of Liberty Island, causing an estimated $77 million (USD) of damage (Holtz et al., 2014). Coastal erosion is another major threat to heritage, and simple models indicate that sea level rise will accelerate erosion rates as the sea’s reach is extended further inland. Erosion is a natural process that has long affected coastlines; the first losses at Dunwich, on England’s east coast, were mentioned in the Domesday book. This large and important medieval town was built upon soft sedimentary deposits, and by 1602, three-quarters of the town had been lost (Sear et al., 2011). However, climate change may increase erosion rates, and on the northern coast of Jutland, Denmark, the churches of Rubjerg and Lyngby were dismantled in the twentieth century, while erosion at the thirteenth-century church of Mårup has increased from two to four metres per year, since 1928 ( Jensen & Markussen, 2001). Plans to relocate the church led to questions about authenticity, and the structure became a “controversial icon of perishability” with arguments for and against preservation in situ debated nationally (Wienberg, 2014 p.91). Relative sea level rise is also affecting a number of sites in north Africa, including parts of the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine city of Sabratha in Libya (Brooks et al., 2020), the harbour of Apollonia in Cyrenaica, and the Greek colony of Tocra, where over 40 m of the coast edge has been lost over the past 35 years (Bennett, 2018). Erosion losses are not always steady and incremental. Storm surges frequently remove many metres of land: the Florida Public Archaeology Network recorded over 2.5 m of coastal regression following storms that damaged the shell midden and historic farmstead site of Shell Bluff Landing (Dawson et al., 2020). On Baile Sear, in the Western Isles of Scotland, structures, artefacts, and 3 m deep layers of discarded rubbish and peat ash were visible in the coast edge, all relating to the extensive Iron Age site of Ceardach Ruadh. A comparison of aerial photographs taken in 1946 and 1992 showed that the coast edge had retreated 2 m in 141

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46 years, and the rate of erosion was such that it was hoped that excavation would be possible before the site was lost. However, in January 2005, a powerful storm caused up to 50 m of erosion overnight and destroyed the site (Dawson et al., 2020).

Wind High winds can damage buildings, archaeological sites, ethnographic resources, and collections of art and artefacts (UNESCO, 2006; Rockman et al., 2016). In 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria passed over the Caribbean and Florida, causing extensive damage to infrastructure and tangible and intangible cultural heritage, including the building housing the National Archives of Antigua, which lost its roof (Boger et al., 2019). In August 2011, a tornado struck Goderich, claimed to have been called the prettiest town in Canada by Queen Elizabeth II. The town’s central area, the Square, was listed on the register of Canada’s Historic Places and described locally as the “single most visible and important economic sector of [the] community” (Laycock et al., 2014 p.47). The tornado caused over $100 million of damage, and approval was given for a number of the registered heritage buildings to be pulled down, including six in the Square ( Jonas, 2016).

Rainfall and flooding The global trend is for increasing rainfall and humidity levels, and there has been an increase in flood events around the world. Floods pose grave threats to objects and structures, which can be damaged by submersion or affected by fast-flowing water. The threat is so grave that Historic Environment Scotland includes three different types of flooding (fluvial, pluvial, and groundwater) in their Climate Change Risk Assessment for historic properties (HES, 2018). In November 1966, heavy rainfall that accompanied a storm in northern Italy resulted in widespread flooding and landslides that affected many towns and villages. In Florence, the Arno broke its banks and flood levels exceeded the record level, set in 1330 (De Zolt et al., 2006). The effects on heritage were profound, with historic buildings damaged, museums engulfed, and thousands of objects affected, including Cimabue’s Crucifix (1280s) and Ghiberti’s fifteenth-century gilded doors to the Cathedral’s Baptistery. Millions of books and manuscripts were damaged, including 110,000 rare volumes stored in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, where damage was made worse by mud, sewage, and oil (Waters, 2018). The same storm caused the devastating l’Acqua Granda or big flood in Venice. Until recently, this event was considered so rare that a similar flood was thought unlikely for another two centuries (Trincardi et al., 2016). However, increased sea levels and the slow sinking of the city led to 70% of Venice being flooded in October 2018 and 85% the following year (Cavaleri et al., 2020). Floods in Thailand in 2011 affected heritage sites, including Ayutthaya, the second capital of Siam founded around 1350. Added to the World Heritage List in 1991, the 2 m high flood waters inundated archaeological sites and over 200 ancient temples. Different impacts of rainfall have been observed at the ancient city of Sonargaon in Bangladesh, home to numerous Mughal monuments, mosques, the Panch Pir Mazar Shrine, the Sonakanda River Fort, and a number of British colonial buildings. The eighteenth-century historic area of Panamnagar contains 49 upstanding buildings, mainly built of brick (Sharmin, 2019). More frequent heavy downpours have directly impacted structures; while increased soil moisture has led to rising damp as water is drawn into the fabric of the porous historic buildings. This is a problem recognised by UNESCO (2006), who also noted that salts contained in the groundwater can crystallise, causing wall surfaces to split and crack. 142

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Species distributions and biodiversity Changes in atmospheric humidity can encourage the growth of moulds, lichen, and fungi, which adversely affect artefacts, paintings, organic materials, and rock art. Effects range from damage to the Palaeolithic paintings in the Lascaux caves, France (Sterflinger & Piñar, 2013) to the biodeterioration of historic thatched roofs. Alterations to atmospheric conditions also lead to some insect, animal, and plant species changing their range and growing seasons. Although it is not possible to generalise, as each species responds in a different way, studies of shipworms indicate how this may affect heritage. Shipworms are wood-boring bivalves that threaten submerged timber structures, and in the nineteenth century, the Pacific shipworm, Bankia setacea, was widespread in San Francisco Bay. As it lives in highly saline water, it was unable to colonise the mouth of the Sacramento River and a new shipyard was sited in this area, constructed with timber wharves and piers. In 1914, the European shipworm, Teredo navalis, was first reported. This creature is able to survive in less saline water, and by 1921, it had destroyed the majority of shipyard’s untreated wooden structures (C. W., 1928). Although more tolerant than the Pacific shipworm, the European shipworm still requires relatively saline waters and temperatures above 11.0°C to breed. Studies upstream from Rotterdam, Netherlands, have shown that rising water temperatures and lower river discharges have increased salinity, leading to a greater risk for structures (Paalvast & van der Velde, 2011); while off the coast of western Sweden, close to the creature’s northern limit, rising temperatures have lengthened the breeding season by one month (Appelqvist, 2015). There are also concerns that terrestrial pests, such as termites, may extend their range and threaten historic structures built of organic materials (UNESCO, 2006; Rockman et al., 2016). The colonisation by new plant species may alter the appearance of cultural landscapes and reduce the availability of native species needed to repair traditional structures (World Heritage Centre, 2006), while changes in farming practices, due to climate change, can lead to the introduction of plants whose roots may disturb buried archaeological deposits.

Human reactions to natural disasters Heritage can also be destroyed by humans reacting to a natural disaster, either as they attempt to contain an event or during subsequent work. A study of the impact of the 1977 La Mesa Fire in Bandelier National Monument, USA, found that the greatest damage to heritage sites was caused by bulldozers creating fire breaks (Traylor et al., 1990). Post-disaster reconstruction work can lead to the demolition of structures that would normally be protected by law. Berenfeld (2008) argues that the character of historic New Orleans was altered during rebuilding work after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina when many houses were pulled down that might otherwise have been repaired. In some cases, there are legitimate health and safety concerns for demolition, but sometimes, structures are declared safety hazards without due consideration of their historic value (Spennemann, 1999). After the Goderich tornado in Canada, authorities prevented owners from placing temporary covers over roofless buildings due to concerns over the possible presence of asbestos. When heavy rains subsequently struck, many structures were damaged by water, leading to their eventual demolition ( Jonas, 2016). In the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, there is often a chance of looting, but the police may prioritise other activities over the theft of heritage material, especially if objects aren’t within registered collections. Additionally, organisations responsible for heritage protection may have had their capacity damaged, as happened after the 2017 Hurricane 143

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Maria damaged the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, limiting the staff’s ability to safeguard numerous heritage sites exposed at the coast (Boger et al., 2019). Certain climate mitigation actions can also circumvent heritage protection legislation, such as the construction of coastal and river defences. For example, alteration to buildings, such as replacing windows or adding insulation, can alter the historic character of the structure (World Heritage Centre, 2006; Rockman et al., 2016). Climate change is also affecting traditional knowledge and intangible cultural heritage, with lifestyles and traditions of some communities radically altered by rising sea levels, desertification, species migrations, decline in traditional plants, and crop changes. These events have led to the loss of rituals, and in some cases, population migrations as conditions deteriorate and resources are depleted (World Heritage Centre, 2006). For example, Djenné Old Town in Mali has numerous earthen buildings that need to be renewed regularly. Traditional mud bricks are strengthened using calcified fish bones, but changes to rainfall and fish distribution have affected the availability of raw materials, and the quality of bricks has suffered. This has led to some people using modern fired ceramics to repair walls in the World Heritage Site (Brooks et al., 2020).

Conclusion Environmental degradation is ever present, and it is extremely likely that climate change will lead to increased levels of destruction in the future. Extreme weather events and slower incremental processes both result in the destruction of heritage assets that are vital to society. An analysis of natural disasters in 2017 revealed that, of the 730 events recorded, 93% were due to atmospheric and climatic factors, while geological events accounted for 7% (Munich RE, 2018). The planet is already 1.0°C warmer than pre-industrial times; and the widely adopted 2015 Paris Agreement aspired to limit average global temperature increases to 1.5°C but imposed a more likely limit of 2.0°C (Met Office, 2021). As temperatures rise, so do associated risks. Climate change is affecting the entire globe, and many countries have produced action plans, only some of which include heritage. Not everything can be saved, and many advocate systems of prioritisation or triage for cultural heritage (Berenfeld, 2008; Dawson et al., 2020). Natural disasters will continue to impact heritage, and it is inevitable that many more sites will be destroyed. However, by learning from the past, we can plan for the future. There is still time to mitigate against some impending disasters, and action now will increase the chances of protecting heritage for future generations.

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Heritage destruction, natural disasters, and the environment Carmichael, B., Wilson, G., Namranyilk, I., Nadji, S., Cahill, J., Brockwell, S., and Bird, D. (2017). Australian Indigenous rangers managing the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage sites. In: Dawson, T., Nimura, C., López-Romero, E., and Daire, M. Y. (eds). Public Archaeology and Climate Change. Oxford: Oxbow, pp.162–174. Cavaleri, L., Bajo, M., Barbariol, F., Bastianini, M., Benetazzo, A., Bertotti, L., Chiggiato, J., Ferrarin, C., Trincardi, F., and Umgiesser, G. (2020). The 2019 Flooding of Venice and its implications for future predictions. Oceanography 33(1), pp.42–49. Dawson, T. (2014). A View from Scotland’s Coast. The Public Historian 36(3), pp.31–49. Dawson, T., Hambly, J., Lees, W., Miller, S., and Kelley, A. (2020). Coastal heritage, global climate change, public engagement and citizen science. PNAS 117(15), pp.8280–8286. De Zolt, S., Lionello, P., Malguzzi, P., Nuhu, A., and Tomasin, A. (2006). The disastrous storm of 4 November 1966 on Italy. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 6(5), pp.861–879. Dickson, J.H. (2017). Ötzi, the Tyrolean Iceman. In: Gilbert, A. S. (ed). Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology. Heidelberg; New York; London: Springer Dordrecht, p.566. Dixon, E.J., Callanan, M.E., Hafner, A., and Hare, P.G. (2014). The Emergence of Glacial Archaeology. Journal of Glacial Archaeology 1, pp.1–9. Erlandson, J.M. (2012). As the world warms: rising seas, coastal archaeology, and the erosion of maritime history. Journal of Coastal Conservation 16(2), pp.137–142. Fenger-Nielsen, R., Elberling, B., Kroon, A., Westergaard-Nielsen, A., Matthiesen, H., Harmsen, H., Madsen, C.K., Stendel, M., and Hollesen, J. (2020). Arctic archaeological sites threatened by climate change. Archaeometry 62, pp.1280–1297. Harkin, D., Davies, M., Hyslop, E., Fluck, H., Wiggins, M., Merritt, O., Barker, L., Deery, M., Mcneary, R., and Westley, K. (2020). Impacts of climate change on cultural heritage. MCCIP Science Review 2020, pp.616–641. HES. (2018). Climate Change Risk Assessment. Edinburgh: Historic Environment Scotland. Historic Scotland. (1998). Nomination of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney for Inclusion in the World Heritage List. Edinburgh: Historic Scotland. Hollesen, J., Callanan, M., Dawson, T., Fenger-Nielsen, R., Friesen, T., Jensen, A.M., Markham, A., Martens, V.V., Pitulko, V.V., and Rockman, M. (2018). Climate change and the deteriorating archaeological and environmental archives of the Arctic. Antiquity 92(363), pp.573–586. Holtz, D., Markham, A., Cell, K., and Ekwurzel, B. (2014). National Landmarks at Risk. Cambridge: Union of Concerned Scientists. IPCC. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva: IPCC. Jensen, A. (2017). Threatened heritage and community archaeology on Alaska’s North Slope. In: Dawson, T., Nimura, C., López-Romero, E., and Daire, M.Y. (eds). Public Archaeology and Climate Change. Oxford: Oxbow, pp.126–137. Jensen, C.B., and Markussen, R. (2001). Mårup Church and the Politics of Hybridization. Social Studies of Science 31(6), pp.795–819. Jonas, K.A. (2016). Goderich: A Case Study of Conserving Cultural Heritage Resources in a Disaster. MA thesis. Ontario: University of Waterloo. Laycock, K., Mahone, J., and Filson, G. (2014). The impact of natural disaster on community engagement and connection in Goderich, Ontario. Canadian Journal of Urban Research 23(1), pp.39–54. Maglaty, J. (2009). Endangered Site: Chinguetti, Mauritania. Smithsonian Magazine. Available at: https:// www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/endangered-site-chinguetti-mauritania-54168194/ [Accessed: 19 February 2022]. Met Office. (n.d.) What Is Climate Change? Met Office website. Available at: https://www.metoffice.gov. uk/weather/climate-change/what-is-climate-change [Accessed: 12 September 2021]. Munich, R.E. (2018). TOPICS Geo: Natural catastrophes 2017, Analyses, assessments, positions. Munich: Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft. New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. (2021). Burnt Kosciuszko Huts to rise again from ashes. New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 20 October. Available at: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/news/burnt-kosciuszko-huts-to-riseagain-from-ashes [Accessed: 24 January 2022]. NPS. (2007) Mesa Verde: Archaeology and Fire. US Department of the Interior: National Park Service. Available at: https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/management/upload/Fire-Effect-Arch-and-Fire_508.pdf [Accessed: 8 April 2022].

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Tom Dawson Olynyk, D.M. (2008). Summary of the significance of and threats to cultural resources located at the historic settlement area on Herschel Island. In: Petzet, M., and Ziesemer, J. (eds). Heritage at risk: ICOMOS world report 2006/2007. Altenburg: E. Reind-Verlag, pp.212–214. Paalvast, P., and van der Velde, G. (2011). New threats of an old enemy. Marine Pollution Bulletin 62(8), pp.1822–1829. Pearson, M. (2008). Climate change and its impacts on Australia’s cultural heritage. Historic Environment 21(1), pp.37–40. Radosavljevic, B., Lantuit, H., Pollard, W., Overduin, P., Couture, N., Sachs, T., Helm, V., and Fritz, M. (2016). Erosion and flooding – Threats to coastal infrastructure in the Arctic: A Case Study from Herschel Island, Yukon Territory, Canada. Estuaries and Coasts 39, pp.900–915. Ricci, S., and Davidde, B. (2012). Some Aspects of the Bioerosion of Stone Artefact found underwater. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 14(1–4), pp.28–34. Riedel, A. (2015). Sand and water – and their effect on the pyramids of Meroe in the Sudan. In: Willems, W., and van Schaik, H. (eds.). Water & Heritage. Material, conceptual and spiritual connections. Leiden: Sidestone Press, pp.141–154. Rockman, M., Morgan, M., Ziaja, S., Hambrecht, G., and Meadow, A. (2016). Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy. Washington, DC: National Park Service. Ryan, K.C., Jones, A.T., Koerner, C.L., and Lee, K.M. (2012). RMRS-GTR-42: Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on Cultural Resources and Archaeology, Vol. 3. US Department of Agriculture: Forest Service. Available at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/40417 [Accessed: 8 April 2022]. Sear, D.A., Bacon, S.R., Murdock, A., Doneghan, G., Baggaley, P., Serra, C., and LeBas, T.P. (2011). Cartographic, geophysical and diver surveys of the medieval town site at Dunwich. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 40(1), pp.113–132. Sharmin, N. (2019). Cultural Significance Assessment, Panamnagar: A Testimony Of Historic Bengal. MA thesis. Cottbus: Brandenburg University of Technology. Spennemann, D.H.R. (1999). Cultural heritage conservation during emergency management: Luxury or necessity? International Journal of Public Administration 22(5), pp.745–804. Steffen, A. (2002). The Dome Fire Project: Extreme obsidian fire effects in the Jemez Mountains. In: Loyd, J.M., Orige, T.M., and Fredrickson, D.A. (eds.). The effects of fire and heat on obsidian. Denver: US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, pp.159–202. Sterflinger, K., and Piñar, G. (2013). Microbial deterioration of cultural heritage and works of art. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 97(22), pp.9637–9646. Traylor, D., Hubell, L., Wood, N., and Fiedler, B. (1990). The 1977 La Mesa Fire Study: An Investigation of Fire and Fire Suppression Impact on Cultural Resources in Bandelier National Monument. Santa Fe: US National Park Service. Trincardi, F., Barbanti, A., Bastianini, M., Benetazzo, A., Cavaleri, L., Chiggiato, J., Papa, A., Pomaro, A., Sclavo, M., Tosi, L., and Umgiesser, G. (2016). The 1966 flooding of Venice. Oceanography 29(4), pp.178–186. UNESCO. (2006). Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, World Heritage Committee, Item 7.1: The Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage properties. Vilnius: UNESCO committee minutes. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/archive/2007/whc07-31com-71e.pdf [Accessed: 19 February 2022]. Waters, S. (2018). Peter Waters and the Origins of Library Conservation: A Memoir. In: Conway, P., and O’Hara Conway, M. (eds). Flood in Florence, 1966: A Fifty-Year Retrospective. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Library. Available at: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/maize/mpub9310956 [Accessed: 19 February 2022]. Wienberg, J. (2014). Back to the edge – heritage management, landscaping or contemplation. Danish Journal of Archaeology 3(1), pp.91–93. World Heritage Centre. (2006). Predicting and Managing the Effects of Climate Change on World Heritage. Vilnius: World Heritage Centre. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/document/6670 [Accessed: 19 February 2022].

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11 FLOODED HERITAGE The Impact of Dams on Archaeological Sites Nicolò Marchetti and Federico Zaina

Heritage vs dams The construction of dams represents one of the most widespread and destructive types of damage to cultural heritage. The dramatic global increase of new dams, between the end of the nineteenth century and today, is correlated with the growth in the destruction of archaeological sites (Stammitti, 2014; Marchetti et al., 2020). The numbers are striking and range from about 2000 archaeological sites submerged or damaged by dams built along the Nile River (Näser & Kleinitz, 2012; Marchetti et al., 2019) to approximately 1000 sites flooded in the Tigris and Euphrates basins (EIAR, 2000; Marchetti et al., 2020), to nearly 1300 sites in the Yangtze River valley (Shen, 2000; Ponseti & López-Pujol, 2006), to at least 800 sites within the 6 water reservoirs created along the Missouri river (Banks et al., 2011). In this dramatic situation, the role of archaeologists, cultural heritage experts, and major international heritage institutions has been marginal. According to Shoup (2006, p. 231) this is partially due to the fact that “[a]rchaeologists face the uncomfortable truth that their sites are implicated in political struggles about land use choices and their socioeconomic implications. Dam projects throw such struggles into sharp relief, since both the potential economic benefits and the social and environmental costs are very high”. The marginality of the role of archaeologists is further underlined by the fact that “it was government agencies, activist groups, and the press — rather than archaeologists — that framed the debate about the fate of archaeological sites and archaeology’s role in society”. In addition, for a long time, academic publications, grey literature reports, and popular papers have contributed to the construction of narratives on the economic and social benefits of dams around the world. This trend has overshadowed the dark side of dams, that is, the wide range of damage that they trigger, including the partial or total flooding of archaeological sites. Only in recent years has the perception of the costs/benefits of dams been inverted. New research has highlighted their negative impact on the environment (White, 1988; Zeid, 1989; Akyürek, 2005), the local populations (Fernea, 1994; Strzepek et al., 2008; Hopkins & Mehanna, 2010), and to a minor extent, on the archaeological sites (Brandt & Hassan, 2000;

DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-13

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Shoup, 2006; Cunliffe et al., 2012a; 2012b; Stammitti, 2014; Marchetti et al., 2019; 2020; Zaina & Tapete 2022). Our understanding of the variety of damage types and the number of sites affected by water reservoirs has long been biased by the focus (primarily by archaeologists) on a small number of archaeological sites or monuments, often chosen on the basis of their dimensions or the supposed historical relevance. For example, the Egyptian temples of Philae, Abu Simbel, or Dendur in the Aswan High Dam (Hassan, 2007), the Roman city of Zeugma partially flooded by the Birecik Dams (Aylward, 2013), or the medieval old town of Hasankeyf in the Ilısu Dam area (Young, 2000) have attracted the interest of researchers, journalists, and local authorities, setting aside hundreds of potentially important archaeological sites which are now submerged (Marchetti et al., 2019; 2020). Since the 2010s, some initiatives like How to Build a Dam and Save Cultural Heritage1 (Cunliffe et al., 2012a; 2012b), Orientdams2 (Marchetti et al., 2019; 2020), and EAMENA 3 (Bewley et al., 2016) addressed the impact of dams on cultural heritage in a more systematic way. These projects raised awareness among a wider audience towards this issue, enabling better estimation of the impact of dams on cultural heritage. Moreover, they helped to frame the different drivers triggering the destruction of cultural heritage due to the construction of dams as well as the multiple types of damage affecting archaeological sites. Building on these initiatives and the state-of-the-art narratives, in the following section, we first illustrate the drivers behind the construction of dams, meaning economic development and socio-political changes. Then, we discuss the types of damage to the archaeological sites, including partial or total flooding, destruction, and re-location, which are triggered by the drivers using case studies from Northern Africa, and the Middle and Far East.

Doomed by the driver(s) The first attempts to systematically frame the threats and damages to cultural heritage must be sought within the grey literature reports issued by UNESCO, ICOMOS, and ICCROM. Among others, blueprints for heritage experts to design their own risk preparedness strategies were published between the late 1990s and 2000s (Stovel, 1998; Palumbo, 2000; ICOMOS, 2000; ICCROM, 2016). However, while representing a step forward in the field, these studies were mostly limited to environmental and armed conflict-related damage. Recent research has highlighted how the various forms of destruction of archaeological sites are the result of a process that includes specific drivers triggering one or multiple damages. In this regard, the earliest analyses were conducted in the frame of UNESCO’s definition of specific threats to world heritage sites (2008) followed by the development of the Disaster Risk Management (DRM) cycle concept (UNESCO, 2010). The 2008 framework distinguished between current and potential damage, while the DRM provided a step forward defining a specific terminology and a detailed risk analysis process, integrating the previous framework with a list of natural and human-induced hazards divided according to primary and secondary hazards (UNESCO, 2010). Further theoretical advances have been proposed by research focusing on Europe (Lopez, 2016) and the Near East (Cunliffe, 2014; Zaina, 2019; Zaina & Nabati Mazloumi, 2021). The main drivers triggering damage to cultural heritage recognised by these studies include economic development; socio-political changes; conflicts; natural hazards; illicit trade of antiquities; and mismanagement. The construction of dams is connected to the first two. Therefore, in the following sections, we illustrate the impact of economic development and socio-political changes through specific case studies. 148

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The GAP project and economic development in south-eastern Turkey To explain the economic drivers that fuel the construction of dams and the flooding of archaeological sites, we use the case study of the hydraulic infrastructures built in the frame of the Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi (South-eastern Anatolian Project, henceforth GAP) in Turkey. From the end of the 1970s, economic development strategies promoted by the Turkish government within the frame of the GAP masterplan have led to substantial improvements in the previously low-income region of south-eastern Anatolia (Altınbilek & Tortajada, 2012). Increase of farmland and power production, representing the key objectives of the GAP, were partially accomplished through a range of long-term actions, including the construction of a network of dams and water reservoirs along the main rivers of the region (DSI, 2014; GAP, 2019). Between 1974 and 2017, 11 dams were completed along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers (see Figure 11.1), while eight more are under construction (Marchetti et al., 2019; 2020). Up to 2019, out of a total investment of approximately 32 billion USD, the GAP project increased farmland by 1 million hectares (out of 1.8 million expected) and provided over 27 GWh of power production and a 49% increase in the GAP region’s GDP (Bilgen, 2018; GAP, 2019). Such impressive numbers have been extensively used to justify the damage and the issues that emerged following dam construction. Moreover, while data concerning the economic benefits of the GAP project can be obtained easily and for free from the web, it is more difficult to retrieve detailed information about the negative impacts of the overall project or the individual dams.

Figure 11.1 Middle Eastern and North African dams and the main water reservoirs along the Euphrates (A), Tigris (B), and Nile (C) rivers. Source: Background image (provided by Mundialis TOPO-WMS), the position of the dams (provided by FAO Aquastat project), and the areas of the dams in the close-ups (drawn by the authors) are taken from the OrientDams WebGIS.4

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The main issues that arose from the construction of dams must be gleaned from different sources, chiefly academic publications and grey literature reports, while less detailed data has been provided by the GAP or DSI (Devlet Su Işleri, Turkish State Hydraulic Works) administration reports. Being mainly linked to the initiative of individual researchers, the completeness and updating of the information considerably vary for each issue. These are: 1 People displacement (intangible heritage). The studies that evaluated people displacement in each dam or group of dams (Akyürek, 2005; Terminski, 2014; IDMC, 2017) up to 2017 hypothesised an overall number of 350,000 resettled people out of almost 8.9 million people living in the GAP regions (GAP, 2019). The separation of groups of people, who were sometimes relocated to distant places, also resulted in the loss of their intangible heritage – in particular, their cultural diversity and local traditions (Ronayne, 2006). 2 Environmental and cultural landscapes loss (natural heritage). While comprehensive impact assessments of the GAP project to evaluate environmental loss have not been produced yet, several researchers tackled this issue in selected cases studies such as the Atatürk, Birecik, and Karkemish Dams along the Euphrates (Altınbilek & Tortajada, 2012) as well as the Ilısu Dam along the Tigris (Hommes et al., 2016). These studies confirmed a considerable and often irreversible decrease of biodiversity, including plants and animals, over the decades. 3 Partial or total flooding of archaeological sites and historical monuments (cultural heritage). The documentation of cultural heritage damaged by the dams mostly focused on selected archaeological sites and heritage monuments. Indeed, recent studies focusing on the Middle Eastern and North African region (hereafter MENA) highlighted the dearth of survey and excavation projects (Shoup, 2006), as well as of post-flooding assessments documenting the affected cultural heritage (Lenihan, 1981; Stammitti, 2014; Marchetti et al., 2019). In general, in the dams built along the Turkish course of the Euphrates River, less than 50% of the total reservoir areas have been investigated by archaeologists, while only 26.5% of the archaeological sites have been excavated (Marchetti et al., 2019; 2020). Moreover, in most of the dams built after 2010, no archaeological activities at all have been reported. In the case of Turkish dams, the economic and technical support provided by the GAP has been limited (approximately 170 interventions to safeguard or relocate archaeological sites and monuments between 2008 and 2018), although welladvertised (GAP, 2019).

Politics and economy along the Nile banks: The Aswan high dam project To elucidate the effect of the second driver (i.e., socio-political changes) on archaeological sites and monuments, we used the case study of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Designed to expand the reservoir generated by the previous Aswan Low Dam, the Aswan High Dam project has been long entangled with political and economic interests related to the Cold War struggle between the US and the USSR (Collins, 2002; Biswas & Tortajada, 2012). While the first plan did not receive King Farouk’s Egypt’s interest, with the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy and the seizure of power by G.A. Nasser in 1952, the dam construction project gained full force (Strzepek et al., 2008). Both the US and the USSR offered their support to the construction of the dam. For the former, Egypt could represent a valid anticommunist ally to oppose the USSR. However, the more advantageous exchange and the lower invasiveness of the USSR in Egyptian political affairs led Nasser to favour the latter 150

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(Collins, 2002). In 1956, the USSR confirmed their support to the construction of the dam through the Czech Republic. The Aswan High Dam was completed in 1970 and created one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, exceeding 5250 km 2 (Strzepek et al., 2008; Biswas & Tortajada, 2012). With a total cost of 9.2 billion USD (exchange rate in 2020), the Aswan High Dam provided multiple benefits to the previously underdeveloped region. These included an increase in farmland (840,000 hectares reclaimed along the river), power production (2.1 new GWh), and protection from seasonal floods and droughts (Strzepek et al., 2008; Biswas & Tortajada, 2012). As for the GAP project, the main issues resulting from the construction of the Aswan High Dam include; people displacement; environmental loss; and partial or total flooding of archaeological sites and monuments. The construction of the Aswan High Dam threatened much of lower Nubia and had serious effects on the local populations both in Egypt and Sudan, especially on their culture and traditions. An estimated 120 000 people were resettled in Sudan and Egypt (Fernea, 1994; Hopkins & Mehanna, 2010; Terminski, 2014). While several negative environmental effects caused by the dam are still debated (White, 1988), major damage to the natural heritage of the region included water-logging of the soil and increased soil salinity. The former is due to the disappearance of the annual flood and heavy year-round irrigation, resulting in high groundwater levels with little fluctuation. Soil salinity also increased because the distance between the surface and the groundwater table was small enough to allow water to be pulled up by evaporation so that the relatively small concentrations of salt in the groundwater have accumulated on the soil surface over the years (Zeid, 1989). Concerns about the widespread loss of archaeological sites and monuments caused by the Aswan High Dam have been raised since the early 1950s. As a result, a UNESCO-led international call to rescue the endangered heritage was conducted between the 1950s and 1970s (Adams, 1977). 59 expeditions from 20 countries conducted archaeological surveys, excavations, and restorations within the Lake Nasser area. Despite such a huge effort, only 52% of the flooded area was surveyed including 1753 sites doomed by the dam (Marchetti et al., 2019). Of these, only 27% (476) were excavated, and less than 6% (100) were restored. Despite these numbers, both scientific and popular literature welcomed international collaboration as an enormous success. Large space was given to 22 (out of 100) major monuments, saved and relocated by the teams of the UNESCO Nubia Campaign, including Abu Simbel, Philae, Dendur, and Ellesya (Gfeller & Eisenberg, 2016). It is only recently that critical evaluations of the narratives and strategies behind UNESCO’s initiative (Hassan, 2007; Meskell, 2018), together with detailed assessments on the impact of the dam on cultural heritage (Marchetti et al., 2019), have highlighted the limits of that rescue season.

Framing the damage Once the drivers have triggered the construction of dams, these may cause four main types of damage to archaeological sites and monuments. In the following sections, we present them from the most to the least destructive.

Archaeological sites completely flooded by the water reservoirs The complete flooding of cultural heritage is the most widespread type of damage. Depending on the size and height of the archaeological remains of a site, this process can be completed in a few days or several months. Both negative and positive effects of this major damage can 151

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be compared to most of the issues related to underwater archaeology (Hamilton, 1999). In the case of dams, these effects have been well illustrated by Lenihan (1981) and Stammitti (2014), who underlined, for example, the multiple chemical and biological damage (e.g., floral growth or water pressure) as well as in some cases potential preservative effects of the water reservoirs (e.g., water logging). It must also be pointed out how these types of damage may have different effects according to the various parts of the reservoir, such as in the basin, along the shoreline, or in the drawdown area (Lenihan, 1981; Stammitti, 2014). Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers about 97.5% of the archaeological sites affected by dams have been fully submerged (Marchetti et al., 2020). A similar trend has also been observed along the Nile River, where 98% of the sites went underwater (Marchetti et al., 2019).

Archaeological sites partially flooded by the water reservoirs and subjected to erosion Based on its position or height, an archaeological site or monument may not be submerged after the reservoir is filled. This type of damage varies from dam to dam. For example, although in the Ataturk dam area, only 1.5% of the sites have been partially submerged, a few kilometres down-river, in the Birecik and Karkemish Dams, respectively, 10% and 75% of the sites have suffered partial damage and are now subject to erosion by water in the reservoir (Marchetti et al., 2020). In most cases, this type of damage affects sites along the new banks of the water reservoir. This is the case of Zeugma, a Roman city along the Euphrates River that was partially submerged by the Birecik Dam reservoir between 15 June and 27 August 2000, where rescue excavations were undertaken until the very last moments (Aylward, 2013). In other cases, the site may be located in the centre of the reservoir, but due to the height of the mound, its uppermost part still emerges. Among the numerous examples, the ancient city of Samosata was an important centre in the upper Euphrates valley, whose lower city and part of the acropolis were submerged in the 1990s by Lake Ataturk (Marchetti et al., 2020). Other examples between Turkey and Syria include the sites of Ta şlı Geçit Höyük, partially submerged by the Tahtaköprü Dam (Marchetti, 2012), or the medieval castle of Qal’at Jabbar in the Tabqa Dam (van Loon, 1967). In all cases, the continuous erosion and abrasion from the waves, the fluctuating water levels, water logging, and floral growth cause the removal of archaeological deposits over the long term (Stammitti, 2014).

Total or partial damage caused by dam infrastructure Somewhat rarer are the archaeological sites damaged or destroyed, not due to flooding but following the construction of the infrastructure related to the dam. Among the few reported cases are some examples of the Karkemish Dam in Turkey (Kum Oçağı) and the Tabqa Dam in Syria (El Qitar). In both cases, several sites were almost completely destroyed during the excavation for the foundations of the infrastructure buildings (Marchetti et al., 2020).

Heritage monument relocation and de-contextualisation The relocation of heritage monuments deemed of great cultural significance worldwide is a widespread practice carried out during the construction of dams from the Mediterranean to China (Ponseti & López-Pujol, 2006; Aykan, 2018). Although it is carried out to prevent the 152

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destruction of monuments that are completely or almost completely preserved, this action also raises two types of concerns. The first regards the actors in charge of the selection of the heritage monuments to be saved and relocated. In the majority of cases, such as the Zhangfei temple in the Three Gorges Dam area of China (Ponseti & López-Pujol, 2006), this selection remains in the hand of institutional bodies and heritage experts, while only rarely are local communities also involved in the decision-making process. The relocation of heritage monuments and places must include those deemed significant by the communities affected by the dams (and beyond) in order to contribute to the preservation of their traditions and rituals. The second relevant issue is the de-contextualisation of the monuments. De-contextualisation may have different negative effects on numerous actors. For archaeologists, the context is crucial to properly reconstruct the history of a place. For local communities, the place in which a monument is located may be as meaningful as the monument itself or their relevance may be intertwined. Therefore, they cannot be separated. One example is the relocation of the medieval minaret of Hasankeyf (Aykan, 2018), still in use and de-localised following the construction of the Ilısu Dam, against the wishes of a large part of the local population. Even more extreme is perhaps the case of the total de-contextualised areas of the temples of Dendur, Taffeh, and Ellesya, originally in the Aswan Dam area, donated respectively to the MET in New York, the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, and the Egyptian Museum in Turin (Gfeller & Eisenberg, 2016).

Ways forward: Mitigating the impact of dams on cultural heritage The construction of dams represents one of the most dangerous types of damage to cultural heritage worldwide. In this chapter, we highlighted how the relevance of the drivers and the supposed benefits brought by dams overshadow the massive damage, eventually limiting the development of tailor-made strategies to avoid or mitigate them. While recent studies have laid the foundation for more effective and detailed action plans and integrated top-down (national and international institutions and researchers) and bottom-up (the local communities) initiatives (Shoup, 2006; Cunliffe et al., 2012b; Marchetti et al., 2020), it is necessary to develop and implement shared and efficient protocols to protect archaeological sites and monuments from the fury of dams. In particular, we would stress here two key directions to take for tackling this issue: 1 (Top-down) improving legislation to protect cultural heritage at risk at national and international levels. In this regard, the earliest international attempts to outline efficient policies (UNESCO, 1968; UNESCO (1972). Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Paris, UNESCO; Council of Europe (1992). European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage. European Treaty Series No. 143. Valletta) provided only general definitions and guidelines. National legislation and the degree of their application can be highly variable, as in the case of Turkey (Komurcu, 2002; Marchetti et al., 2020) and Iraq (Zaina, 2019), though their analysis is beyond the scope of this paper. The delay in recognising the impact of dams on archaeological sites and in developing specific policies to counteract this phenomenon is also underlined by the few regulations issued by some of the main funding bodies such as the World Bank (1986; 2006; 2017), the International Monetary Fund (Komurcu, 2002), and the World Commission on Dams (Brandt & Hassan, 2000). Therefore, it is crucial to develop specific protocols and guidelines including commitments, objectives, costs, and timelines. 153

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2 (Bottom-up) community engagement in decision-making. As already pointed out above, the priorities of heritage experts and their authorised heritage discourse (Smith, 2006) often clash with the necessities and hopes of local communities towards heritage preservation and enhancement. In the case of dams, by involving local people in the overall decision-making through tailor-made community archaeology programs (Atalay, 2012), a more comprehensive understanding of whether to build the dams and what to preserve, leave or relocate in terms of heritage according to everyone’s needs, could be reached. One major shift must be that rescue archaeological activities should not be perceived as a mere action aimed at saving heritage that will otherwise be destroyed by the construction of infrastructure (UNESCO, 1968). Rather, it must be considered as part of the decision-making process when projects are still designed. Finally, one may ask what happens when a site has been flooded. To our knowledge, almost no archaeological site has received attention after its complete flooding in a dam. A solution to make sites accessible underwater has been put in place at Bahieliang, submerged by the Three Gorges dam in China but protected by an arch-shaped pressure-free water container and accessed by tourists through two tunnels (Cohn & Dennis, 2011; Pizzinato & Beltrame, 2012). Investigation of submerged sites could be done by applying underwater archaeological excavation methodologies (Bowens, 2011). However, these initiatives generally require large funds and on-purchase technical devices. Our hope for the future is that the greater accessibility of these technologies will be possible, allowing a systematic documentation of sites even when submerged by dams.

Acknowledgements This chapter stems from the work carried out by the unit of the University of Bologna, working on the impact of dams on cultural heritage directed by Nicolò Marchetti, within the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 JPI project HeAT. Heritage and Threat (2015–2018), coordinated by Ingolf Thuesen (University of Copenhagen). The fieldwork and data collection in Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt was financially supported by the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGSP directorate – 6th Office), and the EU-funded project EDUU – Education and Cultural Heritage Enhancement for Social Cohesion in Iraq (EuropAid CSOLA/2016/382-631). More details on the dams and the flooded sites can be accessed at https://www.orientlab.net/orientdams/.

Notes 1 https://sites.google.com/site/saveculturalheritage/project-launch 2 https://www.orientlab.net/orientdams/ 3 https://eamena.org/article/dam-building 4 https://www.orientlab.net/orientdams/orientgis-map/

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Nicolò Marchetti and Federico Zaina ICOMOS. (2000). Heritage at Risk: ICOMOS World Report 2000 on Monuments and Sites in Danger. Paris: International Council on Monuments and Sites. IDMC. (2017). Global Report on Internal Displacement. Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Komurcu, M. (2002). Cultural heritage endangered by large dams and its protection under international law. Wisconsin International Law Journal 20, pp.233–296. Lenihan, D. The Final Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study; United States Department of Interior: Santa Fe, NM, USA, 1981; Volume 1. Lopez, P.J.M. (2016). Integrated Risk Assessment for Cultural Heritage Sites: A Holistic Support Tool for Decision-Making. PhD thesis. Lucca: IMT School for Advanced Studies. Marchetti, N. (2012). The Joint Turco-Italian excavations at Ta şlı Gecit Höyük. In: 33. kazı sonuçları toplantısı, 3. Cilt. Ankara: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, pp.531–546. Marchetti, N., Bitelli, G., Franci, F., and Zaina, F. (2020). Archaeology and dams in South-Eastern Turkey: Post-flooding damage assessment and safeguarding strategies on cultural heritage. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 33(1), pp.29–54. Marchetti, N., Curci, A., Gatto, M.C., Mühl, S., Nicolini, S., and Zaina, F. (2019). A multi-scalar approach for assessing the impact of dams on the cultural heritage in the Middle East and North Africa. Journal of Cultural Heritage 37, pp.17–28. Meskell, L. (2018). A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Näser, C., and Kleinitz, C. (2012). The good, the bad and the ugly: a case study on the politicisation of archaeology and its consequences from northern Sudan. In: Kleinitz, C., and Näser, C. (eds.). Nihna nâs al-bahar – We are the people of the river (Meroitica 26). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp.269–304. Palumbo, G. (2000). Threats and Challenges to the Archaeological Heritage in the Mediterranean. In: Teutonico, J.M., and Palumbo, G. (eds). Management Planning for Archaeological Sites. Los Angeles, CA: The Getty Conservation Institute, pp.3–13. Pizzinato, C., and Beltrame, C. (2012). A project for the creation of an underwater archaeological park at Apollonia, Libya. International Journal of the Society of Underwater Technology 30(4), pp.217–224. Ponseti, M., and López-Pujol, J. (2006). The Three Gorges Dam project in China: history and consequences. HMiC: Història Moderna i Contemporània 4, pp.151–188. Ronayne, M. (2006). Archaeology against cultural destruction: the case of the Ilısu dam in the Kurdish region of Turkey. Public Archaeology 5(4), pp.223–236. Shen, C. (2000). Mission Impossible: Archaeology of the Three Gorges Reservoir, China. In: Brandt, S., and Hassan, F. (eds). WCD Working Papers: Dams and Cultural Heritage Management, Final Report August 2000. Cape Town: World Commission on Dams Secretariat, pp.53–58. Shoup, D. (2006). Can archaeology build a dam? Sites and politics in Turkey’s southeast Anatolia project. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19, pp.231–258. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Stammitti, E. (2014). Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Policy, Application and Effect of Legislation Concerning Archaeological Sites in Reservoirs, and Implications for Future Reservoir Works and Site Monitoring. PhD thesis. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. Stovel, H. (1998). Risk Preparedness: A Management Manual for World Cultural Heritage. Rome: ICCROM. Strzepek, K.M., Yohe, G.W., Tol, R.S.J., and Rosegrant, M.W. (2008). The value of the high Aswan dam to the Egyptian economy. Ecological Economics 66, pp.117–126. Terminski, B. (2014). Development-induced displacement and resettlement: Causes, consequences, and socio-legal context. New York: Columbia University Press. Turkmen, N., Aslan, M., and Duzenli, A. (2005). Floristic characters of the Karkamış Dam reservoir area and its surroundings (Gaziantep-Sanliurfa: Turkey). Biodiversity and Conservation 14, pp.291–297. UNESCO. (1968). Recommendation Concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered by Public or Private Works. Paris: UNESCO. ——— (2008). Enhancing Our Heritage Toolkit: Assessing management effectiveness of natural world heritage sites. Paris: UNESCO. ——— (2010). Managing Disaster Risks for World Heritage. World Heritage Resource Manual. Paris: UNESCO. van Loon, M.N. (1967). The Tabqa Reservoir Survey 1964. Damascus: Direction Generale des Antiquités et des Musées. White, G.F. (1988). The environmental effects of the high dam at Aswan. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 30, pp.4–40.

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12 ON DESTRUCTION IN ART AND FILM Stacy Boldrick

Introduction: The destruction of art, and in art Artists who deface, dismantle, or destroy artworks, or use destructive actions in their practice, have long been critical contributors to avant-garde and experimental art movements. In the late nineteenth century, destruction as a revolutionary creative force gained a critical vocabulary in the writings of philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, who, in Twilight of the Idols, called for the destruction of the art of the past and its replacement with the art of the present and future, an idea embraced by early twentieth-century artists such as  Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Hannah Höch (Nietzsche, 1899; Nochlin, 1995; Spieker, 2017). Over the course of the twentieth century, as destructive acts became an established part of artistic practice, actions directed specifically towards artworks most often aligned with critiques of authority: critiques of symbolic images of political regimes, contested ideologies, and ideas around the aura of the work of art. As a result, in art historical scholarship, certain artworks have become canonical examples of destruction in art practice – icons of iconoclasm (image breaking) – including, for example, Duchamp’s LHOOQ (1919) and Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953); in the 1960s, Gustav Metzger’s acid paintings and Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece; later, Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995), and Pippilotti Rist’s Ever Is Over All (1997), and others (Boldrick, 2020). In these artworks, acts of destruction take diverse forms, with artists’ rationales arising from significantly different ideological, social, political, and personal contexts. As both a field and an area of artistic practice, the destruction of art is often understood to refer to actions leading to the complete material loss of an artwork, but its scope is much wider than this (Gamboni, 2013). As subjects of study, destruction in art and the destruction of art encompass the survival and legacy of defaced or dismantled artworks and any other material remains from destructive events and the representation of destructive acts, which can take several forms, including as documented performances capturing live acts of destruction in the process (Bowman, 2021). From defaced statues to fragments of artworks, damaged artworks have the potential to be shocking and unsettling. The sensational nature of these subjects can lead to viewers misunderstanding the rationale for making the artwork and its specific circumstances of production (Beech, 2006). 158

DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-14

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This chapter reviews a selection of artists and others who work with destruction in art and film and the ideological positions associated with destructive actions in art practice. After a brief review of the literature, I approach the subject in three sections. First, I address the origins of destructive practices in early twentieth-century avant-garde art-making and survey its manifestations from the 1960s. Next, I consider the representation of destruction in contemporary art and film. Finally, I explore the roles contested art objects and their destruction play in forms of artistic practice, ranging from those informed by anti-consumerism, feminism, and social justice movements, aesthetic antagonism, the artist’s own cultural identity, and the longer histories of colonisation and more contemporary forces of globalisation. As a comprehensive history is beyond the scope of this contribution, this chapter is selective and partial in its introduction to the field, situating the subject in relation to art and heritage destruction and identifying a limited number of artists representative of the field. This selection aims simply to serve as a starting point for those new to the subject. Many contemporary artists explore destruction at some point in their practice. The artists discussed in this chapter have a longstanding dedication to destruction in practice and have made a substantial impact in the field through major international exhibitions and art historical scholarship. Studies of destruction in modern and contemporary art practice appear in edited volumes on iconoclasm, monographs on individual artists, specialist analyses of specific movements or groups of artists, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues. Two key art historical texts to address destruction in art and iconoclasm were David Freedberg’s The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (1989) and Dario Gamboni’s Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (1997) (Warnke, 1973; Freedberg, 1989; Gamboni, 1997/2018; Bredekamp, 2010; Boldrick, 2020). In the 1980s, when the subjects and methodologies of art history were expanding, Freedberg looked beyond the (then) narrow concerns of art history to focus on a wide array of positive, negative, and ambiguous relationships between historic artworks and their viewers, particularly within the contexts of religious ritual, phenomenological experience, and psychological impact on individuals and groups. By contrast, Gamboni specifically reviewed acts of damage and iconoclasm from the eighteenth century up to the contemporary period, encompassing both the destruction of art and destruction in art through thematic categorical analysis. Significantly, Gamboni also contributed to the major exhibition and scholarly project led by Bruno Latour, Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art, which opened up destruction in art and iconoclasm to broad chronological and geographical interdisciplinary enquiry (Latour & Weibel, 2002). Iconoclash raised questions around the ethics, ambivalence, and ambiguity of violent actions towards images and objects, along with their use in artistic practice. Over the past decade, other exhibition projects contextualised destruction in art in specific historic periods and North Atlantic geographies, with Ravaged: Art and Culture in Times of Conflict exploring First World War destruction; Damage Control: Art and Destruction since 1950 focusing on the Cold War period; and Art under Attack addressing iconoclasm in Britain up to the present (Barber & Boldrick, 2013; Brougher, 2013; Tollebeek & van Assche, 2014). Some scholars pursued the destruction of art and in art as part of iconoclasm studies, defining terms and expanding iconoclasm as a field (Boldrick & Clay, 2007/2017; Simpson, 2010). Other books and edited volumes examining destruction in modern and contemporary art, literature, and film, and relevant theoretical and artistic writings on destruction in art, offer useful starting points to explore this diverse, under-researched topic (Hlavajova et al., 2009; Lütticken, 2009; Mundy, 2013; Walden, 2013; Stiles, 2016; Spieker, 2017; Stapleton & Viselli, 2019). Digital platforms such as the Gallery of Lost Art (2012–2013) and the Archive of Destruction (2021) provide useful tools for research, networking destruction in art by categorising types 159

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of events, associated artists, and materials (Gallery of Lost Art, 2012; Mundy, 2013; Fernie, 2021). However, the field remains fragmented and myopic, in need of more interdisciplinary collaboration and geographically expansive critical analyses of destruction in art, including further study of the relationship between destructive practices and representations of destruction in artistic practice.

Destruction in art practice: Origins and forms By the early twentieth century, several European artists and artists’ groups aligned with Nietzsche’s call for the destruction of art in their manifestos (Gamboni, 1997; Danchev, 2011/2018). Degrees of violence and anti-traditionalism, the sweeping away of old art forms and practices, were foundational to modern avant-garde art movements such as futurism, constructivism, cubism, vorticism, and dada. These movements pursued representations of destruction and destructive practices such as collage (in the work of Hannah Höch and John Heartfield) and fragmentation (in cubist and futurist painting, and abstraction generally), practices which extended to writing and design in print publications (Adamowicz, 2011). Dada particularly embraced destruction, deconstruction, and the fragment in all art forms, including poetry, publication design, film and photography, painting, and sculpture (Ades et al., 1999). A collaborator with several dada artists, Marcel Duchamp explored destructive practices in his concept of the readymade, already made mass-produced everyday objects, from postcards to bicycle wheels, which he selected and displayed to reject the aura of canonical artworks (Iversen, 2004; De Duve, 2005). The readymades included the repositioned urinal Fountain (1917) and artworks such as LHOOQ  (1919), a postcard of the Mona Lisa with an added moustache and beard, and the reciprocal readymade, which took the form of a conceptual call to “use a Rembrandt as an ironing board” in Green Box (1934) (Duchamp et al., 1975; Gamboni, 1997/2018; Judovitz, 2010). Material damage appeared in Duchamp’s artistic practice when his painting on glass, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–1923), was accidentally broken in transit eight years after it was made. As an artist who featured chance events in his practice, Duchamp incorporated the accident into the making of the artwork, proclaiming that the break itself completed the work (Ades et al., 1999). In the second half of the twentieth century, destructive actions emerged as part of artistic practice for many artists worldwide. In the wake of First and Second World War destruction, devastated cities and landscapes, and Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation, Gustav Metzger proposed an approach to art which recognised destructive acts as forces which could be “turned in on themselves, both to stimulate a creative physical and material change in a particular work and also in a broad sense to reflect the possibility for moral change in the world” (Wilson, 2013 p.144). Metzger interrogated material value in his Auto-Destructive art manifestos (from 1958) and acid paintings in the early 1960s, activities that were informed by his political activism in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Stiles, 1992; Wilson, 2013; Watts, 2021). In 1966, Metzger founded the Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), a three-day symposium in London which expanded into a larger network of artists, scientists, scholars, and psychoanalysts from ten countries (Stiles, 1992; Wilson, 2013). Although many DIAS artists made works that were performative, time-based, and ephemeral, their range of rationales varied as much as their material forms: John Latham burned books and ingested them to explore destruction through temporal change; Raphael Montańez Ortiz took an axe to a piano and chair to express his ideas about cyclical, creative destruction; and Yoko Ono presented audience members with scissors to cut into her dress, to address subtraction and 160

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loss, violence and fragility in Cut Piece (1964) (Stiles, 1992). Beyond DIAS, in the 1950s and 1960s, many artists and collectives incorporated violent forms of destruction into their practice, including the Gutai group (from 1954); Fluxus; Niki de Saint Phalle, who shot paint at canvases using guns; Jean Tinguley, who made self-destructing kinetic sculptures; and Lucio Fontana, who slashed canvas in his cut paintings (Stiles, 1992; Gamboni, 1997/2018; Wilson, 2013). In the 1970s and 1980s, artists continued to incorporate into their work deliberately broken or damaged materials as well as using found detritus as a way of challenging social, political, and aesthetic conventions. The Ghanian artist El Anatsui explored “decay, break up, dilapidation” (Anatsui & Oguibe, 1993 p.39) by deliberately breaking objects and reusing broken objects in sculptures, not in order to repair original objects but to transform them into a newly regenerated state, as in the monumental wall sculpture Gravity and Grace (2010), made from twisted and folded bottle tops, indirect references to alcohol’s contribution to colonialism (Anatsui & Oguibe, 1993; Okeke-Agulu, 2015). Olu Oguibe defined the artist’s practice in the concept of the “indelible trace, the preserved fragment which ‘survive[s] all destruction to provide a foundation and a tenor for rebirth and growth’” (Oguibe, 1998 p.53). From the mid-1970s, Howardena Pindell began to incorporate into her practice “processes of construction/destruction/reconstruction” (Sims, 2018 p.94). These processes have been consistent threads in her abstract paintings made from punched, numbered paper holes, such as Untitled #4 (1973), as well as performatively, in her film Free White and 21 (1980) and in more figurative works made from mixed media, such as Separate but Equal: Apartheid (1987), with its studded canvas bearing an open, stitched gash and words such as disappearances and endless labour in black tape on black paint. A Black American artist, Pindell uses destructive practices to make two very different bodies of work, artworks that offer release through abstraction and colour, and artworks that critique racial and political injustice through representations of brutality, trauma, and violence (Sims, 2018; Bradley, 2021). As destruction in art practice became more established in all media, approaches and effects diversified. In film and image projection, artists subjected to damage the medium itself (film strips and transparencies) to draw attention to its material elements and to interrupt its representational mode, as for example, through the melting of slides in the 1966 slide presentation Projections by Mark Boyle and Joan Hills, and in the scratched, scraped film strip featuring a Paul Nash painting in Our Magnolia (2009) by Rosalind Nashashibi and Lucy Skaer (Wilson, 2013; Holman, 2019). In installation and performance, destructive actions can be spectacular and transitory, as in Cai Guo-Qiang’s explosion projects, such as Black Rainbow: Explosion Project for Edinburgh (made from 1400 3-inch black smoke shells exploding over Edinburgh Castle, 29 July 2005, 7:00 p.m., 3 minutes), or gradual and meditative, as in Anya Gallaccio’s ephemeral installations involving decay such as Preserve “Beauty” (1991/2003) (Guo-Qiang, 2005; Hasegawa, 2005; Bryson et al., 2012) (Figure 12.1). As forms of material practice with several sub-fields, ephemeral art and destruction in art are too varied to present comprehensively, but this selection demonstrates their range of approaches and effects, from dramatic spectacle to more detached, methodical, systematic approaches.

Representations of destruction in art Additionally, artists may represent destruction itself to critique institutions, political regimes, the ravages of war, historical periods, or artistic practice. These can take the form of images of the aftermath of destructive acts or the representation of destruction itself, subjects which have occupied artists since well before the twentieth century, in the form of ruin, spectacle, 161

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Figure 12.1 Cai Guo-Qiang, Black Rainbow: Explosion Project for Edinburgh, 2005. Source: Courtesy the artist and the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. Photograph by Gary Doak 2005.

or fragment (Nochlin, 1995). A limited number of artists representing different categories of artwork are reviewed here. In the modern and contemporary periods, many artists have used photography and film to represent acts of destruction in wartime, either in a single historic moment or as they unfold over time, often straddling the genres of art and documentation. Commissioned by the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, Shōmei Tōmatsu’s 1961 photographs included portraits of injured survivors from the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as damaged material objects such as Wristwatch Stopped at 11.02, August 9, 1945, Nagasaki and Statue of an Angel Shattered by the Atomic Bomb at Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki (Brougher, 2013; Stiles, 2016). In CROSSROADS (1976), the artist Bruce Conner collaged together footage from the 1945 atomic tests on Bikini Atoll and presented them in extreme slow motion over 37 minutes (Hatch, 2016). More recently, in Atomic, Living in Dread and Promise (2015) Mark Cousins incorporated historic documentary footage from around the world to explore images of atomic power and devastation and its human and ecological impact before and after the Second World War. The moving image and sculpture come together in Piers Secunda’s series of works responding to the widely disseminated video of IS1 smashing sculptures at the Mosul Museum in 2018 (Tugendhaft, 2020). The artist’s IS Damage Paintings (2018), sculptures cast from both intact and damaged Assyrian relief sculptures, were exhibited alongside the IS video in the Imperial War Museum’s 2019 exhibition What Remains (also included was work by Morehshin Allahyari) (What Remains, 2019). For many ephemeral artworks, only photographs survive. For example, in response to living under an authoritarian regime which was conducting covert arrests and disappearing 162

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its citizens, Artur Barrio made his Trouxas Ensanguentadas (Bloody Bundles or Situationes, 1969– 1970s), which only functioned as artworks when they were encountered, and no longer survive (Maroja, 2014). Placed by the artist on public roads and intended to disturb the order of life in comfortable neighbourhoods in Brazil, the objects were made of blood, bones, meat, excrement, and other refuse wrapped in wastepaper, stinking and repulsive, referencing acts of bodily violence that the regime was trying to conceal at the time (Shtromberg, 2016). The Trouxas can be understood as “an index of the experience of extreme circumstance, when human life is disposable” (Maroja, 2014 p.26). In contrast with Barrio’s use of artworks as disturbing encounters, the ephemeral nature of public monumental installations can call for additional permutations of artworks (Boldrick, 2018). Artists working in this field often recognise preparatory studies and post-installation documentation as artworks in themselves so that they can become surrogates for the original lost artwork. For example, Doris Salcedo made preparatory digital drawings for her 2007 installation Shibboleth, as the original work no longer exists; now, in Tate’s collection, these images are recognised by Salcedo as artworks (White, 2014). Installed in the monumental space of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, Shibboleth consisted of a colossal crack resembling a geological fault line in the floor. Salcedo described Shibboleth as an artwork representing “colonial and imperial history [that] has been disregarded, marginalised or simply obliterated … the history of racism, running parallel to the history of modernity” (Herbert, 2007 p.2; White, 2014, online). In Salcedo’s critique of Western modernity, imperialism, global inequity, racism, and modern art, this work proposes to viewers immersion in an environmental catastrophe to expose the world’s fractured divisions, consequences of colonisation, and globalisation. Other representations of destruction can be conceptual or metaphorical, appearing in modern and contemporary artworks in place of images of material violence. In their powerful film Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues also die) (1953), Chris Marker and Alain Renais presented an essay on the West’s historic and ongoing destruction of African sculpture and culture wrought through colonialism, imperialism, and racism. Its opening lines identify the museum as the place where statues die, appropriated and isolated from their cultural contexts and functions: “When men die, they enter into history. When statues die, they enter art. This botany of death is what we call culture” [translation from French] (Marker & Ashby, 2013 p.431). Commissioned by the journal Présence Africaine, the film was banned for a decade for its criticism of French colonialism, but its legacy remains influential for artists and restitution campaigns (Lebovics, 2021). A more recent work that surveys global destruction and its consequences through the subject of African cultural heritage is John Akomphrah’s Four Nocturnes (2019), an immersive three-channel (three-screen) film exploring the destruction of nature and humanity and the histories of slavery and colonialism through the movements of migrants and the decline of elephant populations (Four Nocturnes, 2019). Weaving together wildlife films and archival footage alongside his own, Akomphrah presents a landscape indicative of the “darkening of the world, as relentless and unstoppable as the dust storm that rolls in from horizon to horizon at one point in the work, obliterating everything” (Searle, 2021, online). A bricolage of images of beauty and horror appears in the sublime panoramic views of the natural environment, juxtaposed with documentary evidence of subjugation, violence, and murder, fragmenting and blurring the narrative of loss and mortality. Images of statue depositions and deposed monuments have long been subjects for artists, photographers, and filmmakers, from Pierre Jahan with his 1946 project La Mort et les Statues and Laura Mulvey’s and Mark Lewis’s film of Soviet monument graveyards, Disgraced Monuments (1994), to the sculptures and painted photographs of Hew Locke and the mixed 163

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media works of Liane Lang (Baker, 2007; Boldrick & Clay, 2007; Dziedzic et al., 2019; Boldrick, 2020). With Iconoclasm (2018/2019), a series of large-scale pencil drawings of documentary photographs of historic monument depositions, Sam Durant aimed to bring images of deposed monuments to public spaces in Detroit neighbourhoods. Although firmly fixed, the surfaces of the drawings themselves remained exposed to the elements, unprotected by glass (Nickleson, 2020). The artist’s decision to make their exposure part of his process of making the works invited graffiti and tagging, but no marks were left (although one work was stolen) (Durant, 2020). In their current states, the drawings can be understood as objects that operated as new kinds of public monuments themselves, sharing public space with its viewers and the fabric of the city. Durant makes historic images of iconoclasm contemporary. Narratives of loss and rebuilding, and movement forwards and backwards in time, feature in Mariam Ghani’s A Brief History of Collapses (2012). Two screens take the viewer on parallel journeys through two neo-classical buildings: one a rebuilt former ruin devastated by Second World War air raids, Simon Louis du Ry’s 1779 Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany; and the other in a state of dilapidation, Walter Harten’s 1929 Dar ul-Aman Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan (Ghani, 2012; Scharrer, 2012). Originally commissioned for dOCUMENTA (13) and shown simultaneously in Kabul and Kassel, the work is part of a series of projects Notes on Collapse, focusing on “recursive cycles of war, trauma, collapse, and recovery” (Ghani, 2012 online; Recchia, 2015). The work comparatively addresses the two buildings’ historical contexts and uses, as well as their temporal and cyclical trajectories, with the restored building proposing a potential future for the other and the ruined building representing a past and potential future for both. Representations of destruction that are exhibited as artworks can also possess legal and political characteristics and purposes beyond the artworld. Destruction appears in the form of redaction and verbal dislocation in Steve McQueen’s video project End Credits (2012– ongoing), which takes as its subject Paul Robeson, the actor, Civil Rights activist, and singer, and his blacklisting and surveillance by the FBI over the last thirty years of his life (Kim & Moran, 2020). Five hours of heavily redacted and annotated declassified documents roll like end credits of a film while excerpts from the documents are read out of sync with the images. By contrast, Eyal Weizman’s research agency Forensic Architecture uses architectural evidence to reconstruct and analyse violent events using “digital and physical models, animations, virtual reality environments, and cartographic platforms” (Forensic Architecture, 2021 online). It makes artworks exhibited at Tate Modern (the agency was also a Turner Prize nominee) and The Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), artworks that have also served as evidence in UN assemblies and truth commissions (Forensic Architecture, 2021; Cloud Studies Forensic Architecture, 2021). The capturing and analysis of specific destructive events and evidence are emerging as significant subjects for artists in this field.

Destruction of art in contemporary art practice This section surveys approaches to the destruction of works of art and heritage in artistic practice, focusing on artists who take action to dismantle or deface works of art and/or heritage made by other artists or themselves. These responses to historic artworks or cultural artefacts take figurative and abstract forms. Some of the dominant practices examined here include documented performances of the destruction of artworks or heritage objects; defacing artworks (originals or reproductions); and recycling original artworks or reusing fragments of damaged artworks to make new ones. Motivations for recalibrating representations lie in feminism and social justice movements, as well as in the artist’s own cultural identity and in 164

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a desire for aesthetic change. Many artists view their destructive actions towards artworks as transformative corrections or amendments, as responses to the artwork’s associations with colonialism, imperialism, consumerism, misogyny, and materialism, and other forms of violence, loss, or erasure. Documented performances of destruction bring together the intact and broken artwork. Ai Weiwei’s well-known Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995) consists of three photographs of the stages of the process of destruction: the artist releasing the urn; the urn hitting the ground; and it smashing (see the cover of this handbook). The viewer can see the urn intact and destroyed, and the moment of destruction, and is able to reverse the process by looking at the series backwards. Ai uses Neolithic vases, ancient but not particularly rare in China, in works such as Dust to Dust, in which porcelain vases were ground to dust, and in the installation Colour Vases (2006), in which he painted 50 Neolithic vases in brightly coloured industrial paint. Dropping has been discussed as an artwork that aims to “replicate the Cultural Revolution practices of destroying traditional religious and cultural objects in order to ‘shatter superstition’” (Sorace, 2014 p.402), centring the struggle of ordinary people over the notion of cultural heritage protection, through Ai’s “unsentimental gaze into the emptiness of the culture industry” (Sorace, 2014 p.403). As suggested by Sorace, Ai’s approach to destruction has been misunderstood by Western academics as simply pro-democratic, although it is firmly rooted in the context of Chinese cultural politics and ideas around corrections (Kee, 2017; see also González Zarandona, in this volume). Another significant artist for whom damage and destruction of artworks includes performance is Michael Landy, first recognised for Break Down (2001), in which he and a team methodically inventoried, dismantled, and granulated all 7227 of his personal belongings in a former department store in London’s shopping mecca, Oxford Street. The act of taking his possessions apart and using waste reclamation facilities to reduce them to their original materials in a place which usually sells commodities subverted the ideology of consumerism at a time when it remained unquestioned in mainstream culture. In Break Down (2001), a project supported by the public art commissioning body Artangel, Landy destroyed 397 artworks by himself and artist friends including Tracey Emin, Anya Gallaccio, and Gary Hume (Landy, 2001; Landy & Lingwood, 2008). Anti-consumerism and anti-materialism have continued in his work. In another Artangel project, the public installation Art Bin (2010), Landy invited the public to throw all their artistic failures and unwanted art into a large communal skip (Landy & Lampert, 2016). By 2018, recycling rather than landfill took precedence in Landy’s series Scaled Down, which involved crushing leftover materials from installations made over the course of his career and transforming them into sculptures (Boldrick, 2020). An industrial waste compaction unit reduced the materials to cube shapes which were displayed on the floor, a reference to minimalist sculptures. Artists treating their own artworks as materials for reuse is a longstanding established practice that often only registers as a subject when the original artwork acquires value or an aura. In the second half of the twentieth century, drawings and paintings were especially well-known targets for artists who destroyed them in different ways, for example, Lee Krasner made collages out of them; John Baldessari cremated them; and Susan Hiller burned and exhibited them. Although in itself a representation of the destruction of art rather than the destruction of original artworks, in their montage film The Art (2015), artist Tracey Moffatt and collaborator Gary Hillberg bring together actions against art and art-making in a critique of the art world and its humorous and violent conventions and mythologies (Clark, 2017). Another established practice is the inclusion and reuse of discarded or broken historic sculptures and their fragments in installations and sculpture. Although the Iraqi-American 165

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artist Michael Rakowitz remakes lost historic artworks out of a wide range of materials, he also incorporates original objects and fragments into his projects. The results of one significant project took the form of an installation located in a building bombed in the Second World War and rebuilt, the Fridericianum in Kassel (Germany). Commissioned for the 2012 international exhibition dOCUMENTA (13) based in Kassel, Rakowitz’s installation What Dust Will Rise? (2012) juxtaposed several different groups of fragments, including fragments of the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban alongside rubble from bombed English houses fired in Second World War air raids targeting Kassel (Rakowitz, 2012). The artist showed these fragments alongside newly carved stone books (replicas of Hesse-Kassel State Library manuscripts damaged or destroyed in Kassel in 1941) made in Bamiyan stone-carving workshops led by sculptor Abbas Allah Dad and conservator Bert Praxenthaler (Rakowitz, 2012). The stone books can be understood as a translation of the original undamaged manuscripts into a new material form, but for Rakowitz they are also a response to the acts of destruction wrought on all the fragments in the vitrines, an attempt to suture the wounds of the damaged manuscripts with objects made from the same materials as that of the destroyed Buddhas (Blazwick, 2019). Alternatively, when removed from their original contexts and not acquired and catalogued by museums, broken objects may enter an unregulated or precarious market or private collections, eventually becoming acquired and reused by artists. Like What Dust Will Rise?, Kader Attia’s large-scale installation The Repair from Occident to Extra-Occidental Cultures (2012) incorporates museological display methods in its presentation of a collection of fragments, but it focuses more directly on imperialist European and Indigenous attitudes to corporeal and material repair, particularly in the context of war (Lapp, 2014; Rugoff, 2019). By contrast, the artist Danh Vō makes sculptures out of materially and historically diverse sculptural fragments, binding them together as whole forms to propose artworks with new hybrid identities. In Ο Θεός μαύρο (2015) (“Oh Black God”), part of mothertongue, his 2015 Venice Biennale installation for the Danish Pavilion, Vō recalibrates medieval religious and classical forms and their meanings, undermining their original contexts by replacing them with new ones to estrange viewers and encourage close looking (Brinson, 2018). Rakowitz, Attia, and Vō use fragments resulting from diverse forms of damage and destruction spanning war, targeted iconoclasm, imperialism, and neglect in different ways, but their rationales all relate to their own specific cultural identities and foundational artistic practices. Often, a combination of aesthetic, political, and ideological factors contribute to artists altering artworks, and artists may or may not articulate their rationales in order to avoid overdetermining or simplifying the artwork’s meaning for the viewer. In 1981, David Hammons subjected Richard Serra’s monumental public sculpture TWA to two temporary artworks: in the illicit performance Pissed Off, he urinated on the sculpture, and in Shoe Tree, he threw pairs of tied shoes over it, bringing to the sculpture ordinary transgressive acts in a public space (Gamboni, 1997/2018; Filipovic, 2019; Aranke, 2020). His artworks have been interpreted as dada, anti-Minimalist, and as acts of defiance against the whiteness of the New York art world, with Hammons declining to label them (Schriber, 2019). In contrast, Jake and Dinos Chapman speak at length about their controversial permanent alterations to Goya prints and historic paintings, which they describe as antagonistic and collaborative, but ultimately “rectifying” as “amendments” (Baker, 2013/2018, p.175; Barber & Boldrick, 2013 p.166). Likewise, in her series Disgrace, Kate Davis recuperates published reproductions of Modigliani’s drawings of nude women (which she both admires and questions) by adding tracings of her own body parts to them, bringing to idealised bodies her own real one (Davis, 2010; Barber & Boldrick, 2013; Horne, 2015) (Figure 12.2). 166

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Figure 12.2 Kate Davis, Disgrace (V), 2012, pencil on found image, 30 × 21 cm. Courtesy the artist.

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For Titus Kaphar, his amendments are historically based corrections to hidden histories, such as the US President George Washington’s past as an owner of enslaved people (Kaphar, 2019). Kaphar’s practice transforms images of canonical early American paintings into artworks such as Shadows of Liberty (2017), in which he nails to an equestrian image of George Washington the names of enslaved people on shredded strips of canvas, echoing the form of the Congolese nkisi-nkondi (power figure) (Kaphar, 2019; Stanley, 2019). In his series Monumental Inversions (2016), Kaphar subverts the idea of sculptural commemoration of Washington and other idealised figures. He casts molten glass into wooden sculptural moulds to invert the conventional relationship between moulds and their cast objects, elevating the visibility and solidity of the charred moulds and the fragility of the cast forms, deconstructing both monument and monumentalism (Kaphar, 2019; Boldrick, 2020). Ruined monuments have also been reproduced and recalibrated by Raqs Media Collective (led by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta) in Coronation Park (2015), a series of nine sculptures of substantially defaced imperial monuments initially located in Coronation Park (1877) in Delhi, and later moved to New Delhi in the 1960s (McGarr, 2015; Griffiths & Green, 2017) (Figure 12.3). Plaques on the bases commemorate the hubris of Coronation Park, and titles such as Disfigured and Truncated all contribute to the larger purpose of the series, to demonstrate the

Figure 12.3 Raqs Media Collective, Coronation Park, 2015, nine fiberglass sculptures on bitumen coated wooden pedestals with acrylic polymer plaques, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artists, Frith Street Gallery (London), and the Whitworth (University of Manchester). Photograph by Michael Pollard 2017.

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“demise of the colonial project and subvert its legitimacy” and also to articulate and critique its continuing presence in formerly colonised countries (Khanchandani, 2018, online). Each presentation of Coronation Park, first in the Giardini at the Venice Biennale (2015) and later at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester (2017–2018), generated new audiences and new meanings for the sculptures (Raqs Media Collective, 2015; Boldrick, 2020). Thus, Raqs Media Collective’s use of iconoclasm and heritage destruction narratives reproduces the broken figures resulting from iconoclastic acts to place them in new aesthetic and geographical contexts, thereby expanding their associations with the violence of empire and recalibrating their status as transformative amendments to these historical events.

Conclusion This brief survey has addressed the destruction of art and destruction in art practice over the past century, identifying a selection of artists recognised in exhibitions and publications for their longstanding commitment to these areas and representative of a much larger field. Starting with the use of destructive practices in early twentieth-century European avantgarde art and more international and diverse artistic practices up to the 1960s, the chapter has also examined the representation of destruction in contemporary art and film, ending with an investigation into artists’ use of destruction and contested art objects and heritage sites to critique ideologies. Much of the work contends with histories of imperialism and colonisation, and other ideological positions that artists seek to critique. A comprehensive history of destruction in art and iconoclasm in artistic practice was beyond the scope of this contribution, which aimed to offer an introduction to a diverse and complex field. Likewise, in-depth analyses of only a few artworks or artists or a single academic hypothesis would limit understandings of the subject’s range of forms and practices. As this contribution notes, over the past half a century, many artists have come to respond to art and cultural heritage destruction narratives by exploring them as subjects in their practice to voice dissent and advance strategies of political, social, and/or cultural change. Many artists make artworks that incorporate or explore the most dramatic moments, endpoints, or the aftermath of art (and heritage) destruction narratives rather than taking as subjects the entire sequence of events. This focus on a single moment gives artists space to respond to the effects of destruction through their own practice. Responses to different forms of art and heritage destruction include those resulting from war and neglect, such as in Mariam Ghani’s A Brief History of Collapses, or responses once removed from the destruction of actual artworks or heritage sites which align with contemporary artistic and political debates around power structures, inequality, materiality, and consumption, such as in the work of Artur Barrio, Kate Davis, Michael Landy, Hew Locke, Titus Kaphar, Howardena Pindell, Raqs Media Collective, Doris Salcedo, and others. More specifically, artists such as Barrio, Kaphar, Pindell, Raqs Media Collective, and Salcedo make work that operates as a surrogate for political violence, associating material representations of violence with physical corporeal trauma. Some artists incorporate into projects heritage destruction events resulting from war or iconoclastic events from their own or other communities and cultures as part of a socially engaged practice (also called social practice and critical practice), working with social groups to respond to cultural destruction (Marstine, 2017). Of the artists included here, one significant example is Michael Rakowitz’s aforementioned project and installation What Dust Will Rise? (2012). The installation of fragments surviving iconoclasm placed in vitrines – of Bamiyan Buddha fragments, bomb-damaged medieval manuscripts, and other fragments, together with newly carved stone versions of the manuscripts placed uncovered on tables – resulted from Rakowitz 169

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bringing together archaeologists, artists, and curators from different countries who worked with Afghan artists to make the stone sculptures in 2012. The sharing of expertise and art-making activity from local and international communities enabled a carefully considered material, cultural, and aesthetic response to contexts of destruction, which resituates destruction within a wider historical narrative. On the glass cabinets, Rakowitz’s handwritten descriptions of the damaged fragments and quotations expressing iconoclastic rationales bring different voices to the material remains as survivals of the results of deliberate destructive actions. By incorporating collective art-making into the project, he also indirectly invokes the artists from the distant past who made the Buddhas and medieval manuscripts. Responding to loss and destruction with art-making can also be seen in Rakowitz’s project The invisible enemy should not exist (2007– ongoing), consisting of the remaking of 15,000 National Museum of Iraq artefacts stolen after Baghdad was taken by United States troops in 2003. Still, other artists, such as Durant, Locke, Raqs Media Collective, and artists responding to the altering or toppling of contested monuments, make artworks that take issue with the preservation of art and cultural heritage as part of their critiques of imperialism, colonialism, white supremacism, and dishonourable figures. The tendency for witnesses of iconoclastic events to generate and disseminate images gives artists representations of actual art destruction to work with, visual and textual sources which can inform their own imagined iconoclastic practices on paper, in paint, sculpture, installation, or film, as alternatives to putting historic art and cultural heritage at risk of substantial material damage. In many ways, narratives of cultural heritage destruction sit precariously and paradoxically in the field of destruction in/of art, with some of the artists drawn to such narratives bringing to their projects preservationist attitudes while at the same time working with destruction as a source for an action or practice. These artists recognise acts of historic iconoclasm not as events to document or reconstruct but rather as situations of contestation that they accept, interrogate, and understand so that they can remake them into something new.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Emma Cunliffe and José Antonio González Zarandona, Kate Davis, Nikolas Orr, and Alexander Williams for their responses to this chapter, although all errors remain mine.

Note 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

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On destruction in art and film Nochlin, L. (1995). The Body in Pieces: The Fragment as a Metaphor of Modernity. New York: Holt; Thames and Hudson. Oguibe, O. (1998). El Anatsui: Beyond death and nothingness. African Arts 31(1), pp.48–55, 96. Okeke-Agulu, C. (2015). Postcolonial Modernities: Art and Decolonization and Twentieth-Century Nigeria. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press. Rakowitz, M. (2012). What Dust Will Rise? Michael Rakowitz website. Available at: http://www. michaelrakowitz.com/what-dust-will-rise [Accessed: 2 September 2021]. Raqs Media Collective. (2015). All the World’s Futures, la Biennale di Venezia 56 th International Art Exhibition. Venice: Marsilio Editori, pp.24–25. Recchia, F. (2015). Aftermaths?: dOCUMENTA (13) in Kabul. Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry 40, pp.66–75. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/684217 [Accessed: 3 July 2021]. Rugoff, R. (ed). (2019). Kader Attia: Museum of Emotion. London: Hayward Gallery Publishing. Scharrer, E. (2012). Mariam Ghani. In: Scharrer, E. (ed). Documenta 13: The Guidebook = documenta (13): Das Begleitbuch. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, pp.70–71. Schriber, A. (2019). “Those who know don’t tell”: David Hammons c. 1981. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 29(1), pp.41–61. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2019.1571866 [Accessed: 5 May 2021]. Searle, A. (2021). Apocalypse Now: John Akomfrah’s The Unintended Beauty of Disaster, The Guardian, 15 April. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/apr/15/john-akomfrahthe-unintended-beauty-of-disaster-racism-colonialism-slavery [Accessed: 2 July 2021]. Shtromberg, E. (2016). Art Systems: Brazil and the 1970s. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Simpson, J. (2010). Under the Hammer: Iconoclasm in the Anglo-American Tradition. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Sims, L.S. (2018). Synthesis and Integration in the Work of Howardena Pindell, 1972–1992: A (Re) Consideration. Callaloo 41(1), pp.93–100. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2018.0025 [Accessed: 2 October 2021]. Sorace, C. (2014). China’s Last Communist: Ai Weiwei. Critical Inquiry 40(2), pp.396–419. Spieker, S. (2017). Introduction: The uses of destruction in contemporary art. In: Spieker, S. (ed). Destruction. London and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel Gallery; MIT Press, pp.14–25. Stanley, J. (2019). Theory + Practice: Titus Kaphar. Bomb 147(Spring), pp.81–88. Stapleton, R.F., and Viselli, A. (eds). (2019). Iconoclasm: The Breaking and Making of Images. Montreal; London: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Stiles, K. (1992). Survival ethos and destruction art. Discourse 14(2), pp.74–102. Stiles, K. (2016). Concerning Consequences: Studies in Art, Destruction, and Trauma. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Tollebeek, J., and van Assche, E. (eds). (2014). Ravaged: Art and Culture in Times of Conflict. Brussels: Mercatorfonds; Museum Leuven. Tugendhaft, A. (2020). The Idols of Isis: From Assyria to the Internet. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Walden, J. (2013). Art and Destruction. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Warnke, M. (1973). Bildersturm. Die Zersto r̈ ung des Kunstwerks. München: Carl Hanser. Watts, J.P. (2021). “Everything I learnt about activism I learnt in King’s Lynn”: Gustav Metzger’s formative years in King’s Lynn. British Art Studies 20( July), pp.1–86. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17658/ issn.2058-5462/issue-20/jwatts [Accessed: 29 September 2021]. What Remains. (2019). What Remains. Imperial War Museum website. Available at: https://www.iwm. org.uk/events/what-remains [Accessed: 2 September 2021]. White, C. (2014). Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth I, 2007. Tate website. Available at: https://www.tate.org. uk/art/artworks/salcedo-shibboleth-i-p20334 [Accessed: 29 April 2021]. Wilson, A. (2013). Destruction/creation: Act or perish. In: Barber, T., and Boldrick, S. (eds). Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm. London: Tate Publishing, pp.140–151.

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13 BETWEEN HERITAGE AND THE READYMADE The Imminent Aesthetic of Ai Weiwei José Antonio González Zarandona Introduction Elsewhere (González Zarandona, 2021), I focused on the different approaches of avant-garde and contemporary artists to heritage destruction. I distinguished the treatment of heritage destruction by contemporary artists from the different approaches to the same subject by avant-garde artists. In this chapter, I focus on the work of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who has drawn on heritage destruction to produce his art, to start the discussion around the heritage turn in contemporary art, which closely follows the style of contemporary art influenced by the archival turn. Within this style, contemporary artists make use of archives in creative ways to produce artworks that explore the relationships between the past, memory, and art (McLean, 2019). The emerging style in contemporary art that addresses heritage destruction suggests that discussions around the past, memory, identity, and above all, their destruction are not yet finished (see Boldrick, this volume). Rather than conceptualise the heritage turn, this chapter aims to track the opening that Ai Weiwei has created for artworks addressing heritage destruction to enter the discourse of contemporary art.

Discourses of heritage After the magnitude of heritage destruction that occurred during the Second World War, organisations such as UNESCO and its advisory body ICOMOS were created to protect cultural heritage and prevent its further destruction. With that purpose in mind, conventions, charters, and protocols were drafted to protect heritage according to a universal conservation policy (see Gerstenblith; Lixinski, this volume). However, these documents promoted a Western and Eurocentric discourse centred around heritage that reflected the interests of those who defined cultural heritage in such terms. This Western and European discourse of heritage foregrounded monuments, historic sites, museums, and urban spaces – tangible and material indexes of human genius. The value of this heritage was meant to be universal, aesthetic, and authentic (Arizpe, 2000; Cleere, 2001: García Canclini, 2014), thus fetishising objects or sites to be consumed by tourism. In doing so, the materiality and spectacularism of heritage were privileged over other values, such as spiritual or social. 174

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In the mid-1990s, a number of philosophers, archaeologists, and anthropologists, mainly based in Australia and Mexico, started to critique this Eurocentric discourse by analysing the politics of the conservation and preservation of cultural heritage in settler colonial and postcolonial societies (Byrne, 1991; García Canclini, 1993; Bonfil Batalla, 1993; Smith, 1993; Pocock, 1997; see also Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996). Questions were raised about the actual scope of the concept of heritage and its capacity to categorise different objects, sites, and traditions together under the umbrella term of heritage. The latter was also critiqued as a Eurocentric concept created and used to provide value in terms of aesthetic and historic standards from Western and European worldviews, but which could hardly be applied to other types of heritage, such as intangible heritage (songs and traditions) (see also Hernández Llosas, this volume). As a result, non-Western cultural expressions, such as Indigenous art, that did not fit this constrained characterisation of heritage were neglected and, in some cases, destroyed (González Zarandona, 2020). Following this critique of the dominant discourse of heritage, other scholars posited that heritage is not comprised of the artefacts, documents, places, or traditions which are considered culturally significant. Rather, they argued that heritage is a process, a practice, or a production that characterises how different societies select, value, and celebrate their past, in the present, for future generations (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1995; Urry, 1996; Harvey, 2001; Bendix, 2009 p.255). In her now famous dictum (“there is … no such thing as heritage”), Laurajane Smith (2006 p.11) contends that heritage only exists in the discourses that select and describe the past, as well as the processes and power relations that are produced as a result of how heritage is managed by what she considers the experts. In other words, how we speak about heritage affects how it is valued, interpreted, conserved, preserved, managed, mismanaged, used, and promoted in the present day. As such, heritage, as a discursive construction, assists the nation-state in establishing collective identity, gaining political legitimacy, and educating the citizenry (Anderson, 2006). Unsurprisingly, when speaking of and about the politics of heritage (how heritage operates on the ground), issues of conflict, contestation, and dissonance are usually foregrounded (Winter, 2015 p.998). One of the instances in which conflict and contestation is manifested through heritage is in its destruction. While heritage is the process that the discipline of Heritage Studies analyses, most academic studies that interpret heritage destruction usually focus on the materiality and spectacularism of heritage. As a result, scholars create datasets to interpret destruction according to heritage types (see, for example, Isakhan, 2015). Other interpretations arise from analysing heritage destruction from political, religious, cultural, or social perspectives (Gamboni, 2001; Harman şah, 2015; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). While yet others focus on the relationship between risk and damage to find mitigation strategies against heritage that is threatened by different human and non-human actors during peacetime and at times of conflict (see Cunliffe, this volume). Few studies, however, have analysed heritage destruction in light of the possibilities that a critical reading of contemporary artworks exploring the destruction of cultural heritage can elicit (see, for example, Gamboni, 1983, 2002 pp.106– 128; Tugendhaft, 2020 pp.70–71). When contemporary artists engage with heritage destruction, the discourse that frames the concept of heritage in their work is difficult to pinpoint because artists are not supposed to deliberately destroy artworks (see discussion in González Zarandona, 2021). One way to move forward, though, is to start to consider that artists are influenced by the dominant discourse of heritage, whereby the materiality and spectacularism of heritage is privileged over other values.

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Aesthetics of destruction In the mid-1990s in China, a young Ai Weiwei, who had recently returned from the US, began experimenting with Han dynasty earthenware urns, legally acquired in Chinese antiquities markets, by destroying one of them and recording the action through a triptych photograph where the moment of destruction is captured in the last frame (Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995) (see the cover of this handbook). Another work (Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 1993) is an urn that had been defaced by painting the logo of the iconic drink on its body. His rationale for this was that it was lacking “a certain element” and “it had a lot more pizzazz” after the logo was added (Ai, 2021 p.199). Ai argues that by “damaging the past and reconstructing it”, he was “able to make something different” (Ai, 2021 p.200). Most interpretations of Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn agree that the artwork is an iconoclastic work of art in the double sense of the word (Moore & Torchia, 2010). Firstly, it is a metaphorical iconoclasm, whereby Ai performs the act of iconoclasm by smashing an ancient urn, thus pushing the boundaries of the aesthetics of destruction through his work. It is also an actual visual representation of an iconoclasm – the destruction of images for religious or political motives. In fact, according to Gamboni (2010 pp.90–91), this metaphorical iconoclasm is a classic act of iconoclash, a term coined by Bruno Latour (2002), whereby we do not know exactly whether the action is destructive or constructive – or both. As others, such as Tinari (2010 p.33) claim, Ai destroys “the old (a 2000-year-old-vase) in order to create the new (a work of contemporary performance art).” The triptych, therefore, is highly ambiguous. Gamboni argues (2010 p.92) that Ai targets in his critique “both the neo-imperial re-instrumentalization, in the service of political legitimacy, of what had been condemned by the Maoists as ‘cultural relics’, and the systematic elimination of architectural heritage authorized in the name of economic liberalization.” The artwork could also be interpreted as a metaphor of the Chinese regime’s entire outlook on heritage management and as an interrogation into the value that people invest in the concept of heritage in general (see Holtorf and Kristensen, this volume). As contemporary artists focus on the destruction of heritage, I argue they adopt an imminent aesthetic – the ability to work “with the imminence of a revelation, in insinuating what cannot be said” (García Canclini, 2014 p.66) – to capture the traces that heritage destruction leaves behind and that the artists represent, practice, or appropriate as iconoclasm or iconoclash through their art. Some of these traces are the result of political forces like colonialism, imperialism, or globalisation. In contrast to heritage practitioners or scholars, contemporary artists do not seek to provide interpretations to explain heritage destruction. Rather, they say “things without pronouncing them fully” (García Canclini, 2014 p.26) by using the concept of heritage to speak about issues of power, authority, and the tension that occurs as a result of conflict and dissension. However, how heritage is defined is key here because the concept is still very attached to notions of permanence, monumentality, spectacularism, and materiality – the very same notions that critical heritage scholars have been critiquing as Eurocentric since the 1990s. It is in representing, practicing, or appropriating heritage destruction that the tensions that are ever present within the concept of heritage emerge: such as that between conservation and destruction; or between conventional approaches to heritage preservation, which dictate what needs to be saved from destruction or those who frame heritage destruction and loss as necessary processes to advance sustainable development agendas (Harrison, 2013; Holtorf, 2015; see also Holtorf and Kristensen, this volume). It seems that to create, one must first, destroy. In recent years, contemporary artists, through their work, have been critical about how heritage is appropriated by governments and ideologies, and this includes an exploration of its 176

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destruction. Furthermore, by appropriating cultural heritage as their contemporary resource to create their art ( Joselit, 2020) (sometimes in dialogue with the local community whose heritage was damaged) and displaying it in museums and galleries, artists like Ai Weiwei have created a surplus of heritage value from heritage destruction (cf. Gamboni, 2011).

Readymade Formed in the tradition of the readymade and influenced by Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp, Ai is perhaps one of the few contemporary artists who has bridged the iconoclastic tradition of avant-garde artists with the creation of artworks that speak about the destruction of China’s cultural heritage, not only as a result of its economic development but also as part of the Cultural Revolution’s aim to destroy the Old Idols. He is also one of the most outspoken artists who has taken the destruction of heritage in many forms as one of the central themes in his work. His work also acts as a metonym for environmental degradation, ecological cycles of decay, and renewal, illustrating how the power of destruction ensures the establishment of new traditions (Burchmore, 2019). As curator Cuauhtémoc Medina states: Ai uses “the transgressive capacity … of the readymade to intervene in artefacts that are usually conserved and protected under the archaeological criterion of authenticity and the aesthetics of ruins that reigns in the repository of the museum” (cited in Ai, 2019 p.22). Moreover, as Ai (2019 p.124) claims, he has always wanted “to use culture and heritage as a readymade”. The concept of the readymade is key to understanding Ai’s concept of heritage. The readymade, like heritage, is revealed as such through a process whereby the artist chooses an artefact (in the case of heritage in the context of nations, this is done by the government) to become art and its original function becomes subordinated to the concept of art (or heritage). The readymade is an artwork made from a manufactured object (the most famous being the urinal that Duchamp titled Fountain in 1917). Like heritage, readymades are transformed by their new title and function and display in a gallery or museum, thus acquiring new meanings. Both heritage and readymades function similarly: particular objects (or sites or traditions) are selected to become heritage due to their cultural significance for local communities or international audiences. This heritage process reflects that of the readymade because it is the actual process, enabled by the artist and its entry into the museum or gallery, which transforms the artefact into an artwork (in Art History, this is also known as the Institutional Theory of Art; see Dickie, 1974). In his first artworks inspired by iconoclasm, Ai destroyed objects to draw attention to the materiality of the urns and their role in forming China’s national heritage identity (Pierson, 2010). Indeed, he was destroying readymades that were created at the same time as he destroyed them through iconoclasm or defacement. He was also interested in working with the imminence of a revelation. He was pushing the boundaries by asking what could happen if we destroy heritage to fulfil the Maoist dictum that there is “no construction without destruction” (Tinari, 2010 p.33). In contrast, in his most recent artworks, he is more interested in the transformation of the object and showing the process from which a readymade can become heritage, including through its destruction. In doing so, I argue that Ai (inadvertently) follows critical heritage theory by critiquing former heritage practices in the present, “which are part of an investigation into the aesthetic values that define our view of artworks and cultural objects” (Medina in Ai, 2019 p.22). Ai is also known for making counterfeit objects, appraising or destroying artefacts, and reworking fragments. In his work, the role of the conservator, archaeologist, or curator – the heritage expert – is substituted by the artist who produces artefacts to be shown aesthetically in the museum or gallery. As García Canclini 177

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(2014 p. 67) emphasises, historians and archaeologists deal with that which deteriorates or is at risk of disappearing. In contrast, an artist stands in expectation of what has not happened yet. In doing so, Ai shifts the purpose of the artefact or object in question (Ai, 2019 p.124). But why the shift?

Resetting memories While in his early artworks destruction was performed to re-enact and criticise the role of the Chinese government towards heritage, his career as an artist shifted gears when he started recording the destruction of traditional old hutong (alleys) in Beijing to make way for new constructions in preparation for hosting the Olympic Games in 2008. According to Ai (2021 p.232), documenting the progress of these new constructions was a “simple visual record” that “becomes a part of human memory, enduring despite efforts to supress it”. Documenting these acts became “essential” to his “life not only as an artist but as a citizen” (2021 p. 232). Documenting the destruction of what has not yet happened certainly influences how we see the future and the role that destruction plays in our perception and construction of value in heritage. In 2008, an earthquake hit the Sichuan province in China, causing the death of thousands of citizens including several schoolchildren. His role as a citizen prompted Ai to investigate, along with an army of volunteers, the extent to which the Chinese State was responsible for the death of its citizens, especially children. They uncovered that the schools were made with faulty materials, causing their collapse when the earthquake hit Sichuan. He also started writing in his blog (now shut down) and his opinions became quite political: “expressing concern about the nation’s future” to expose the “wickedness” of the regime (Ai, 2021 p.256). He changed “from being an artist to being a social activist” (ibid). His political activism led to him being pursued by state authorities, and in 2011, Ai was charged with tax evasion and detained, spending 81 days in jail. After he was released, Ai was not allowed to leave China until 2015: since then, he has been living in different parts of Europe. Although the official motive for his arrest and incarceration was the claimed tax evasion, Ai was detained due to his activism and his investigations into the Sichuan earthquake. As a result, the focus on heritage destruction in his art changed. It had to be insinuated. Ai Weiwei’s first major exhibition in Mexico at Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City is a telling example. Curated by Cuauhtémoc Medina, the exhibition Resetting Memories opened in April 2019 after Medina extended an invitation to Ai to visit Mexico in 2016. This is a unique exhibition because it was formed by artworks made at different times in Ai’s career that altogether explored “the destruction of cultural heritage and our relationship to our ancestors with the trauma of the attack against the future, which supposes violence against young people” (Medina in Ai, 2019 p.21). The exhibition targeted specific issues pertaining to China and Mexico, and it has only been showcased in Mexico at MUAC and at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO) in 2019–2020. One of the main artworks displayed in the exhibition was the Wang Family Ancestral Hall (2015), a building structure that Ai rescued from neglect and destruction. The hall is made up of 1500 pieces of wood made from a building that belonged to the Wang family built in the Xiaoqi village in the Jiangxi province during the early Ming dynasty “to worship the earliest Wang family ancestor, Wan Hua, the Prince of Yue, an important figure in the sixth century” (Cui in Ai, 2019 p.43). After serving as a hall for weddings, funerals, birthdays, ceremonies, and business meetings, it also became a “space where clan members could maintain familial relationship, and where discussions of important matters took place” (ibid). It was both a 178

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secular and a religious space devoted to rituals and events that lasted for 400 years, until 1950, when the land reforms of the recently established communist government deemed the hall public property. Stripped of its original function, the hall, eventually, became a ruin through neglect. In 2010, the remains of the hall were acquired by an antiquities merchant with the aim of selling them as decorative material. When Ai Weiwei acquired the entire structure in 2014, he repainted the parts that had been subsequently restored with wooden carvings. Originally re-created in two Beijing galleries (Galleria Continua and Tang Contemporary Art Center) in 2015, this heritage readymade was possible due to Ai’s tacit shift to activism, combined with the imminent aesthetic of the readymade. Just as Duchamp transformed a urinal into an artwork, Ai relocated a destroyed heritage monument and pieced it together in a gallery, thus transforming it into an artwork. Once he was out of prison, he asked the Chinese authorities if he could present his work at an exhibition: he was told it would be allowed as long as it was not political (Ai, 2019 p.126). Yet, the destruction of heritage is always political, particularly in places like China, where heritage is destroyed by the State. How to comment on heritage destruction without being political? By recreating the hall in a gallery (in both Beijing and Mexico), Ai made a tacit statement as to how significant heritage is in China (see Ludwig et al., 2020), but also how that which does not conform to the ideals and image of the State is destroyed. In doing this Ai also pushed the boundaries of artistic expression, risking his recently recuperated freedom, when he assured the authorities that: “… it’s classic. It’s from China. I will not say anything in there about it [politics]” (Ai, 2019 p.126). By creating an artwork that explores the meaning of destruction, such as the Wang Family Ancestral Hall, Ai seeks to produce in the viewer a similar reaction to the one experienced when images of heritage destruction are published in traditional and new media. However, while mass-reproduced images may lose their meaning when they are widely shared and disseminated by media, the artwork (and cultural heritage) in the gallery is anchored and, therefore, stronger. Of course, people will still take pictures of the artworks and share them on social media. But it is not the same image as the viral images of destruction that the Islamic State (IS1), for example, shared on social media where the same image of the destruction in Palmyra (Syria) was widely shared in a seemingly endless flow (Cunliffe & Curini, 2018; González Zarandona et al., 2018). The hall embodies the imminent aesthetic as its recreation in the gallery says things without pronouncing them fully – as they must be insinuated – because the hall is not complete as it was originally built, but its remaining pieces are carefully re-fragmented. The re-staged hall draws our attention to the tensions ever present in the construction and perception of heritage value and the processes that take place to consider it as such in the first place. The hall also evokes destruction in an imminent way: it insinuates what cannot be explicitly said to the authorities (that heritage destruction is a political act) but can be positioned in a gallery or museum because the latter transforms the hall into an artwork.2 Furthermore, the re-staging of the remains of a heritage structure built during the Ming dynasty to host rituals, and that sustained heavy damage by the Maoist violence against landholders which dispossessed the Wang family of its traditional role in Xiaoqi, was not only a symbolic action that reminded Mexican viewers who attended the exhibition of the destruction of Mesoamerican temples by the Spanish conquistadores, but it also triggered them and evoked the horrors that the Mexican State enacts against young people. Another piece from the Resetting Memories exhibition that attracted a lot of attention was the Lego Portraits. Ayotzinapa Case (2019) – a visual monument specifically made for this exhibition composed by a series of portraits made with Lego cubes that depicted the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico, who were murdered on the night of September 26–27 2014 by 179

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police and criminals in the city of Iguala, in the State of Guerrero in Mexico. A group of students from the Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa (a school where students are trained to teach at primary school level with a very long historical tradition of Marxist inspired curricula) demonstrated in the nearby city of Iguala. Local government authorities (including the military) and members of a drug cartel colluded to kidnap, kill, and burn the corpses of the students. To this day, the location of the remains of most students is unknown, and only a few of those which were recovered have been identified. Instead of delivering justice for the families of the victims, the Mexican State created a fraudulent and inconsistent narrative to explain the massacre. Demonstrations throughout the country were organised to blame the State for the disappearance of the students. The chant of the demonstrators was “It was the State”. At first sight, the murder of 43 young men is not, strictly speaking, a destruction of heritage. However, when confronted with the gruesome details of the operation, one cannot simply put aside the fact that the destruction of the student’s bodies functions as a reverse damnatio memoriae whereby people attacked material culture representing a living person to eliminate their memory from history. Paraphrasing Mitchell (2011 p.67), States deploy iconoclasm to destroy living images, literally in the form of the Mexican students and metaphorically in the destruction of heritage in China. As “bodies of culture, just like bodies of people and other animate and inanimate elements in the world, survive the knots and circumstances of history sometimes intentionally and sometimes only by chance” (Christov-Bakargiev, 2011 pp.4–5), the juxtaposition of these two artworks can be interpreted as the destruction of the past in China, and the destruction of the future in Mexico. In doing so, Resetting Memories: connects the desolation involved in the destruction of our relationship with our ancestors to the barbarity of violence against young people as an attack on the future … to attest to the singular struggle that encompasses citizens from around the world when their history is compromised. (MARCO, n.d.) Making the Ayotzinapa portraits with Lego cubes instantly reverberates with play and childhood. This detail is both soul-crushing and heart-breaking because the destruction of these living repositories of culture (the future generation of Mexico) is the destruction of the carriers and inheritors of Mexico’s heritage. In making the Ayotzinapa portraits, Ai relived not only his own arrest by the Chinese State and subsequent imprisonment and psychological torture but also revived the memory of the schoolchildren who died in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 due to flawed buildings constructed by the Chinese government. In both artworks, Ai is critical towards the destruction at the hands of an authoritarian State that is both present in Mexico and China. By being critical through his creative processes, Ai questions the role the State plays in the disappearance of its citizens, and the role the State plays in enabling the processes that create and destroy heritage in China and Mexico, where cultural heritage remains a very strong element in the creation of a national identity and in the promotion of mass-tourism. Heritage and national identity are deeply entrenched concepts because the former contributes to build the latter. Governments select and use particular national symbols and narratives from the past to create a fictional bond that links different individuals in the present under a single banner. Unsurprisingly, both China (56 properties) and Mexico (35 properties) have some of the largest numbers of UNESCO World Heritage Sites outside Europe (Italy, 58 properties; Spain, 49 properties; France, 49 properties; and Germany, 51 properties) with the exception of India (40 properties) (UNESCO, 2022). In this sense, heritage emerges “as a rigid framework which 180

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defines the ‘authentic’ or ‘traditional’ in narrow, absolutist ways” (Winter, 2008 pp.536–537). Thus, recovering a neglected heritage, like the hall, and displaying it in a gallery becomes an affront against official accounts of heritage. In the same vein, creating a visual monument to the abducted and murdered Mexican students stands in opposition to the official narrative that the Mexican authorities concocted to cover the real culprits. The same State that cannot provide justice to its people also defines its heritage. This critical approach, as we have seen, was “essential” to Ai’s life “not only as an artist but as a citizen” (Ai, 2021 p.232). For Ai, heritage destruction is linked to the destruction of memory, which in turn is part of our identity (see, for example, Bevan, 2006). As Ai (2019 p.130) claims, if governments erase our memories, we can lose our connection to reality. To counteract these destructions, one must create. In essence, his work is also an example of how destruction and creation are the two sides of the same coin. Heritage and tourism are also the two sides of the same coin. As heritage scholars have demonstrated, they “are widely regarded as effective tools for protecting past histories, that can simultaneously provide the economic fuel for societal modernisation” (Winter, 2008 p.536). In providing resources, heritage tourism is seen as a panacea that, more often than not, is translated into intricated conservation practices to ensure that the heritage exists in the future. In the case of Xiaoqi, the village where the Wang family ancestral hall was originally built, Cui informs us that in 2001 its inhabitants “began to prioritize tourism” and “cultural tourism became the primary industry”, “transforming the village into a tourist destination for those interested in the ancient culture of the Hui region” (Cui in Ai, 2019 p.46). Between 2001 and 2014, when Ai bought the hall, an interest in traditional Chinese architecture emerged. Old styles and old building techniques which had been forgotten became fashionable again. Their heritage values were recognised and the buildings themselves became commodities that could be sold and restored. The market for these antiquities was booming (Cui in Ai, 2019 p.47). Zhu Caichang, a Dongyang woodcarver, craftsman, and businessman, first visited Xiaoqi in 2010, and he became interested in the new commodity. After years of negotiations, the Xiaoqi committee sold him the ruins of the hall for RMB $450,000 in 2013. He repaired the hall using different techniques and styles. After this process of embellishment, as Cui deftly asserts (in Ai, 2019 p.48), the hall: became a cultural product on the commercial market, with its long history, exquisite craftsmanship, and precious materials. It was such that the life and death, calamity and glory of a culture was reduced to being measured by money. Though there was no justifiable relationship between the two, its value and its price were tied together. The Wang Family Ancestral Hall carries a historical label, waiting to be consumed like all other products. By placing it in the very same space that avant-garde artists claimed should be erased, Ai re-signified a cultural heritage which had been neglected, dismantled, and sold in the antiquities market. Once a commodity and later an imminent heritage readymade, perhaps, like no other readymade, the hall is a symbol of the Chinese government’s entire outlook on heritage in general.

Conclusion García Canclini (2014) defined the imminent aesthetic as the revelation when artists insinuate what cannot be said. While Ai Weiwei uses the discourse of heritage to comment on the state of affairs through his artworks, he takes an imminent approach towards the destruction of heritage – he insinuates what cannot be fully said. 181

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Contemporary artists exploring heritage destruction do so in abstract terms, although in some cases, they also destroy valuable material considered heritage. Artists work with images of destruction to materialise destruction, often replicating and performing that destruction. Whether the aim is to transform reality or create knowledge, their artworks react to the effects of political forces like globalisation. By exploring heritage destruction, Ai’s artworks embrace the socio-political complexities which envelope not only the field of heritage today, including its destruction but also the critical issues that humanity is currently facing, in a different manner than the academia looks at heritage, which is primarily from a conservation point of view. García Canclini (2014 p.16) asserts that artists “are freer than social scientists to use metaphors to express condensations and uncertain meanings that we cannot formulate as concepts; this freedom leads us to reconsider the articulations between these two ways of covering that which escapes our grasp at present”. Are artists better at grasping and responding to the socio-political complexities of heritage destruction now converging upon the museum sector in the twenty-first century than academics? Elsewhere (González Zarandona, 2021 p.393), I argued that artists are in a better position to denounce heritage destruction than heritage professionals working for the State due to the heritage politics (and bureaucracies) that constrain their work. Ai Weiwei, however, was jailed. Ai Weiwei interprets heritage destruction differently to heritage scholarship, as he is in a better position to do so. What Ai has achieved is commenting on issues that affect us globally on an emotional, psychological, and affective level by using his status as an international artist to destroy and transform heritage, in spite of any legal consequences. Heritage scholarship, on the other hand, has explained the destruction of monuments and artefacts as part of twentyfirst-century history, which has seen the bureaucratisation and institutionalisation of collective memories (Nora & Kritzman, 1996). Contemporary artists are using museum and gallery spaces which may seem limited in scope. However, by following critical heritage theory, which tackles the problems that humanity is now facing and will still face in the future, heritage destruction has taken a central role not only in the conservation of space but also in the geopolitics that are defining our society (Winter, 2017) and shaping history. In doing so, the artworks reviewed here play a social and political function beyond the artworld by reminding us about the dangers of conflict, genocide, authoritarianism, censorship, and the entanglement of all these with heritage. These artworks also play a cultural role by educating viewers in how death and loss of memory affect us, triggering memories to fight against oblivion, and keeping memories safe, albeit within a problematic space. The memories I am referring to in particular are those that belong to minority groups which have or are experiencing genocide and erasure of their identity (see Isakhan and Barry, this volume); memories of destruction that these groups are asking to be considered as part of a wider universal history (see Hernández Llosas, this volume). By offering critical readings and interpretations of heritage destruction through the creation, appropriation, and performance of heritage destruction, artists like Ai Weiwei have taken a risk to tacitly state what should be said in an imminent way. While avant-garde artists played with the concept of destruction to produce an aesthetic pleasure, contemporary artists like Ai are connecting with audiences through the concept of heritage destruction by appealing to its raw materiality and its traces, thus highlighting the bonds that people create and perpetuate with heritage through their memories.

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

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14 HERITAGE PREDATION AND THE PURSUIT OF POLITICS Mehiyar Kathem

Introduction Cultural heritage is inextricably connected to authority. Centres of power, whether they be state, semi-state, or non-state institutions, rely heavily on cultural heritage for the operation of politics (Smith, 2006; Bsheer, 2017). Whilst there are multiple reasons why cultural heritage is destroyed or altered (see examples throughout this volume), this chapter focuses on the dimensions where it is part of political rivalries and state contestation. With a view to understanding heritage destruction across different contexts, this chapter introduces the concept of heritage predation, defined as the process of exploiting cultural resources as a way of conducting politics (see further Kathem et al., 2022). Heritage predation sheds light on the relationship between heritage and centres of power and offers a lens with which to look at cultural heritage within existing structures and configurations of power. Whereas cultural appropriation involves taking over cultural property and laying claims to intangible cultural heritage, heritage predation is about the ways political groups utilise cultural heritage and the associated resources and legitimacy it confers for the operation of politics. It generally involves cultural appropriation but also other forms of changes to cultural heritage. As shown in this chapter, understanding how political groups negotiate and make use of cultural property, particularly in contexts characterised by diverse and contested histories, can shed light on what happens to cultural heritage over time and how it is affected by and folded into the pursuit of power. Cultural resources, including intangible heritage and cultural property, are indispensable resources in politics (Smith, 2006; Sørensen & Viejo-Rose, 2015). The embodiment of the past today is regularly instrumentalised and becomes an essential tool for political groups vying to create, deepen, or expand their political presence. The outcomes of those efforts to usurp and transform cultural resources are, in part, based on the performative recrafting of cultural heritage in ways conducive to the interests of political groups. Those uses of cultural heritage happen across markedly different political configurations, from highly centralised states to polities characterised by hybridity, fragmentation, and the dominance of non-state actors. In this context, heritage predation can help better understand actors’ motivations in pursuing heritage transformation across different political orders, systems, and institutions. This chapter will first explain the concept of heritage predation within existing heritage paradigms before developing this theory in relation to specific case studies from India and Iraq. DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-16

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Understanding heritage predation Dynamics of what heritage is and how it is used are encapsulated in the Authorised Heritage Discourse (Smith, 2006), which contends that dominant narratives in society are established to “define and speak” on behalf of the past (Smith, 2006 p.42). Smith refers specifically to the Authorised Heritage Discourse in relation to the rule of experts and state-dominant approaches to the conceptualisation of cultural heritage. In contexts characterised by instability and contestation over politics, cultural heritage can be a key arena of rivalry about how the past is negotiated and used. Acknowledging the intimate relationship between politics and cultural heritage, heritage predation is a lens with which to examine the ways in which cultural resources are exploited as an instrument of politics for deepening and expanding political group agendas. It is used in this chapter to shed light on the operation of politics of heritage and, more specifically, the construction of power. As a process tied to destructive forms of politics, particularly identity and interest-based competition over state and society, heritage predation involves the deliberate transformation of cultural property and historical memory. Groups of different political backgrounds aspire to lend credibility to their actions in society and commonly resort to heritage predation to reshape the past, with a view to asserting themselves in otherwise culturally and politically diverse contexts. Whereas the Authorised Heritage Discourse reflects the presence of dominant narratives that are framed to act as a point of reference about the past, heritage predation is the process used by political groups to rewrite the past. In this context, it offers an insight not only into cultural heritage change and the type of destruction that it generally gives rise to but also sheds light on politics and context-based trajectories that it shapes and brings into being. Some scholars argue that heritage transformation is a destructive process (Fibiger, 2015; Bsheer, 2017). As will be shown in this chapter, heritage predation gives rise to erasure. Noteworthy forms of heritage destruction range from malign or deliberate neglect, to restructuring, to partial or complete erasure (see further Arnold, 2014). In many cases, the restructuring of cultural property entails fabrication, concerted and deliberate society-oriented forgetting, and politically orchestrated historical revisionism and cultural appropriation (see further Arya, 2021). According to Arnold (2014), a common method of heritage transformation includes co-option or transmutation, which can be seen as forms of cultural appropriation. Interventions to manipulate cultural heritage involve more than one of these aspects and generally include physical, as well as intangible, cultural heritage change. Whether through state-sanctioned actions, legal mechanisms, or the political mobilisation of public support, heritage predation involves intentional historical erasure, with a view to ensuring cultural heritage is remade in an image that reflects the continuation and propagation of political and religious group interests. Cultural heritage is, in this sense, an indispensable resource for shaping a country’s future. Examples abound of heritage predation, from site-specific changes in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, for example ( Jamaleddine, 2020), which was restructured into a working mosque, to entire cultural landscapes being transformed as in Palestine (Hawari, 2010; 2019; Whitelam, 2013; Sela, 2018; De Cesari, 2020). Heritage predation illuminates the changing and dynamic relationship between cultural resources, including cultural property, and politics, a lens that is essential for the study of cultural continuity and the care of cultural heritage over time. Racism, populism, nationalism, religion, and ethno-based identities have all been a resurgent feature of state and global politics. As a corollary, different forms of heritage; including 186

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practices that communities and cultural groups possess, language, and even seemingly mundane, everyday forms of traditions; can become politicised. What becomes championed, or inversely what is ignored or even attacked, are increasingly constitutive of the type of politics that dominate public discourse in today’s world. The pursuit of politics, based on cultural and religious differences, has meant that predatory practices regarding cultural heritage are increasingly the norm, rather than the exception which affects the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage. How heritage predation is pursued is determined not only by who is undertaking it but also by the socio-political context and, in particular, the capacity of political groups to undertake changes to cultural heritage. Much of these dynamics of local politics have often not been clearly visible within international heritage frameworks regarding reconstruction (Viejo-Rose, 2013), though that is changing. There is a growing cognisance of cultural heritage as a key component of international assistance programmes (Kathem et al., 2020), marking a fundamental shift in how donors, in particular, think about its significance to the construction of politics, stability, and security. This changed thinking, which in part is based on conventional approaches to cultural diplomacy, has come about after cultural destruction in such places as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya, illuminating that cultural heritage is an important arena where the future of war-affected societies are negotiated. It is also a recognition that cultural heritage can be a field for the continuation of war, discrimination, violence, and a lingering source of future conflict (Viejo-Rose, 2013). Therefore, it has been appreciated as a field of activity that should be incorporated into peacebuilding frameworks. Heritage predation can illuminate exclusion and social fractures, as it is commonly employed as a form of politics to undermine entire communities or sections of society. The transformation of cultural heritage by political groups involves marginalisation of people, or in some cases Diaspora communities who have been forced to leave their countries. It is also geared to construct and consolidate a semblance of in-group identity. The alteration of cultural and religious property, as well as the politicisation of identity and cultural differences, become tools designed to transform society and reconstitute societywide relations. The exploitation of cultural heritage commonly affects not only relations within societies and between groups and communities but also influences political relations beyond borders and shapes cultural diplomacy. Such actions, often revolving around and signified by changes to religious and cultural sites, have far-reaching consequences for internal relations within polities and affect diplomacy between countries and other legal entities. Heritage predation provides a purview with which to analyse politically inspired interventions in the field of cultural heritage, often involving the use of violence and coercion. Violence in particular is used in situations where changes to cultural heritage cannot be easily made. In addition to the deployment of direct forms of violence, state-sanctioned institutions can undertake heritage transformation through the laws and institutions of the state or, if need be, create new ones to support political actions. In other cases, including at times within the same countries, political groups that are operating outside national or state laws similarly pursue heritage predation, albeit in ways where the use of violence is not officially approved by state institutions but is nonetheless carried out. Different configurations of power within a state or political entity require careful examination of the specificities of the relationships between institutions, legal frameworks, and violence that influence cultural heritage, particularly cultural property. This will be explored in case studies from Iraq and then India. 187

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Heritage predation: Insights from Iraq The outcomes of heritage predation on cultural heritage, the severity and degree of damage it inflicts, and the responses to it, whether within the country or internationally, appear in markedly different ways. Heritage predation in Iraq is being undertaken by formal and statesanctioned institutions that are connected to newly established, post-2003 political and religious elites. Significantly, in most cases, ruling elites have control over state legal systems to proclaim laws or rules for such actors. Such cases of legal or state-sanctioned destruction can be contrasted to the illegal destruction visited on cultural heritage by non-state actors, such as the Islamic State (IS1) and Al Qaeda. Political groups that are not part of recognised political processes and state institutions also employ violence in pursuit of cultural heritage transformation. The deliberate destruction from 2014 by the Islamic State of large swathes of pre-Islamic, Christian, Yezidi, Shi’i, and other Islamic cultural heritage was also geared to the transformation of Iraq, its cultural resources, communities, and peoples. Attacks, some of which were designed to galvanise support for their politics (González Zarandona et al., 2018; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018; Isakhan et al., 2019), were mostly oriented to producing a blank slate on which it could more easily craft a new politics of its own making (Hawley, 2018). Heritage predation, of which those actions could be seen as its extreme form, was oriented to reorder entire socio-political geographies that the armed group controlled, a pattern repeated multiple times elsewhere by other groups. Yet, whether as an outcome of legal or illegal heritage transformation, the concomitant destruction it gives rise to devastates entire communities and societies, returned to in the conclusion. As cultural heritage can lend  a semblance of credibility for political action, in politically precarious situations new claims on cultural property and heritage, more generally, are commonly made. For example, the US Occupation-devised Iraq Constitution of 2005 promotes sub-national interests over national cohesion (McGarry & O’Leary, 2007; Visser, 2007; Simons, 2008). The Constitution was prepared at a time of competing sectarian political party interests over the state and led to national heritage laws and management of cultural resources being deliberately undermined, in favour of ethno-nationalist and religious interests. Davis (2014), for example, notes the lack of constitutional clarity regarding site responsibility led to conflicts between the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) and local authorities in the management of Babylon and, amongst other things, who would get the tourism fees. The Constitution also legitimised the growth of autonomously controlled heritage institutions, which are state sanctioned but operate outside the control of central state institutions, including within the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a semi-autonomous area within Iraq, such as, for example, the General Directorate of Antiquities. Heritage became a factor in the power struggle between KRI authorities and those in Baghdad. The disputes left, and still leave, heritage vulnerable and without central state oversight. The outcome of post-2003 power structures are being shaped by heritage predation, leading to a markedly dysfunctional heritage sector. Notwithstanding the significant destruction wrought by the US Occupation of Iraq from 2003 (see examples in Bahrani, this volume) and the forced collapse of state institutions, such as the disbanding of the army and police, the emerging political order has been characterised by newly empowered sectarian political parties and non-state actors, including militia and armed groups who use heritage to realise their political claims on the state. The sectarian political system that the US and its partners imposed on the country, known as Muhasasa, or sectarian quotas, parcelled out large swaths of the country to competing political groups and formalised an ethno-religious system of politics, particularly in terms of the distribution of revenues (Ismael & Fuller, 2009; Ismael & Ismael, 2010; 2015). One of the 188

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results of this Muhasasa system has been the promotion of sub-national interests at the cost of national state institutions, such as the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities, which is allocated to different political parties as electoral windfalls (Kathem, 2020). This parcelling out of key state resources has been oriented to serving political party interests, who use them for extracting resources. As Iraq attests, entire political systems could be designed and based to varying degrees on the exploitation of identity and interest-based politics (Kathem, 2020). The multiplicity of pre-2003 Iraqi laws, those that are based on the Iraqi Constitution, and the religious endowments laws of 2012 regarding cultural heritage, are symptomatic of Iraq’s generalised political disorder and fragmentation where political groups with competing interests attempt to shape the trajectory of Iraq through the institutions of the state that they are able to control or manipulate (see further Kathem et al., 2020). Political parties in the KRI and post-2003 religious institutions of the Sunni and Shia Endowments, which are responsible for Muslim cultural property, in the rest of the country have sought to recraft Iraq’s national cultural heritage, to strengthen political and religious group interests. These two religious endowments were established after 2003 to manage religious and cultural property on behalf of newly empowered Sunni and Shia religious actors. Sub-national actors have, in this context of political fracture, engaged in manipulating heritage for their political uses (see further Isakhan, 2009) and for in-group benefit at great cost to national or public interests. In the KRI, cultural heritage has increasingly become beholden to ethno-nationalist politics, originating from race-based exclusion and internal ethnic-based boundaries (see further Popplewell, 2017; Gunter, 2020). As an outcome, cultural heritage that does not directly promote political party interests or even seen as a possible resource for counter-politics has been neglected or rendered irrelevant. Iraq’s post-2003 autonomously controlled institutions have attempted to transform religious and cultural sites, in ways that have stripped them of their multi-period histories, or which have similarly been folded into the service of sectarian narratives. One such example is the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Erbil Citadel (inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2014). Residents were forcibly removed from the site in 2007 by heritage authorities and government officials in Erbil; the site was then subsequently reframed as a symbol of ethno-nationalist Kurdish identity in the region (see further Soave & Hawizy, 2020) whilst simultaneously promoted at the international level as a World Heritage symbol of Outstanding Universal Value to the whole of humanity. These changes can be witnessed in signage and labelling on the site as well as the citadel’s promotion as a key component of Kurdish nationalist aspirations. The Kurdish Textile Museum, which is located on the site, is also an example of how intangible cultural heritage is now being strictly defined as Kurdish in origin, rather than an outcome of shared cultures, that include Christians and other cultural groups. UNESCO, which has been closely tied to changes to Erbil Citadel since 2007, has mostly focused on offering technical expertise to regional authorities and has generally overlooked the politicisation of the citadel’s identity. In addition to politically-oriented cultural appropriation, territorial expansion and deepening control of newly acquired land within the state of Iraq has also been an integral component of post-2003 Kurdish political party objectives (see further Eichberg, 2018). The restructuring by the Shia Endowment of the Shrine of Prophet Ezekiel, in the province of central Iraq’s Babylon, is a clear example of heritage predation. From 2010, the heritage complex has undergone major transformation. The existing synagogue was destroyed by the Endowment, followed by the expansion and development of a Shia Mosque on the site. In this case, the deeds of the multi-period heritage complex were forcibly transferred from the SBAH, an institution within Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities, to the semi-state Shia Endowment, reflecting the changed nature of power in post-2003 Iraq. The 189

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outcomes of the division of Iraq’s cultural property, on the basis of Sunni-Shia-Kurdish ownership, have facilitated heritage predation at a national level. Whilst heritage predation can be pursued with a view to restructuring cultural and religious sites, it can also be mobilised to fundamentally change the character of entire cities and regions. Samarra, for example, a city in the province of Salahadeen in Iraq, has witnessed unprecedented transformation as a result of interventions to transform its identity and history. The city is the site of the 2006 and 2007 Al Qaeda bombings that destroyed al-Askari Mosque in the old city, which is considered one of the holiest Shia shrines in Iraq. Since then, and particularly from 2014, Samarra has seen displacement of its Sunni-majority population and the destruction by the Shia Endowment of tens of mostly Ottoman-era heritage buildings that were under the ownership of private owners and the SBAH. Samarra’s rich cultural heritage, which embodies Abbasid, Jewish, Christian, and Ottoman histories, is now being methodically erased as the Shia Endowment, which is charged with the management of Shia religious cultural property, gradually takes over state and private assets in the areas close to al-Askari Mosque (see further Hasan, 2019). The weakness of central state institutions, as well as a degraded civil society, has meant that organised destruction, which is pursued to expand al-Askari Mosque and lay claim to the wider area, is being carried out under state sanction even if central state institutions are themselves being undermined.

Heritage predation: Insights from India The transformation of cultural property is also conducted through legal mechanisms and court orders. The case of the Ayodhya heritage complex, for example, which embodies shared history between Muslim and Hindu communities in India, attests to the ways in which cultural property has been exploited by political groups, to propagate exclusionary Hindu nationalist politics. The complex is the site of both the sixteenth-century Babri Mosque, which was destroyed in 1992, and is claimed by some Hindu nationalists to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Rama. As a result, the area has been associated with political competition and rivalries, as well as social and religious grievances (Van Der Veer, 1992; Gopal, 1993; Bernbeck & Pollock, 1996; Dominic, 2019; Etter, 2020). Indeed, the destruction of the mosque led to over 2,000 deaths and widespread riots, which has left an open and lingering wound in Indian society to this day (Hansen, 1999). Following a court ruling, in 2019 the area comprising the heritage complex was transferred by court order from its shared ownership status into the control of those wishing to build a Hindu Complex. In tandem with this decision, a year later Hindu nationalist leaders who were allegedly involved in the mosque’s destruction and subsequent unrest were acquitted of any wrongdoing (Thao, 2021). Whilst the Ayodhya case may be seen as pertaining to the specificities of a religious complex and who gets to preside over its future, the issues and politics surrounding it were associated with the attempt by political parties to reshape what it means to be Indian today ( Jaffrelot, 2017; Chatterji & Hansen, 2019; Gabbay, 2020) and consolidate Hindu nationalism as a political force in the country (Lazzaretti, 2021b; Malji, 2021). The growth of Hindu nationalism as a major political force in India has politicised India’s diverse cultures and identities and worked to create a new heritage regime upon which to anchor new forms of political power (Lazzaretti, 2021). Heritage-making has been a core part of those efforts, which has been used to justify the destruction of mosques and other symbols of India’s Muslim population (Ellis-Petersen & Alam, 2021). The Kashi Vishvanath Corridor, a heritage complex containing a Hindu temple in Banaras and which also encompasses the Mughal-era Gyanvapi Mosque, was inaugurated as part of plans to strip the area of its 190

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diverse history (Lazzaretti, 2021a). The case represents not only the damaging impact of predatory actions of Hindu nationalist political groups vying to erase India’s Islamic past and engage in historical revisionism but also an attempt to undermine large sections of society (Malji, 2021). Cultural heritage is used as a way to propagate a threat that Hindu nationalists claim emerges from Indian Muslims, who are commonly framed as foreigners and historical invaders (Anderson & Longkumer, 2018; Gabbay, 2020; Leidig, 2020). In recent years, the repercussions of those actions have led to the Citizenship Amendment Act,2 which has been interpreted in ways to alter the demography of India by undermining Indian Muslim’s rights as citizens (see further Chandrachud, 2020; Bhatia, 2021; Deb, 2021). Ruling political parties, particularly the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have employed top-down interventions and state funding, as well as mobilised support from local populations to undermine and destroy Muslim-linked cultural heritage, particularly shrines, mosques, and monuments (Lefèvre, 2020). In a climate of prevalent heritage predation pursued by ruling elites in control of the organs of the state, including the court system, the sixteenthcentury UNESCO World Heritage Site of Taj Mahal has also been threatened by dominant Hindu nationalist political groups, under the pretence of pollution and other factors, with legal action aimed at shutting down or even demolition (Gajare, 2018; Moynihan, 2018; Saleem, 2021). In addition to hundreds of Muslim-related sites that have been attacked and destroyed over the past three decades, entire areas are being restructured to remove or displace Muslim communities (Harding, 2002), a process that is geared towards creating a homogenously Hindu state in India (Hole, 2013) and deepen political party linked heritage networks through the development of tourism infrastructures (see further Meskell, 2021).

Conclusion The actions of political groups to transform cultural heritage can have far-reaching consequences beyond national borders and shape relations between countries. This is most visible when perceived values pertaining to cultural and religious sites are shared amongst populations in different geographical locations. The destruction of al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, for example, led to widescale displacement and sectarian killings and sent shockwaves across Iraq and Shi’i religious communities in Iran and further afield (Hunt, 2020). The restructuring of the Shrine of Prophet Ezekiel in Iraq has infuriated both local communities and diaspora-based Iraqi Jews. In a similar way, the Ayodhya heritage complex aggravated relations between India and Pakistan, with the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs releasing statements about the injustices visited on Indian Muslims (Monshipouri, 1993; Ahmed, 2009; Thao, 2021). Such cases show that what happens to cultural heritage within a country can deeply affect bilateral relations between countries and that cultural diplomacy is as much about the negotiation of the outcomes of divisive politics, including heritage predation, as it is about forging and maintaining cordial relations. This chapter has explored the ways in which politics and cultural heritage are intertwined through the concept of heritage predation; the exploitation of cultural heritage as a way of conducting politics. As shown through case studies from Iraq and India, predatory practices emanating from the growth of identity and sectarian politics as a dominant form of politics threaten not only the body of a country’s national cultural heritage but also more significantly the cultural foundations of building cohesive societies. Heritage predation cuts across different systems of power, institutions, and legal frameworks. In Iraq, the restructuring and erasure of cultural heritage has been carried out using post2003 laws that have undermined national heritage institutions in favour of sub-national 191

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political party interests. As such, the transformation of cultural heritage has been undertaken as an outcome of changed power structures, often justified on the basis of the 2005 Iraq Constitution and other legal frameworks established to protect autonomously controlled, but state-sanctioned, institutions. In other cases, heritage erasure and transformation has been carried out without resorting to legal systems and by non-state groups. In India, interventions to transform cultural heritage have had the support of ruling elites. The long-term impact of such state-sanctioned actions geared to undermine India’s Muslim population will ultimately lead to heritage predation becoming an increasingly dominant, if not indistinguishable, form of political conduct in the country. Both India and Iraq show that politics can create an environment in which cultural heritage is a political resource to alter society. In Iraq, heritage predation has been undertaken by a combination of different state, non-state actors, and state-sanctioned institutions, reflecting the specificities of the country’s socio-political context and its post-2003 political order of state collapse. Politics, in this sense, should be seen as a form of violence that affects cultural heritage. In a similar way, India has seen the growth of heritage predation that has upset social and cultural relations in the country and created a deep sense of animosity and distrust between sections of its society (Maizland, 2020). As it is evident in both case studies, the repercussions of heritage destruction are mediated and seen through national and vested interests. As the transformation of heritage happens within sovereign states, heritage erasure undertaken by states and state-affiliated groups has generally been considered to be less important in comparison to those of non-state organisations, such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. As such, global mechanisms or legal frameworks regarding accountability, justice, and prevention of heritage destruction have been remarkably missing or weak. Whilst at an international level, some cases such as the Ayodhya heritage complex have been covered in the media, significant destruction can be carried out, including in this case by groups connected to political parties or ruling elites, without much, if any, legal repercussions of wrongdoing. A lens into the dynamics of context-based politics could offer an important entry point in academia and practice-oriented approaches to what happens to cultural heritage over time. Heritage predation is a lens into issues of cultural continuity and could be further developed as an element in academic but also practice-oriented frameworks regarding sustainability. In-depth case studies that explore heritage predation as a particular form of politics would help better understand how and why cultural resources are exploited and its impact on society. Understanding the destructive forces such predation unleashes on cultural heritage, could galvanise further support for building credible international institutions that are able to highlight and address the ensuing damage it gives rise to.

Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the editors of this handbook, particularly Melathi Saldin, for their careful reading and insightful commentary on this chapter.

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 The Citizenship Amendment Act has been widely criticised for discriminating on the basis of religion regarding who is entitled to be a citizen. The new Act amends the Citizenship Act of 1955,

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Heritage predation and the pursuit of politics which allows for the citizenship of prosecuted minorities who arrived before 2014. The amendment, however, excludes Muslims from applying for citizenship for people from neighbouring countries.

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Heritage predation and the pursuit of politics Meskell, L. (2021). Toilets first, temples second: Adopting heritage in neoliberal India. International Journal of Heritage Studies 27(2), pp.151–169. Monshipouri, M. (1993). Backlash to the destruction at Ayodhya: A view from Pakistan. Asian Survey 33(7), pp.711–721. Moynihan, Q. (2018). The Taj Mahal is under threat of demolition because pollution has damaged it so much, Business Insider, 12 July. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/taj-mahal-under-threatof-demolition-due-to-neglect-and-pollution-2018-7?r=US&IR=T. [Accessed 12 January 2022]. Popplewell, M.T. (2017). Imagined Kurds: Media and construction of Kurdish national identity in Iraq. Master’s Thesis. San Francisco: San Francisco State University. Available at: https://scholarworks.calstate. edu/concern/theses/gq67js58f ?sequence=1. [Accessed 23 January 2022]. Saleem, R.M.A. (2021). Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindu Populism in India: An Analysis of Party Manifestos of Indian Rightwing Parties. Religions 12(10), p.803. Sela, R. (2018). The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure – Israel’s Control over Palestinian Archives. Social Semiotics 28(2), pp.201–229. Simons, G. (2008). They Destroyed Iraq and Called It Freedom. Surrey: Legacy Publishing Limited. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge. Soave, A., and Hawizy, B. (2020). Rebuilding Tajeel: Strategies to Reverse the Deterioration of Cultural Heritage and Loss of Identity of the Historic Quarters of Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq. In: Arefian, F.F., and Moeini, S.H.I. (eds.). Urban Heritage Along the Silk Roads. New York: Springer, pp.75–91. Sørensen, M.L.S., and Viejo-Rose, D. (2015). War and Cultural Heritage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thao, P.T. (2021). Ayodhya Dispute and Responses of India’s Islamic Neighbors and Hindu Nationalism in India. VNU Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 7(2), pp.223–236. Van Der Veer, P. (1992). Ayodhya and Somnath: Eternal Shrines, Contested Histores. Social Research, pp.85–109. Viejo-Rose, D. (2013). Reconstructing Heritage in the Aftermath of Civil War: Re-Visioning the Nation and the Implications of International Involvement. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 7(2), pp.125–148. Visser, R. (2007). The Western Imposition of Sectarianism on Iraqi Politics. The Arab Studies Journal 15/16(2/1), pp.83–99. Whitelam, K.W. (2013). The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History. London: Routledge.

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15 POST-CONFLICT RECOVERY CHALLENGES Affect and Heritage in Post-conflict Cyprus and Italy Olga Demetriou and Elena Miltiadis The difficulties of heritage recovery The present chapter focuses on affective structures around heritage recovery and reconstruction as a key challenge in post-conflict efforts. Examples from post-agreement Iraq, Bosnia, and Spain show that while legal and policy frameworks may guide heritage recovery efforts, these are often frustrated in practice because of the identifications that surround heritage and the affect that imbues these identifications. More so in the absence of agreements or policy frameworks, where such affective structures are the main drivers of engagements and disengagement with specific sites – such as in Cyprus and Italy that we examine. While in many situations of heritage destroyed by conflict or war, peace agreements, constitutions, or other legislation may provide direction to the recovery of heritage that has been destroyed, the vast majority of heritage destruction escape legal parameters. This may be because “conflict” has not officially ended or an agreement has not officially been signed, even though hostilities may have ceased. This is the case in Cyprus, where we examine the fate of Ledra Palace Hotel. Or it may be because either “heritage” or “destruction” are not recognised as such, even though they may be taking place and directly linked to past conflict. This is the case in Italy, where the focus of our examination is Latina’s Palazzo M. Taken together, the stories of these two “palaces” underline the importance of attending to multiple meanings of conflict, heritage, and destruction, as well as related notions of recovery, reconstruction, and belonging, that are all enmeshed in the difficulties and silences that define what is erased and what is produced anew in the aftermath of violence. Our focus on these two sites shows the dense but silenced affects that conflict recovery elides.

Connecting the normative to the affective Although not always a priority of post-conflict reconstruction, heritage is an important aspect of it (Barakat, 2021). In reconstructing heritage, communities can be rebuilt, a sense of place recovered, and ultimately, reconciliation achieved (Lostal & Cunliffe, 2016; Alsalloum & Brown, 2019). Heritage reconstruction may also rekindle antagonisms, however, where such heritage is “difficult” (Macdonald, 2009), or negatively connoted (Meskell, 2002), as 196

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it perpetuates state narratives (Constantinou et al., 2012). Alternatively, a focus on reconciliation may thwart more difficult – and more substantive – approaches to dealing with the past (Kalman, 2017), creating a “negative cycle” of heritage reconstruction (Viejo-Rose, 2011 p.142). These opposing dynamics between reconciliation and renewed antagonism inhere in the affective value of heritage (Navaro-Yashin, 2009; 2012), which often exceeds the legal and policy frames guiding recovery and reconstruction. Thus, heritage becomes imbricated in the processes that mediate the material and non-material dimensions of identity borders (Demetriou, 2018a; 2018b; Demetriou & Dimova, 2018). This entanglement of affect in the normative is evident in a number of cases. The Iraqi Constitution of 2005 includes two clauses on heritage. It opens with a heritagederived definition of community: “We, the people of Mesopotamia, the homeland of the apostles and prophets, resting place of the virtuous imams, cradle of civilisation, crafters of writing, and home of numeration” (Iraq Constitution 2005, preamble). Iraq has provided a well-intentioned example, through its constitutional articles 35 and 113, of normative attention to heritage recovery. Article 35 warrants that “The state shall promote cultural activities and institutions in a manner that befits the civilisational and cultural history of Iraq, and it shall seek to support indigenous Iraqi cultural orientations”, while the more substantial article on cultural heritage Article 113 states that “Antiquities, archeological sites, cultural buildings, manuscripts, and coins shall be considered national treasures under the jurisdiction of the federal authorities, and shall be managed in cooperation with the regions and governorates, and this shall be regulated by law”. In trying to negotiate the political power balances of federalism that defined the new order, Article 113 contains inherent contradictions as to who is responsible for heritage protection (Davis, 2014). Within a context where post-war looting was rampant (Isakhan, 2015; Zaina, 2019), the lack of clarity over heritage management exacerbates problems of recovery and return and poses new dangers related to the reopening of sites, issuing of excavation permits and, not least, renewed plundering as IS1 in Iraq used illicit trade to fund its campaign (Davis, 2014). While heritage protection may be enshrined in constitutional text, the actual practice of implementing those stipulations is often subordinate to political priorities that seldom see heritage as a major issue of national security. While foregrounding an inclusive “we, the people”, the Iraqi Constitution skirts difficult questions of ownership and identification that ultimately end up undermining heritage, the very basis on which that inclusivity of citizenship is defined in the first place. The normative vagueness of Iraq can be contrasted to the Bosnian case, where the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (commonly known as the Dayton Agreement) of 1995 included an entire annex to cultural heritage, comprising 11 articles and establishing a commission, overseen by UNESCO, to decide on heritage restoration (Perry, 2015). Even in this case, Annex 8 invited implementation problems, around ownership and the association of cultural heritage with specific ethnic identities constructed as mutually exclusive and unaccommodating to minorities (Basic, 2019). Heritage reconstruction was connected to the normative frame of return, which meant that much emphasis was placed on religious monuments in areas where formerly displaced communities returned; conversely, this created problems for areas where such return did not materialise to the extent envisioned. Overall, Annex 8 has offered great potential for international standard setting in rehabilitating destroyed heritage sites; however, implementation has dithered between integration and disintegration due to the association of notions of heritage with communal identity and, indirectly, the return of displaced populations. Although some results have been spectacular in the aftermath of the war (the reconstruction of Mostar bridge being a celebrated example), 197

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the future of heritage rehabilitation in the long term is less certain (Perry, 2015). Studies of Bosnia allow a longer timeframe in the evaluation of post-conflict reconstruction and this more clearly shows the relevance of affect in determining the aftermath of intervention. Where liminal sites that were not primarily associated with religion have been listed under the commission’s mandate and restored, they have, in the long-term, been left to ruin (Dougherty, 2019). This exemplifies well how affective connections ultimately determine the fate of recovery and reconstruction efforts. Spain also shows the connections between the normative and the affective. In the aftermath of the civil war, government directorates under Franco focused on developing a new historical narrative for Spain that enlisted selective heritage reconstruction (Viejo-Rose, 2011). Over the next three decades, national narratives silenced aspects of the past, and this silencing persisted into the post-Franco period. In 2006 this construction was addressed and reversed, through the Historical Memory Law that recognised the victimisation of parts of the Spanish population and targeted the removal of material heritage celebrating the Franco regime (Viejo-Rose, 2011 p.146). Its implementation was, unsurprisingly, controversial (also Labanyi, 2008). Even more controversial, though, was the much more comprehensive 2011 Act on the Recognition and Comprehensive Protection of Victims of Terrorism, which excluded Franco’s victims (Druliolle, 2015). A comparison of the two pieces of legislation highlights the soft-touch approach to reconciliation in which heritage is encompassed that elides justice and reparation (Druliolle, 2015 p.326). Again, this seemingly normative difference is underpinned by an affective politics of victimhood in which legislation is embedded and that drive transitional justice in Spain. The aftermath of war is as much about destruction as it is about constructing new material heritage based on understandings of community, identity, loss, and belonging (Sørensen and Viejo-Rose, 2015; Tolia-Kelly et al., 2016; Navaro, 2017). This production, and not just the destruction, needs to be attended to, as it has the potential to generate new conflicts. As Munawar notes, “[t]he aftermath of reconstruction of cultural heritage can be as destructive as the destruction itself and has the power to prolong violence even after the civil war ends” (2017 p.43). In the examples below we draw attention to heritage that is otherwise neglected but which nevertheless produces affective connections and consolidates post-conflict communities outside the normative purview. We examine processes of neglect, ruination, or ad hoc reconstruction that also create, inadvertently or unintentionally, new narratives of identity and new associations of community in the post-conflict era.

Ledra Palace Hotel, Nicosia, Cyprus Ledra Palace Hotel is an iconic building within the United Nations’ Buffer Zone in Cyprus’ capital, Nicosia. Constructed in 1948, it hosted celebrities, royalty, and politicians in the 1950s and 1960s. Since 1974, when it was attacked by Turkish forces in the war that separated the island between the Greek-Cypriot-run south and the Turkish-Cypriot-run north, it has housed the United Nations’ Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). Even though the Hotel was a landmark for Greek-Cypriot Nicosians during its civilian life, its post-war history is marked by neglect and ruination. Although listed with authorities of the Republic of Cyprus as a monument, it is not subject to reconstruction efforts or plans. Architecturally, Ledra Palace is emblematic of mid-twentieth-century British colonial architecture, characterised by yellow sandstone and modern form, rendered ornate through regional references – a mélange approach that largely excluded neo-Hellenistic references 198

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(Given, 1997 pp.71–73). The architect, Benzion Ginzburg, is known for a number of projects he undertook on the island, including hotels, theatres, and private homes. This colonial character belied the decidedly Greek-Cypriot identity with which the Hotel was intertwined. When Greek Egyptian share-holders agreed on a hand-over of their share to the British Forte group in 1968 at the height of the inter-communal conflict, the Greek-Cypriot Archbishopric intervened and bought the Hotel to save it from being passed onto potential Turkish investors in the future (Demetriou, 2012; 2015). Ledra Palace Hotel was also militarised through the conflict. It is situated in the zone between the two ethnically defined sectors of Nicosia established since 1958. Sandbag walls were erected outside its perimeter in 1963, Greek-Cypriot paramilitaries used it in the 1960s to fire into the Turkish sector, and international correspondents chose it as lodgings when reporting on the violence. Throughout, and including the period of the anti-colonial struggle in the 1950s, negotiations between the warring sides were conducted there. Between 1993 and 2004 when the opening of the Buffer Zone checkpoints allowed civilian movement between the two sides, the Hotel provided a unique space for inter-communal meetings. It was used by the UN and other international peace interveners (academic facilitators, political mediators, and conflict resolution trainers funded by UNDP, USAID, and other governments but never Greece or Turkey) as a meeting ground for Cypriot peace activists who came together in training, academic and cultural events, or social gatherings (Hadjipavlou, 2012 p.104). This use became more sporadic as other spaces opened up in the area, particularly the peace activity hub, known as the Home for Cooperation (Demetriou & Erdal Ilican, 2019; Evangelou, 2019). Since its civilian closure in 1974, Ledra Palace Hotel has been given over to a process of ruination, being maintained at a rudimentary level that allows continued use by the troops stationed there. This is due to a number of factors, of which military austerity is only one. A more important factor is the ownership status it operates under, which recognises the building as belonging to the Cypriot Church, yet under effective control of the UN, owing to the post-war situation. Formally, the Cyprus conflict is in ceasefire, as peace negotiations have repeatedly failed to deliver a peace agreement since they began in 1964 (Richmond, 1998). This status of exceptionality allows for minimal interventions to the infrastructure and renders the building itself an object of constant negotiation between UN authorities and authorities of the Republic of Cyprus (Demetriou, 2015). It is indicative that for a good part of the last decade construction materials have been an integral part of the building, plastic chutes running down on one of its sides and a construction dumpster permanently stationed near the entrance (Figure 15.1). Crucially, the reconstruction of Ledra Palace is not under the mandate of the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage (TCCH), a body attached to the negotiation process and mandated by the two leaderships and the UN to restore heritage sites on the two sides of the island since 2012. The Committee is one of the most successful transitional justice mechanisms that currently exist in the absence of a formal transitional justice process. Its work has included the support, protection, and restoration of dozens of buildings so far. Among a number of Technical Committees set up to support the peace negotiation effort, the TCCH is the first, most effective, and best resourced (Demetriou & Hadjipavlou, 2018). Within its priorities, however, Ledra Palace’s current use, complex jurisdiction, and perhaps most importantly, surreptitious ethnic identification and development potential (including the suggestions by the Orthodox Church to turn it into a casino business venture if and when it repossesses it) would all count negatively. This harks back to the affective structures within which Ledra Palace is embedded. 199

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Figure 15.1 Ledra Palace Hotel during its long renovation phase. Photograph By Olga Demetriou 2021.

The building’s long history of militarisation and ruination is couched in layers of political affect, which centred around loss (Demetriou, 2014). To many of the Cypriot reconciliationists who used it for UN-sponsored inter-communal events, Ledra Palace was an “ugly” place: old, unkempt, dirty, and boring (Demetriou, 2012). To the Greek-Cypriot nationalists who grew up in the 1980s, Ledra Palace marks the spot for anti-Turkish demonstrations, in which they participated as school children since the authorities in the north unilaterally declared an independent state in 1983 (Spyrou, 2008). Many of them consider the crossing point that Ledra Palace has lent its name to, as an aberration that legitimises the state in the north and undermines the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus that controls the south (Demetriou, 2007). Ledra Palace, by extension, is a miasmatic place, its liminal location associated with the dirt of otherness. And to the majority of Greek-Cypriot Nicosians, who would consider themselves removed from conflict politics, it is a place that is largely absent from mental maps of the city, a faded memory of past grandeur, a location that is bypassed. Even this relationship though is one that is charged with political affect, of the order that Rancière locates in the attempt to cultivate disinterest (2010 p.45) and negate dissensus. In his analysis, Rancière maintains that an important aspect of managing dissensus democratically is for the state to claim that issues are unimportant: like when a policeman urges people to move away from 200

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a scene, that there is nothing to see here (Rancière, 2010). Ledra Palace’s negative affect functions in this way. Between these negative affects – neglect, rejection, abjection, disinterest, and silencing – Ledra Palace Hotel enacts the Cypriot conflict in the everyday. Its ruination and the political affects it elicits allow us to see post-conflict recovery and reconstruction as processes that suspend concepts of “conflict”, “heritage,” and “destruction”. A similar suspension occurs in the Italian city of Latina, where another palace imposes on the landscape, but its history forgotten.

Palazzo M, Latina, Italy Just at the edge of Latina’s centre, an imposing building occupies an entire bloc. Its size is magnified by the white luminosity of the travertine used to cover its façade and part of the building’s sides (Figure 15.2). Palazzo M (“M” palace) preserves its monumentality even among the large and busy roads and taller apartment buildings (erected in the 1960s) that surround it. Everyone in Latina, a city located in central Italy just 60 km south of Rome, knows about the building’s existence, location, and meaning. The “M” in its name not only traces the monument’s shape but also the initial of the person to whom it was dedicated and built for: the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Polselli, 2012). By analysing the history of Palazzo M, its contemporary presence, and its past and contemporary uses, this section reflects on the multiple meanings heritage can acquire through conflict and reconstruction as it is lived, used, and experienced daily; in the specific case of Palazzo M, these multiple meanings

Figure 15.2 View of “Palazzo M”. Photograph by Emilio Andreoli in 2022.

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are manifested within and beyond the building’s materiality as it has maintained, because of and through conflict, its controversial form. Palazzo M was planned by the architect Oriolo Frezzotti in 1938 as part of an ambitious urban project called “Foro Mussolini” (Polselli, 2012). The original designs envisioned a large square enclosed by arcades and large buildings. Works to build Palazzo M began in 1939; in February of 1943, it was still incomplete (Polselli, 2012). The “Foro Mussolini” plan was slowed down and ultimately interrupted (Ippoliti & Calvano, 2015; Polselli, 2012). Palazzo M displayed some typically fascist architectural elements, such as the arengario2 , and was decorated with fascist iconography, which has now been almost entirely removed. It also had a tower surmounted by an “imperial eagle” – an “iconographic inheritance of the Roman past […], a representation of the imperial force and power of fascism” (Falasca-Zamponi, 1997 n.240). Palazzo M and “Foro Mussolini” were part of a much wider urban plan for the entire city, founded and built in 1932 by the fascist regime as one of its “New Towns” (Mariani, 1976). Latina was originally built under the name of Littoria. Its name was changed after the war because Littoria (from the word littorio – the fascist symbol par excellence) was too reminiscent of fascism. The city and its architectural features, therefore, embodied the regime’s policies and ideology in their very form (Mariani, 1976; Ghirardo, 2003), and today they still embody the memory and history of the nation’s fascist past. Shortly after its foundation, Latina came to be known as the “Perla del Duce [The Duce’s Pearl]” (Mangullo, 2015) and was celebrated nationally and internationally for its urban and architectural characteristics (Mariani, 1976). Palazzo M was thus part of a much wider urban and ideological project and, in its distinctive shape, was one of the most significant and meaningful expressions of the regime’s power and presence. This was remarked even more by the building’s purposes. Palazzo M had been built to be the city’s “Casa del Fascio” (House of Fascio), or the fascist party local headquarters, a crucial element of the party’s ideological infrastructure of power (Maulsby, 2019). It was through “Case del Fascio” that the party established a capillary control and presence over communities throughout the nation. They were important infrastructural nodes, aiming to create new fascist citizens out of Italian citizens (Maulsby, 2019). Their architectural and stylistic features made them easily recognisable. Within the historical context of its planning and construction, Palazzo M can thus be understood as fascist heritage, as it emerged from a specific and recognisable ideological, political, and cultural context (Geismar, 2015), even though it was contemporaneous to the regime that gave it its meaning – rather than belonging to a re-elaboration of the past (Lazzaro & Crum, 2005). In its shape and purpose, Palazzo M was the product, embodiment, and material expression of the conflictual character of the dictatorship and of its power and control over the nation and its people. With the fall of the regime in 1943 – while the construction of Palazzo M was being completed – and the developments of the Second World War, Italian communities entered a tumultuous period in the fight against Nazi-fascism (de Nardi, 2016). Latina’s entire region was heavily affected. Palazzo M, which had barely been finished, was also heavily damaged. Photos show the building gutted by bombs, the tower completely destroyed. The dictatorship created the building; the Second World War almost erased it from the map. After the conflict, Palazzo M’s afterlife began. The building’s ruins became a refuge for displaced persons who had lost their houses during the war. Mangullo (2015 p.42) writes that during the immediate post-war years 200 families lived there in unsanitary and precarious conditions. Two Latina residents recalled their time in Palazzo M and the hardships they faced there as displaced persons, having left their lives and possessions behind in search of refuge from the war and its destruction (Andreoli, 2020). Documents from Latina’s archive show that restoration works began towards the end of the 202

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1950s when the building was turned into a school (even while renovation works were still ongoing and parts of the building were still precarious) (Ufficio Genio Civile 1957). Palazzo M became a “new” building through the social functions it came to acquire. This was evident in conversations in Latina, where people often remembered the years spent in the building, its gym used by pupils, and the teachers and classmates they met during their school years. Theirs were biographical and bodily memories of the time spent in the building, of their daily experiences. A local journalist remembers Palazzo M as the place where the life of Latina’s youth was spent, where students met before and after school, and where friendship and sociality happened (Andreoli, 2020). Palazzo M thus came to take on an affective presence in the lives of Latina and its inhabitants and was often the focus of nostalgic recollections. It is, to this day, deeply embedded in the memories and biographies of people. More recently, the building has housed the headquarters of the “Guardia di Finanza” (the financial police) and several administrative offices, including passport renewals and residence permits. The large rooms inside the building are often used for conferences, meetings, and other public events. The building’s gardens were once little taken care of, with dogwalkers making use of this space every evening with little consideration for the upkeep of the flowerbeds. This has, however, changed more recently as the gardens have been renovated and embellished (Redazione, 2019a). In the gardens there are two fascist statues that were in disrepair for a long time but are now undergoing an extensive renovation process (Castrucci, 2020). They depict mothers carrying children and bread, reproducing important fascist symbolic themes. A third, more recent, statue is dedicated to the memory of a child – Giuseppe Giuliano – killed during a shooting in 1971. Lately, there have also been calls to use the building for other purposes, such as for the local university (Redazione, 2019b). In its contemporary uses, it is possible to see how the building occupies a central place in Latina – both spatially and in the life of the city and its people – and it thus remains an important feature and focal point for the city and its inhabitants. The peculiarity of the reconstruction process lies in the fact that, while its tower was never rebuilt, the “M” shape was restored to its original form and is still clearly visible today. Even though everyone in Latina knows of the building’s history and of the meanings of its shape, these are rarely discussed or problematised (Miltiadis, 2020; see also Carter & Martin, 2019). “Palazzo M”, for the city’s inhabitants, remains a core element of the urban fabric and of their relationship with the city. While the building’s past remains indissolubly embedded in its history and shape, its materiality has been layered with multiple meanings and affects that permeate its presence. The controversial past is not the only narrative associated with the building, which, in its afterlife, has returned to be a crucial element of the urban fabric, albeit for very different reasons. The building thus embodies both its controversial history as well as the affective place it occupies in people’s lives. As a local journalist, Emilio Andreoli, wrote in his article: “whether one likes it or not, it is our only monument” (2020 online).

Conclusion The two cases we focus on reveal how the difficulties of dealing with the past in contexts where processes of reconciliation are largely absent results in the bypassing of major sites in urban cityscapes from the register of “heritage”, leading to neglect, ruination, or disengagement not only with the sites themselves but also in relation to the wider collective histories within which these sites are situated. Their material presence, in other words, induces a negative effect of neglect that produces historical absences. They show that neglect can take many forms (e.g., material neglect in the case of Ledra Palace or historical neglect in the case of 203

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Palazzo M), with very different effects: in Cyprus, the ruination of Ledra Palace bears witness to the conflict and its multiple ramifications; in Italy, the silencing of history allows Palazzo M to become the locus, through experience and practice, of a collective sense of place, despite its controversial shape and past. The stories of these two “palaces” hold three important lessons for dealing with the challenges of post-conflict heritage recovery: (i) the need to question and complicate the definitions under which interventions are performed; (ii) the need to be attentive to the production associated with post-conflict heritage as much as its destruction; and (iii) the need to account for the affective relations that recovery and reconstruction processes entail as they unfold beyond and in the absence of normative frames. Within this context, the reconstruction of Ledra Palace must ultimately begin with reclaiming the building in ways that do not just re-confirm ownership but that take account of the affects and historical embeddedness that have defined it. This could take the shape of inviting people disempowered throughout the conflict’s history to have a say in its use (Demetriou, 2012), or reconfiguring it as an ongoing activist museum (Heraclidou & Stylianou-Lambert, 2020). In the case of Latina, it could encompass the building in new narratives of the town’s history that do not eschew but invite reflection and debate over the legacy of a difficult past to accommodate its multiple affective, historical, and material presences. For it is only when we incorporate the affective in the normative that the latter can provide effective recovery.

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 Speaking balcony, one of the most recognisable architectural features of the “Case del Fascio” (see Maulsby, 2015).

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16 MEDIA NARRATIVES, HERITAGE DESTRUCTION, AND UNIVERSAL HERITAGE A Case Study of Palmyra Christopher W. Jones The campaign of performative destruction of cultural heritage sites unleashed by IS1 in 2014 and 2015 and publicised using photos and videos distributed online, both shocked the world and brought the protection of cultural heritage to the public consciousness. IS’ use of social media platforms such as video streaming and blogging sites allowed their messages to reach internet users directly across the globe. The group’s sophisticated media strategies brought IS widespread attention in worldwide news media (Winter, 2015; Smith et al., 2016 pp.170–173). Cultural heritage objects are a powerful narrative tool during military conflict because they are “condensed symbols”; that is, they take on symbolic importance representing a broader cultural or religious identity and all which that identity represents (Douglas, 1996 pp.8–12). As such, cultural heritage objects, like certain words or rituals, can become a shorthand for an entire system of values (Graber, 1976 pp.289–321). The destruction of cultural heritage signifies dominance over the values associated with the object being destroyed. The communication of these actions to the wider world is mediated through news and social media, which in the twenty-first century allow narratives to be created and disseminated globally within minutes. As global audiences watch dramatic and graphic videos of airstrikes, dead bodies, and terrified civilians from the safety of their homes, narratives spread too quickly to be rebutted. Therefore, states instead create and disseminate counternarratives which they hope will also go viral and influence global opinion (Patrikarakos, 2017).

Palmyra’s contested history Narratives created around Palmyra from 2015 to 2017 by IS, by media in the United States and United Kingdom, and by the government of Bashar al-Assad form an important case study in the use of media narratives as a strategic tool in armed conflict. These narratives have roots in stories which have been told about the site for the past century. Once a wealthy trading city located between the Roman and Parthian empires, Palmyra has long been remembered for the unsuccessful revolt which its female ruler Zenobia led against DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-18

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Rome from 267 to 273 CE. Although she briefly controlled an empire stretching from Cilicia to Egypt, her defeat at the hands of the Roman emperor Aurelian ended Palmyra’s monumental grandeur. The city continued to be a major trading centre throughout the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, which saw its temples transformed into churches and then mosques (Intagliata, 2018). European travellers encountered the town built among ruins from the seventeenth century onwards (Sommer, 2018 pp.1–13). In 1929, French archaeologist Henri Seyrig oversaw the depopulation of the village and the relocation of its inhabitants so that he could excavate the site. The monumental ruins of Zenobia’s Palmyra which have been on display since that time were largely uncovered by stripping away post273 CE structures (Mulder, 2017 pp.231–237). The unknown and notoriously unreliable author of the Historia Augusta memorably portrayed Zenobia as an exotic eastern queen whose revolt represented a challenge to the masculinity of Rome’s failing late third-century emperors (Winsbury, 2010 pp.11–28). The depiction of Zenobia as an exotic object could easily be flipped to portray her as an anticolonial heroine, as was done by Arab nationalist writers in late Ottoman and French Syria (Woltering, 2014). Seyrig’s excavations, with their emphasis on uncovering Zenobia’s Palmyra, connected these narratives to a physical place. Modern-day Palmyra was therefore deeply entangled with narratives of European colonialism, Syrian nationalism, and the granting of pre-eminent value to the pre-Islamic past (Mulder, 2017 p.237). After the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party seized power in Syria in a coup on 8 March 1963, they promoted Zenobia and Palmyra as symbols of the Syrian state. Under Hafez al-Assad, this took place within the context of an ideology of “Greater Syria” which held that Syria’s natural boundaries stretched from the Egyptian border to Cilicia and encompassed the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan (Pipes, 1990). As one of the few rulers who had both ruled over this space and hailed from inside the borders of the modern state of Syria, Zenobia became an avatar for “Greater Syria”. Assad’s long-time Defence minister Mustafa Tlass (2000 p.230) even published a biography of Zenobia which explicitly compared her struggle against Rome to Syria’s struggle against Israel. Palmyra became a symbol linking the pre-Islamic past and the modern nation-state, presenting modern Syria under Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar as a recapitulation of its ancient past while equating its modern enemies with those of its previous ancient civilisations (Jones, 2018 p.42).

The Islamic State narrative Shortly after IS captured Palmyra on 21 May 2015, the Syrian opposition station Radio Alwan aired a brief statement purportedly from an IS commander known only as Abu Leith al-Saudi. He promised that the ancient city would not be harmed and that only former cultic statues would be destroyed (Bakr, 2015). Indeed, IS’ destruction of Palmyra was not as widely publicised as its campaigns of heritage destruction in Mosul and Hatra, a matter which has continued to puzzle observers (Cunliffe & Curini, 2018 p.1104). Early videos emphasised the defeat of the Assad government rather than the destruction of the ancient site. On 27 May, the group publicised a video showing young boys executing prisoners in Palmyra’s theatre, transforming a state symbol which had appeared on Syria’s 500-pound banknote into a film set for IS propaganda (Cuneo et al., 2015 pp.2–3). The publicised propagandistic destruction of Palmyra’s ancient buildings did not take place until 23 August, when IS destroyed the temple of Baalshamin with explosives, followed by the temple of Bel a week later (Cuneo et al., 2015 pp.8–11). IS’ flagship publications carried a brief photo essay of the destruction with the caption “destroying the shirk temple” (Dabiq, 208

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2015a pp.32–33; Dar al-Islam, 2015 p.49; Konstantiniyye, 2015 pp.68–69).2 The group also publicised the destruction of several Sufi shrines in the surrounding countryside, the public smashing of six Palmyrene funerary busts confiscated from unauthorised archaeological looters, and photographs of men demolishing modern gravestones as part of a general campaign against graves carried out across the caliphate’s territory (Danti et al., 2015a pp.65–75, 2015b pp.17–25; Hutton, 2017). Another video showing the destruction of ancient sculptures inside the Palmyra Museum was not released until after the group lost control of Palmyra (Danti et al., 2016 pp.16–18). IS did not publicise the majority of the structures they intentionally destroyed in Palmyra, including the triumphal arch erected by the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, several tower tombs, and artefacts on display at the Palmyra Museum (Danti et al., 2015c pp.43–57; Cuneo et al., 2016; Jones, 2016). After capturing Palmyra for a second time in December 2016, IS destroyed the façade of the theatre and the tetrapylon (Danti et al., 2017 pp.31–37, 41–44). Western scholars have largely attempted to understand IS’ obsession with destroying ancient sites as either a simple application of iconoclastic Wahhabi teachings (Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2017) or as an assault on Western ideals of heritage preservation designed to shock foreign audiences and demonstrate the group’s power to target objects valued by the West (Frahm, 2015; Harman şah, 2015; Nankivell, 2016 p.39; Smith et al., 2016; Isakhan, 2018; Rosén, 2020). Most scholars examining this issue have failed to engage deeply with IS’ ideology, especially the full range of meaning which the group attaches to the Islamic theological term shirk ( Jones, 2018). Often translated as “idolatry”, the so-called “Salafi-Jihadist” school of thought of which IS represents a branch interprets the term broadly to include obedience to any ruling authority which commands adherence to laws different from Islamic sharia. This includes not only rival ideologies such as Ba’athism or Marxism but also the secular nation-state in any form (Maher, 2016 pp.203–206; Jones, 2018 pp.43–47). IS has always been explicit about why they targeted cultural heritage. Its leaders frequently denounced political ideologies such as Ba’athism or democracy as shirk ( Jones, 2018 pp.43–53). In April and May of 2016, IS’ Arabic-language propaganda newsletter al-Naba ran a three-part series titled “Symbols or Idols?” which argued that “The statue does not become an idol by itself, but rather through the presence of people who worship it” (al-Naba, 2016a p.14; 2016b p.14; 2016c p.14).3 Following the destruction at the Mosul Museum, Dabiq ran an article arguing that the statues had been excavated and presented “as part of a cultural heritage and identity that the Muslims of Iraq should embrace and be proud of ” but that such veneration “only serves a nationalist agenda that severely dilutes the walā’ [loyalty] that is required of the Muslims towards their Lord” (Dabiq, 2015b pp.22–23). The article further suggested that the statues’ placement on display in a museum is what turned them into idols, stating that “we are meant to take a lesson from those disbelieving nations that came before us and avoid what led to their destruction, as opposed to unearthing and preserving their statues and putting them on display for people to admire” (Dabiq, 2015b p.23). The ruins and artefacts of Palmyra, exposed by colonial authorities and then turned into a symbol of Syria’s Ba’athist government, thus represented an object of shirk through being reconstructed, preserved, and presented in ways which aligned with Syrian nationalism. By destroying them, IS presented itself as erasing the physical manifestation of a nationalist ideology which claimed that the modern Syrian people were heir to thousands of years of history (Zisser, 2006). Instead, the group offered an alternative past, one which cast IS following in the footsteps of Abraham and Muhammad smashing the idols of the Kaaba in Mecca and destroying artefacts used as symbols for modern nationalist ideologies (De Cesari, 2015; Jones, 209

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2018; Ocón, 2021). Propaganda videos of the destruction, usually presented in Arabic, must have been primarily aimed at the residents of Syria, Iraq, and the broader Arabic-speaking world (Cunliffe & Curini, 2018 p.1095).

The narrative in American and British media American and British news media dedicated extensive coverage to IS’ performative destruction of archaeological sites. In the case of Palmyra, media began speculating about the imminent destruction of Palmyra as soon as IS captured the city (Rosén, 2020 p.499). Media coverage portrayed ancient Palmyra as a symbol of liberal internationalism and tolerance, which stood in contrast to the barbarism of IS. Palmyra came to be viewed not as Syrian heritage but as the common heritage of humanity (Nankivell, 2016). Throughout 2015 and 2016, essays appeared in major publications arguing that Palmyra represented a beacon of liberal values in the ancient world. Lawrence Wright wrote in the New Yorker that Palmyra “was a center of learning and tolerance, enriched by its exposure to the outside world” which reached its “multicultural zenith” during Zenobia’s reign. He contrasted the modern Middle East unfavourably with the contemporary Western values which he projected onto ancient Palmyra, arguing that if the Arab world successfully modernises “it is the values embodied by Zenobia and her city that will be the hallmarks of its success, and not IS’s rejection of modernity, its persecution of believers in other faiths, its subjugation of women, and its abolition of history” (2015 n.8–9). Cambridge classicist Tim Whitmarsh wrote in The Guardian that Palmyra represents “antiquity’s best counterexample to Isis’s fascistic monoculturalism” thanks to “its citizens’ ability to trade with everyone, to integrate new populations, to take on board diverse cultural influences, to worship many gods without conflict” (2015 n.4). Neoliberal visions of Palmyra as a centre of trade and multicultural tolerance were joined by praise of Palmyra’s polytheistic pantheon as a more tolerant religious system than monotheistic religions. Holly Yan wrote for CNN that IS “destroyed a symbol of religious tolerance” when they blew up the Temple of Bel (2015 n.11). Not to be outdone, Leon Wieseltier argued in The Atlantic that IS “attacked the very foundations of pluralistic society” by waging “war on a parcel of a universal human patrimony”. As for IS, “the irony is that they destroyed the remains of a city that was, in its extraordinary social and cultural diversity, truly the antithesis of everything they believe”. Wieseltier attempted to divine liberal values from Palmyra’s pantheon: “Where there is one God, there is one way. Where there are many gods, there are many ways. In Palmyra there were many gods and many ways. The Palmyrene spirit is precisely what theocrats seek to extirpate. In the West, we are all, perfectly or imperfectly, Palmyrenes” (2015 n.4, 7, 9). Despite the pretence that Palmyra formed part of a universal heritage of humanity, the cumulative effect was to present Palmyra not as a part of Syrian or Middle Eastern heritage but as part of the West (Press, 2016). Once Palmyra had been absorbed into the Western story, it was a small step for Western institutions to begin manufacturing and displaying replicas such as the computer-sculpted scale replica of the Arch of Septimius Severus or virtual 3D reconstructions of the site (Press, 2016; Samad, 2020 pp.132–133, 154–157). Ignoring Palmyra’s Syrian context led Western interpreters to misunderstand IS’s destruction of the site as a deliberate assault on Western values, rather than as an attack on symbols of the Syrian state. The destruction of Palmyra was sometimes even cited as a justification for military intervention, eclipsing the atrocities committed by IS against human beings (Turner, 2015; Baggini, 2015; Press, 2017). 210

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The Syrian Arab Republic and Russian narrative From the outbreak of the conflict, the Syrian Arab Republic’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) and its director Maamoun Abdulkarim served as the primary point of contact for foreign media organisations seeking information about the state of Syria’s antiquities. This gave DGAM, and by extension the Ministry of Culture, tremendous influence to shape media narratives surrounding the loss of Syria’s heritage, both through the organisation’s own press releases (amplified by state-owned media) and through providing commentary to foreign news organisations. Early press releases by DGAM continued the pre-war emphasis on Syria’s antiquities as the unique cultural property of the Syrian nation. A 2013 report submitted to UNESCO stated that the loss of Syria’s heritage meant “damage to the spirit and identity of the nation” (DGAM, 2014 p.28). In another booklet published that year, Abdulkarim wrote that Syria’s cultural heritage “belongs to all Syrians, whatever their views and political orientations” and that DGAM’s mission was to raise awareness among all Syrians that “any attack on their heritage is an attack on their civilization”. He also wrote that Syria needed international assistance, as “the world must understand that Syria’s archaeological heritage is part of the cultural heritage of humanity and that the loss of any of its components is a loss to all mankind” (2013 p.30). Following IS’ capture of Palmyra in May 2015, the Assad government shifted its framing of cultural heritage destruction from an attack on the unique cultural property of the Syrian people to a threat to the universal heritage of all humanity. As Western media expressed concern over Palmyra’s fate, the Assad government appears to have seen an opportunity to leverage horror at IS’ destruction of cultural heritage to improve its international image by portraying itself as a defender of world civilisation against barbarism. Many DGAM press releases ended with a statement that “Palmyra stands for tolerance and multicultural richness, the things ISIS hates” (DGAM, 2015a, 2016). Soon after the city’s recapture in a joint Syrian-Russian offensive on 27 March 2016, tours were organised to take reporters through the ancient ruins. One officer leading a tour told journalists that “the Syrian army is defending Rome and London in as much as it is defending Damascus” (Aji, 2016 n.17). The message that Syria was fighting to protect the cultural inheritance of the entire world at Palmyra was amplified by governmentrun media outlets such as the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) and senior political leaders. Bashar al-Assad frequently mentioned the site in phone calls with world leaders following its recapture, promising Russian president Vladimir Putin that Palmyra “will be restored again so as to remain a cultural heritage and treasure for the entire world” (SANA, 2016 n.3). Russia, the Assad government’s main ally, magnified these efforts. Just over a month after the recapture of the city, Russian and Syrian classical musicians staged a televised concert in the theatre to an audience consisting primarily of soldiers as well as a few locals and journalists. Russian conductor Valery Gergiev told the audience that they played to “protest against barbarians who destroyed wonderful monuments of world culture” (Harding, 2016). In remarks delivered remotely, Putin said that he hoped “not just for the revival of Palmyra as cultural heritage of humanity, but for the rescue of modern civilization from this terrible menace — international terrorism” (Dyomkin, 2016; RT, 2016 n.8). Both SANA and the Russian government-run news outlet Russia Today have published hundreds of stories on the destruction of cultural heritage sites by IS, with a heavy emphasis on restoration work being carried out by the Assad government with Russian assistance. In November 2017, the Russian State Duma hosted an art exhibit by Ukrainian artist Tatiana Ponomarenko-Leverash titled “The Future Begins in the Past” which featured portraits of Bashar al-Assad and militia commander Suhail al-Hassan standing in military gear amidst Palmyra’s ruins (Associated Press, 2017). 211

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It was the execution of Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asa’ad, however, which gave the Syrian government a martyr. Al-Asa’ad had served as the inaugural director of Palmyra’s museum from 1963 to 2003 (al-Asa’ad, 2017 p.20). Choosing to remain in Palmyra rather than flee, he was arrested and later beheaded by IS on 18 August 2015. His death received extensive media coverage in Syria and the West. In the common retelling, IS interrogated al-Asa’ad regarding the location of various antiquities and then killed him after he refused to divulge their location. The primary source for this claim appears to have been Abdulkarim, who in turn variously attributed this information to unnamed sources in Tadmor or Asa’ad’s family (al-Ibrahim, 2015; BBC News, 2015; DGAM, 2015b; Leriche, 2015; Lewis, 2015; Melvin et al., 2015; Reuters, 2015; Waraich, 2015; Zain & Said, 2015). A minority cited Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, who referred to unnamed Syrian sources (Associated Press, 2015; Shaheen & Black, 2015). This story has become the standard account of al-Asa’ad’s death, mentioned in recent articles on the topic (SANA, 2018; BBC News, 2021; Bishara, 2021) and even endorsed by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova (UNESCO, 2015). The anniversary of his death has been regularly commemorated in Syria (SANA, 2020; 2021) and the Syrian film industry has retold the standard story in the documentary Zenobia’s Lover, directed by Ghassan Shamit, and the 2019 feature film Dam al-Nakhl (“Blood of the Palm”) directed by Najdat Anzour. Nevertheless, there seems to be reason to doubt the details of this story. His son Waleed, who was also arrested by IS but later released, reported that IS interrogated him and his father about where they could find gold jewellery – a futile quest, as no gold has ever been found at Palmyra (Soguel, 2015; Trew, 2016; al-Asa’ad, 2017 p.26). Similarly, Khaled’s son Muhammad has given contradictory accounts, telling one reporter that “There were stories that they killed him because he knew the secrets of Palmyra and locations of a hidden store of gold. But that’s false” (Bowen, 2015 n.15) but later stating that his father was executed for not revealing the location of hidden monuments (Trew, 2016). Both brothers fled Palmyra days after their father’s execution, arriving in Damascus on 22 August (DGAM, 2015c). Other evidence suggests that al-Asa’ad was executed for his long-time support of the Ba’ath Party, which had appointed him to his position as director of the museum. IS suspended his body from a streetlamp with a placard indicating that he was executed for “representing Syria at infidel conferences” and serving as “director of idolatry” in Palmyra, but also for visiting Iran and communicating with his brother Issa al-Asaadin, a colonel in the security services (Hassan, 2015 n.3; Hubbard, 2015 n.24). Promoting al-Asa’ad as a martyr for Palmyra served the Assad government’s larger goal of re-casting itself as a protector of world heritage. The battles for Palmyra – the only substantial contribution made by the Syrian government to the war against IS – were given disproportionate coverage in Syrian and Russian news media, even as a far larger and deadlier battle dragged on in the northern city of Aleppo. Data compiled by the Syrian Network for Human Rights indicated that Syrian government forces killed nearly six times as many civilians as IS in 2016. In fact, the Syrian government and its allies were responsible for 76% of civilian deaths in Syria that year, largely through indiscriminate use of artillery and airstrikes (2017). The uncritical reception of Syrian government narratives in Western media has left certain questions unexplained. IS destroyed few structures in Palmyra and publicised the destruction of even fewer, in sharp contrast to sites such as Nimrud and Nineveh which were largely levelled. Even temples to the deities Allat and Nabû were left intact, along with several tower tombs (Cuneo et al., 2016 pp.9–11, 15–19). Shortly after the recapture of Palmyra in 2016, Abdulkarim told several reporters that he worked with people inside Palmyra to successfully pressure IS to not destroy the city (Abdulkarim, 2016; AFP, 2016; Fahim, 2016; Sanchez, 212

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2016). Documents given to Sky News by IS defectors in 2016 suggest that an agreement was reached to allow IS to withdraw its heavy weapons from Palmyra prior to the recapture of the city (Ramsay, 2016). Given persistent allegations that the Assad government directly funded IS by purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of black-market oil, the possibility that the Assad government secured a deal to preserve at least some of the ancient city should be given serious consideration (Faucon & Coker, 2016; Faucon & Al Omran, 2017; Adesnik, 2018).

Conclusions Prior to 2011, the Syrian government promoted the remains of third-century Palmyra and the story of Zenobia as symbols of Syrian nationalism. IS reacted against this by seeking to demolish symbols of the nation-state, an entity which the group viewed as idolatrous. As IS’ campaign attracted negative attention globally, the Assad government shifted from promoting a nationalist interpretation of Palmyra to a universal heritage framework, allowing the government to present itself as a defender of world civilisation. American and British media also focused on the universal value of the site. Appeals to universal heritage are likely to be invoked in conflicts because they appeal to the broadest possible audience. People from around the world may have little reason to care deeply about heritage they perceive as particularly Syrian, but appeals to universal value suggest that something belonging to them is being lost in the war in Syria. By seeking to turn Palmyra into a physical embodiment of western values wrapped in universalising language, American and British media claimed Palmyra as part of the cultural heritage of the west while inadvertently bolstering the Assad government’s narrative of defending world civilisation. The purpose of media discourse about universal heritage is to convince otherwise uninterested people that they should care about an object with which they would otherwise not concern themselves. Such claims should be closely interrogated, as they usually cloak a particular set of values in universalising language.

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 The French publication added that Baal was a deity who was described by the prophet Jeremiah as receiving human sacrifices. All cited IS propaganda cited in this chapter is available to researchers at http://www.jihadology.net/ 3 IS also distributed English translations of selected articles from al-Naba, including the series “Symbols or Idols?”, which is quoted here. The Arabic originals are available at http://www.jihadology.net/.

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Media narratives, heritage destruction, and universal heritage ——— (2020). After five years of his martyrdom, archeologist Khaled al-Asaad icon of humanity, example of defending civilization. Syrian Arab News Agency, 19 August. Available at: https://sana.sy/ en/?p=200405 [Accessed: 30 September 2021]. ——— (2021). Syrian Arab News Agency, 18 August. Available at: https://www.sana.sy/?p=1456876 [Accessed: 30 September 2021]. Sanchez, R. (2016). Syrian regime troops struggle to clear explosive booby traps in Palmyra. The Telegraph, 28 March. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/28/syrian-regimetroops-struggle-to-clear-explosive-booby-traps-in/ [Accessed: 1 May 2021]. Shaheen, K., and Black, I. (2015). Beheaded Syrian scholar refused to lead Isis to hidden Palmyra antiquities. The Guardian, 28 March. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/ aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Smith, C., Burke, H., de Leiuen, C., and Jackson, G. (2016). The Islamic State’s Symbolic War: Da’esh’s Socially Mediated Terrorism as a Threat to Cultural Heritage. Journal of Social Archaeology 16(2), pp.164–188. Soguel, D. (2015). With ISIS execution, Syria loses key guide to Palmyra’s ancient treasures. Christian Science Monitor, 19 August. Available at: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/MiddleEast/2015/0819/With-ISIS-execution-Syria-loses-key-guide-to-Palmyra-s-ancient-treasures [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Sommer, M. (2018). Palmyra: A History. New York: Routledge. Syrian Network for Human Rights. (2017). The Seven Main Parties that Kill Civilians in Syria in 2016. Syrian Network for Human Rights. Available at: https://sn4hr.org/blog/2017/01/21/31375/ [Accessed: 21 April 2021]. Tlass, M. (2000). Zenobia: The Queen of Palmyra. Damascus: Tlass House. Trew, B. (2016). Family describe horror at city custodian’s beheading. The Times of London, 6 April. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/family-describe-horror-at-killing-of-citys-custodian-5flgkj7z7 [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Turner, J. (2015). Why Palmyra means more to me than people. The Times of London, 23 May. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-palmyra-means-more-to-me-than-people033n0v6trf3 [Accessed: 30 September 2021]. UNESCO. (2015). Director-General Irina Bokova deplores the loss of two leading scholars of Syrian antiquity. UNESCO, 20 August. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/news/director-general-irinabokova-deplores-loss-two-leading-scholars-syrian-antiquity [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Waraich, O. (2015). Khaled al-Asaad: Authority on the antiquities of the Syrian city of Palmyra who was devoted to studying and protecting its treasures. The Independent, 20 August. Available at: https:// www.independent.co.uk/news/people/khaled-al-asaad-authority-antiquities-syrian-city-palmyrawho-was-devoted-studying-and-protecting-its-treasures-10464467.html [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Whitmarsh, T. (2015). Tolerant and multicultural, Palmyra stood for everything Isis hates. The Guardian, 25 August. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/25/palmyra-tolerantmulticultural-isis-ancient-city-migrants-savagery [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Wieseltier, L. (2015). The Rubble of Palmyra. The Atlantic, 4 September. Available at: https://www. theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/rubble-palmyra-syria-isis/403921/ [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Winsbury, R. (2010). Zenobia of Palmyra: History, Myth and the Neo-Classical Imagination. London: Duckworth. Winter, C. (2015). Documenting the Virtual ‘Caliphate’. London: Quilliam Foundation. Woltering, R.A.F.L. (2014). Zenobia or al-Zabba ̄ʾ: The modern Arab literary reception of the Palmyran protagonist. Middle Eastern Literatures 17(1), pp.25–42. Wright, L. (2015). Homage to Zenobia. The New Yorker, 12 July. Available at: https://www.newyorker. com/magazine/2015/07/20/homage-to-zenobia [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Yan, H. (2015). How ISIS’ demolition of a Syrian temple impacts the world. CNN, 1 September. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/01/middleeast/syria-palmyra-temple-consequences [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Zain, H., and Said, H. (2015). Updated – ISIS beheading of former Director of Palmyra antiquities and museums condemned. Syrian Arab News Agency, 19 August. Available at: https://web.archive.org/ web/20150821021736/http://www.sana.sy/en/?p=51944 [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Zisser, E. (2006). Who’s Afraid of Syrian Nationalism? National and State Identity in Syria. Middle Eastern Studies 42, pp.179–198.

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17 COLLATERAL DAMAGE The Negative Side Effects of Protecting Cultural Heritage in Conflict-Related Situations Frederik Rosén

Introduction This chapter describes how efforts by NGOs and the international community to protect cultural property may sometimes generate adverse effects and even instigate destruction. A key argument is that the more we talk about the value of cultural heritage and the importance of protecting it, the more interesting it becomes for some groups to target it as a strategy of war. We thus see an emerging agreement and concern in the heritage literature that the many and mostly honourable efforts to protect cultural heritage against the harms of war sometimes make cultural heritage vulnerable or even lead to its destruction (Harmansah, 2015; Meskell, 2015; Joy, 2016; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). The political focus contributes to pulling cultural heritage into the heart of conflicts. Stakeholder communities should therefore be careful with toying with the strong emotions involved in cultural heritage to promote their own agenda. Heritage protection can make international organisations and states as well as other organisations and entities look morally good, but it easily generates undesirable and unmanageable situations and dilemmas as a collateral effect. To make its case, this chapter examines three significant cases of heritage destruction in the following conflicts: the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001; ISIL’s destruction at Palmyra in Syria in 2015–2017; and Ansar-Dine’s destruction of Sufi shrines in Mali in 2012. I argue that in all three cases, the international community’s efforts to protect cultural heritage added fuel to the fires and blazed the trail for the acts of destruction. Secondly, the chapter elaborates some concrete as well as theoretical observations about the dialectic between international heritage politics and the role of heritage in armed conflicts. The argument focuses not on UNESCO nominations of World Heritage or violent jihadism as such but rather on how international politics functioned as a global backdrop for the destruction at Palmyra, the Bamiyan Buddhas, and Timbuktu. Across these three cases, we see a peculiar exchange between those who wanted to protect the sites from others who wanted to destroy them. In the case of the Bamiyan Buddhas, this exchange was direct in the form of diplomatic negotiations. By taking the Buddhas as hostages, the Taliban momentarily gained international agency. In the cases of ISIL and Ansar Dine, the relationship between the perpetrators and the international community mainly played out on global media. In all three cases, the militias succeeded, with clear intent, in drawing significant international attention 218

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by staging their acts of destruction as media performances that spoke to the global audience. In two of the cases – Palmyra and Bamiyan – the sites were internationally recognised heritage sites (though see Holtorf & Kristensen, this volume, for an alternative perspective on this) and not used for contemporary religious practice. In all three cases, the international responses included norm and law developments by key international bodies, ranging from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the International Criminal Court (ICC), UNESCO, and the European Union (EU), to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). I argue the more norms and laws outline the value of cultural heritage, the higher its value as a target (Rosén, 2022).

Palmyra The extremist group ISIL was already formed in 1999: they gained strength in the chaos that followed the international military interventions in Iraq from 2003 onwards and the Syrian unrest and civil war (from 2011 onwards). ISIL consolidated their capabilities in 2013, and during 2014 escalated their violent campaign to establish a Caliphate. In the complex war theatre of Iraq, and then Syria, they expanded their dominance, and staged dramatic destructions of modern and historical religious buildings (churches and mosques) and ancient sites and statues to demonstrate their aims and intentions. In spring 2015, ISIL started to move towards Palmyra, an ancient city located where the ancient Silk Road from Baghdad forked into paths to Damascus and Antioch. Ancient Palmyra blossomed during the second and third centuries BCE but then lay forgotten in the desert until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where travellers (re)discovered the ancient ruins. In 1980, the Ancient City of Palmyra was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, now adjacent to a modern city called Tadmur that, in the 2000s, counted a population of 50,000+. From a military perspective, the present city of Tadmur and its adjacent ruins held some conventional strategic and tactical assets for ISIL. The town linked the desert highways leading to Deir ez-Zor, Homs, and Damascus, and it contained a large gas field, a gas pipeline hub, and a provisional airstrip. Furthermore, and importantly, the town housed a notorious prison, the Tadmur military prison, where Bashir Al-Assad kept political prisoners. Known for its atrocious torture, mistreatment, and death, the prison stood as a symbol of the Assad regime’s tyranny. ISIL destroyed the prison shortly after taking the city (BBC News, 2015). Looking at ISIL’s propaganda material leading up to their entry to Palmyra, we see that they focused on the destruction of the prison and seizing of important roads and the airport – but not the ruins. ISIL’s online propaganda material released between 1 September 2014 and 1 May 2015 in Arabic and English does not contain any material where ISIL threatens to destroy the ancient ruins of Palmyra or even mention them.1 By all accounts, ISIL moved towards Palmyra not with the aim of destroying a UNESCO World Heritage site but for more conventional military purposes. Their interest in the ancient ruins did not emerge before they entered the city of Palmyra, even if ISIL’s destruction of tombs, mosques, churches, and shrines had already drawn wide international attention, and images of ISIL’s destructions circulated swiftly on all media platforms. In fact, heritage destruction gradually became a signature of ISIL. As Plets puts it, “The endless reproduction of images of plundered museums, exploding mosques and bulldozed ancient sites has strongly prescribed the visual culture of the war in Syria and Iraq” (Plets, 2017 p.18). Politically, cultural heritage became a high-level issue, drawing attention and comments from state leaders and heads of international organisations.2 For instance, in 219

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September 2014, John Kerry, then the U.S. Secretary of State, spoke passionately at a conference in New York: “For the proud people of Iraq and Syria – ancient civilizations, civilizations of great beauty, great accomplishment, of extraordinary history and intellectual achievement – the destruction of their heritage is a purposeful final insult, and another example of ISIL’s implacable evil. ISIL is stealing lives, yes, but it’s also stealing the soul of millions” adding that “I want you to know that President Obama and our Administration are laser-focused on protecting the cultural heritage of countries all around the world”. (Kerry, 2014 online) ISIL appeared to start their iconoclastic course unaware of its political power. (Supporting this, ISIL apparently held religious services in the Temple Baalshamin in the summer of 2015 (Lamb in Cunliffe & Curini, 2018)). They had not yet realised that an archaeological site like Palmyra could potentially hold even greater symbolic power than places of religious worship and that they would be able to use it to cause rage even the White House in Washington, DC! The international community would teach them: ISIL soon understood that destroying old sites of worship and statues in museums created not only local but also regional and global effects. Although there were no indicators of any iconoclastic interest from ISIL in the ancient ruins in Palmyra, there was significant concern from UNESCO and others in the international heritage community. Not only had all of Syria’s World Heritage sites been damaged during the fighting, including Palmyra (Al Arabiya, 2013; UNITAR-UNOSAT, 2014), or were considered to be at significant risk, and so had been placed on the World Heritage in Danger List, but ISIL were already known to target historic sites in Syria, such as the Lions of Arslan Tash in Raqqa, destroyed in April 2014. Whether from combat damage, or iconoclastic action, the threat was felt to be high. Echoing previous press releases, on 13 May 2015, the day ISIL launched the Palmyra offensive, then Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, issued a press release stating, “We must save Palmyra”, which singled out the temple of Baal at Palmyra as “one of the most important cultural monuments of the entire region” (UNESCO, 2015a online). International attention turned increasingly to ISIL’s conduct at the site. ISIL commander Abu Laith al-Saoudi stated in a video released on 26 May 2015 that only statues would be destroyed (Cunliffe & Curini, 2018). The day before ISIL announced the conquest of Palmyra, the Director-General stated that: any destruction to Palmyra is not only a war crime, but it will mean an enormous loss for humanity (…) We have to make everything possible to prevent its destruction (…) I think we need a total mobilization of the international community. (…) We need indeed to have the Security Council. We need indeed to have the political leaders (…) It is important because we are speaking about the birth of human civilization. We are speaking about something that belongs to the whole of humanity. (…) You know, the world heritage site, and the world heritage’s list is about outstanding universal value, and I think Palmyra is one of those sites, that embody this value, this notion about humanity standing as a whole (…) it is the birthplace of human civilization. It belongs to the whole of humanity. (UNESCO, 2015b online) 220

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This framing became a mantra of UNESCO and the international community (see also UNESCO, 2015c): a strong declaration from the head of a global organisation with 130 member states, which clearly outlined the value of Palmyra as viewed from the “Western” world. It is worth noticing that just a few months before, on 12 February 2015, the UNSC addressed heritage destruction for the first time in Chapter VII of Resolution 2199 (12 February 2015) binding on all nations (UNESCO, 2015d). Consequently, the international political momentum for the agenda rose steeply, and the narrative in international politics about Palmyra and ISIL’s cultural heritage destruction more generally started to change seriously. NGOs, international experts, academics, and global media echoed UNESCO’s concern: ISIL intended to destroy Palmyra. For instance, one opinion piece from The Guardian (a British daily newspaper), which was shared almost 5000 times, headlined that “Coalition air strikes should defend Palmyra – it belongs to the whole world” (Moore, 2015). The Syrian regime also contributed to the choir. The Director-General of the Syrian Antiquities and Museums Directorate, Maamoun Abdul-Karim, warned that the historical city of Palmyra is facing “a real threat”, that Palmyra portends a “catastrophe” and that the battle for Palmyra was a “battle for culture per excellence” (Said, 2015 online). Russia also joined in, agreeing with this narrative (al-Frieh, 2015). In the name of the common culture of humanity as such, a layer of political agreement between nations and organisations, otherwise being at odds, emerged around the cause of saving the ruins. Palmyra rose as a symbol for humanity and civilisation, endangered not just by conflict but now by iconoclastic terrorism, to the extent that UNESCO suggested military intervention in Syria to defend it 3 – a bold proposal compared to the devastating humanitarian crises in Syria and, from a military perspective, unrealistic as well. ISIL must have come to understand that, by attacking Palmyra, they could attack the values of the entire Western world. By May 2015, the story of the danger to Palmyra was all over the news. Searching for articles published in the New York Times and the Washington Post during this period containing the word “Palmyra”, we can conclude that these newspapers, with profound impact on world opinion, communicated uncritically the message that ISIL planned to destroy Palmyra.4 They quoted apparent heritage experts and practitioners along the lines of: “The capture of Palmyra has stoked fears that the militants might try to destroy one of the Middle East’s most spectacular archaeological sites — a 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the modern town’s edge — as they have destroyed others in Syria and Iraq” (Associated Press, 2015 online). Yet it was not until 27 June 2015, almost two months after capturing the city, that ISIL started to destroy the parts of the ancient site. In July 2015, they also released three highly professional propaganda videos, which included a mass execution of regime soldiers in the middle of the old theatre of Palmyra. In August 2015, ISIL executed the archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, the head of antiquities for the ancient city of Palmyra. According to UNESCO and international media, al-Assad refused to reveal where Palmyra’s treasures were hidden, and hence, as per UNESCO, heritage advocates, and the media chose to sacrifice his life for the ruins (Leriche, 2015). According to the UNESCO Director-General, “They killed him because he would not betray his deep commitment to Palmyra” (UNESCO, 2015b online). However, we know little about exactly who killed al-Asaad and why. Eyewitnesses report that ISIL held a trial, and a plaque was publicly placed with his decapitated body, citing his position as the “Director of Idols of archaeological Palmyra” as one out of the five crimes he was “found guilty” in. We do know ISIL killed anyone who refused to follow their decrees (noting that who exactly was a member of ISIL was, and is, a complicated issue). Some sources 221

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even report that the killing itself was done by local ISIL members from Palmyra because of family conflicts.5 But the image of al-Asaad’s self-sacrifice for Palmyra surely fitted well with the international narrative and the need for heroes in the heritage protection field (also see Jones, this volume). After the killing of al-Asaad, destruction followed the temple of Baalshamin and the temple of Bel. During their first round of conquering Palmyra (13 May 2015–27 March 2016), ISIL destroyed the temple of Baalshamim and the temple of Bel in August 2015, devoting a 2-page photographic spread to it in issue 11 of their online English magazine Dabiq. The destruction received significant international attention. UNESCO and others condemned the events, and the Cultural Heritage Initiative (CHI) at the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program (UNOSAT) published satellite images, proving this destruction took place and while also finding evidence of more. Several tower tombs had also been demolished, and this, too, was condemned by heritage organisations and the media alike. Global media thus played a critical role (Smith et al., 2016). Heritage destruction makes effective news stories. The iconic and dramatic images of destroyed heritage – like yellow stones and black smoke against a deep blue sky – are visually striking and circulate much better in global media than images of human atrocities, which are often filtered out, particularly in Western contexts. The question is whether global media would have picked up so intensely on the topics if it had not been for the UNSC action and the authoritative narration provided by UNESCO and other global heritage organisations. UNESCO, other international organisations, and the global media clearly amplified the effects of the destruction by producing and circulating information and images. ISIL needed to do no more than place some explosives at a site, release some photos, and watch while others, their adversaries, effectively disseminated their misdeeds – and their message. It is interesting to note that while many of their press releases were in Arabic, the destruction at Palmyra was shared in Dabiq – an English language forum. ISIL could hardly have wished for a better strategic communication support. In late May 2016, pressured by Russian-backed Syrian forces, ISIL withdrew from Palmyra. Soon after, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew in an entire symphonic orchestra led by famous Russian conductor, Valery Gergiev, to perform a liberation concert in the theatre at Palmyra – against the same backdrop that ISIL had recently used to stage mass executions. The concert was broadcasted and accompanied by speeches and also attended by UNESCO staff. In and of itself, the concert at Palmyra makes a fascinating case study of contemporary heritage politics (something Plets (2017) touches on). Yet here we suffice to notice that the first thing ISIL did after regaining control over the area in March 2017 was to destroy the enormous facade of the theatre, reportedly as a response to the concert (Plets, 2017). If Putin had not deployed a full orchestra to the theatre to triumph over ISIL, then perhaps the theatre would not have been ISIL’s first target. The picture that emerges when looking back at the Palmyra crisis is that the enormous international focus on saving Palmyra created a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy by pushing an easily accessible target right into the hands of ISIL. The intense political focus drew a physical line between “us” and “them” in the midst of the conflict zone. This enabled ISIL to attack Western civilisation by blowing up ancient stones in a remote desert. The international community served Palmyra to ISIL on a silver-plate, and subsequently helped them distribute their message to a global audience, including prospective ISIL recruits. The ancient ruins of Palmyra have now become a symbol of ISIL’s systematic destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria. 222

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Afghanistan (2001) The Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in March 2001 presents us with another momentous and politicised conflict-related destruction of the heritage of our time (Flood, 2002; Elias, 2007; Centlivres, 2008). Technically viewed, the destruction took place during peacetime, more than half a year before the international military intervention in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom, began on 7 October 2001. Yet the international crisis loomed on the horizon as the Taliban refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden, who trained his men in Afghanistan. After years of fruitless consultations with Taliban officials, the United States of America and Russia engaged the UNSC. In November 1999, the Security Council adopted an air embargo on Taliban and froze their assets to put pressure on them, and in January 2001, the Security Council also added an arms embargo. The Taliban had already aired the idea of destroying the Buddhas in 1997. Yet, in 1998, when a local commander in the area took practical steps, Taliban leadership halted him. In July 1999, the Taliban leadership issued a decree stating that the Buddhas should not be destroyed because of their economic value for Afghanistan in the form of tourism income (Centlivres, 2008). The decree also emphasised that the Buddhas were not part of any contemporary religious practice in Afghanistan. There is no evidence the issue was raised again. Then, on 26 February 2001, Taliban’s leadership issued the famous iconoclastic decree stating that “Based on the verdict of the clergymen and the decision of the supreme court of the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed” (McCarthy, 2001 online). The decree, which was issued as an international delegation visited Kabul to inspect rumours of Taliban’s destruction of pre-Islamic artefacts in the national museum (Agence France Presse, 2001a), sparked an outcry throughout the international community. UNESCO took the lead by launching an international campaign to save the Buddhas. They convened UNESCO member states in Paris who issued a joint declaration, which was co-signed by Kofi Annan (then UN Secretary-General) and Koïchiro Matsuura (then UNESCO Director-General) and released a plea for the Taliban to reconsider their decision to destroy all the statues in the country (Francioni & Lenzerini, 2003 p.621). The UNESCO Director-General’s special envoy to Kabul, ambassador Pierre LaFranche, met with the Taliban officials and Kofi Annan to plead with the Taliban’s foreign minister in Islamabad (New York Times, 2001). The UNESCO Director-General also approached a number of Islamic UNESCO member states, and some of them, including Pakistan and Egypt, endorsed UNESCO’s campaign. In addition, UNESCO succeeded in mobilising religious leaders from Egypt, Iraq, and Pakistan to issue fatwas against the destruction. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Council of Museums (ICOM) issued an appeal on 1 March 2001 stating that destroying the Buddhas “would be a total cultural catastrophe. It would remain written in the pages of history next to the most infamous acts of barbarity”.6 The Metropolitan Museum in New York, as well as some Buddhist states, such as Thailand, Sri Lanka, and even Iran, offered to “buy” the Buddhas or to pay for their preservation. The Centre Pompidou in Paris mounted a large image of the Buddhas on its facade as “a sign of protest against fanatism” (CNN-World, 2001 online). And global media front-paged images of the endangered statues. As concluded by key observers: Few events have caused as much shock and condemnation within the international community in recent years as did the destruction of the great Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001. Individual states, international organizations, such as the United Nations 223

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and UNESCO, religious authorities, including some of the most influential Islamic authorities, NGOs and people all over the world have called for international mobilization against such acts of barbarity and religious intolerance. (Francioni & Lenzerini, 2003 p.650) If the Taliban doubted the value of the Buddhas and if they underestimated the possible effects of their iconoclastic policy, the international community soon enlightened them. The destruction started on 2 March 2001. Shells, mortars, and rockets failed to destroy the statues, so the Taliban drilled dynamite into them. On 9 March, the UNGA adopted a resolution “strongly urging Taliban to halt implementation” (UNGA, 2001 online). The resolution, sponsored by more than 90 countries, “called upon Member States to help safeguard the unique Buddhist sculptures in Bamiyan, using appropriate technical measures, including, if necessary, their temporary relocation or removal from public view” (UNGA, 2001 online). The national representatives speaking at the debate preceding the adoption of the resolution stressed that “the artifacts being destroyed in Afghanistan, including the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, belonged to the common heritage of humankind” (UN, 2001 online). Yet, neither the UN nor the global media attention could stop the destruction. “All we are breaking are stones”, the Taliban leadership responded (Agence France Presse, 2001b). The week after the UNGA issued its resolution, the statues lay crushed on the ground. Reportedly, Taliban then transported bulks of the relics to the Pakistan border, where they were put on sale (BBC News, 2001a). Taliban also invited international media to document the destruction. In late March, 20 foreign journalists took the bait and were flown to Bamiyan (BBC News, 2001b) and thus effectively aided Taliban in creating a global spectacle out of the destruction of the Buddhas (Flood, 2002; Elias, 2007). Some observers viewed the destruction, in part, as a response to the sanctions imposed on Taliban for their refusal to extradite Osama Bin Laden and the consequences of those sanctions given the devastating famine in the region at the time, as well as a response to the refusal of most UN members to recognise the Taliban Emirate (Centlivres, 2009 p.27). The Taliban reportedly denied this, claiming that they acted out of religious necessity, and later explained that part of their motivation for destroying the Buddhas was the international community expressing a will to save the Buddhas but not contribute aid to Afghanistan’s poverty ridden population (Shehzad, 2001). Taliban’s then Ambassador-at-large, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, said in an interview with Ray Suarez on NPR in 2001: When I talked to the Council of Scholars, he said if the world is destroying our futures with economic sanctions, why do they worry about our past? What do they care about our past? You’re just destroying our children; they’re just dying. Is the life of our people less important than these statues? It is not an either-or situation, and international attention clearly formed an international political agenda that enabled the destruction to happen as it did.

Mali In late March 2012, a group of Malian soldiers calling themselves the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State overthrew the Mali government. Subsequently, they allied themselves with Ansar-Dine, a militia closely affiliated with Al-Qaida, and others. Ansar-Dine, whose goal was to impose strict Sharia law over all of Mali, soon started to fight their allies. In June, they gained control over Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal. A few days later, the 224

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vice squad of Ansar-Dine, led by Ahmad al-Mahdi, started destroying shrines and manuscripts in Timbuktu, which formed part of an important pilgrim site for Sufis in the region and beyond, and which held status as UNESCO World Heritage. Ansar-Dine proclaimed that they would destroy all the shrines because of their idolatrous character. Could the international responses to the situation leading up to the destruction have affected Ansar-Dine’s choice of targeting cultural heritage? Compared to the situation with ISIL and Taliban, the international focus on the heritage of Mali, ahead of the destruction of the tombs, was moderate. So was the general international attention to Mali’s crumbling political situation. Yet, even if we did not see the same intense international political prelude similar to Afghanistan and Syria, international heritage politics had already induced an antagonism around the question of heritage in Mali. In Mali, Western politics had for many years been strongly associated with cultural heritage in Mali, as described so well by Charlotte Joy. In her book, The Politics of Heritage Management in Mali, Joy describes how UNESCO’s interventions had politicised heritage in Mali and that: (t)he “voices of heritage that are heard coming out from Djenné [a Malian city that since 1988 has been home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: The Old Towns of Djenné and The Great Mosque of Djenné] are those of the heritage elite, and to a large extent they reflect the Western heritage organizations preconceived views of what is and what isn’t important in the town” ( Joy, 2012 p.204). Commenting on Ansar-Din’s destructions, Joy writes that “(i)f (…) militant Islam is seeking legitimacy (…) through global media stunts, it is not surprising that UNESCO should be its target” ( Joy, 2016 p.69) and that “(…) paradoxically, sites are more of a target because of their link to UNESCO”. ( Joy, 2018 p.17) On 4 May 2012, two months before their main wave of destruction, Ansar-Dine desecrated the front door and the protective curtain of the Tomb of a celebrated Sufi scholar, Sidi Mahmoud. The pilgrimage site was not destroyed as such, yet according to UNESCO, the act indicated an intention to target cultural heritage. The UNESCO Director-General’s prompt press release on 4 May, the very same day that the desecration happened, stated that: (t)his desecration is a sign of a change for the worse that is deeply concerning in the attacks on Malian heritage, already highly threatened in recent weeks. I call on all parties involved to ensure immediate protection of this World Heritage property, essential to preserving Mali’s rich culture, which is part of the indivisible heritage of humanity. This cultural heritage is our common property, and nothing can justify damaging it. (UNESCO, 2012a online) Throughout the spring 2012, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also prepared a regional peace support operation for Mali, and in early June, the African Union authorised the operation (Karlsrud, 2016). In May, the government of Mali referred crimes since January 2012 committed by the armed factions to the ICC. On 28 June 2012, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee accepted the request from the government of Mali to place Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger (UNESCO, 2012b). On 29 June, it was reported that Ansar-Dine had gained control of Timbuktu and had scaled up the destructions of mausoleums and shrines. 225

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The UNSC did not act before autumn 2013, and global media also lagged a bit behind a situation that clearly was spiralling out of control. However, the UNSC did react to the heritage destruction in Resolution 2056, adopted on 5 July 2012, “[c]ondemning strongly the desecration, damage and destruction of sites of holy, historic and cultural significance, especially but not exclusively those designated UNESCO World Heritage sites, including in the city of Timbuktu” (UNSC, 2012 online). The destruction continued throughout the autumn. In late January 2013, as French-Malian troops ousted Ansar-Dine from Timbuktu, the militia burned the Ahmed Baba Institute with its ancient manuscripts as a closing statement. Fuelled by strong anti-Western sentiments and aware of the controversies in Mali about government elites, western influence, and the definition of Malian heritage, Ansar-Dine surely picked up on the response from lead international organisations. As with everybody else in today’s digital age, Ansar-Dine followed their own social media footprints almost moving ahead of their feet. Their practice clearly suggests that acts of destruction, which peaked just days after the UN Security Council resolution authorising the deployment of an international force of at least 3300 African soldiers to reconquer northern Mali, constituted more than just religiously motivated acts; I argue that they were aimed at an international and Western audience. Some of the destruction was videotaped and circulated on social media, not only as a sign of religious piety but as a clear provocation directed towards the West. In fact, Ansar-Dine’s videotaping of the destruction was so meticulous that when the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC eventually built their case against Al-Mahdi, the leader of AnsarDine’s vice squad, by collecting and reviewing the videos, which documented every step of the destruction, extensive forensic evidence collection was unnecessary (ICC, 2016). The effect of their attacks on heritage was, to a large degree, conditioned by social media and international responses. The case of Mali thus presents us with a similar peculiar dialectic or even dialogue between a non-state armed group’s destruction of heritage and the international responses, as the cases in Afghanistan and Syria.

Heritage in conflicts as a global social field A common political dynamic evident across the cases discussed in this chapter is the relationship between those who wanted to protect sites, from those who wanted to destroy them and who do so in part to show the inability and weakness of the protectors. In all three cases, the militias succeeded, purposely, in drawing enormous international attention and by staging their acts of destruction as media performances that spoke to global audiences. In the cases of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the sites were primarily internationally recognised as heritage sites and not used for contemporary religious practice. And in all three cases, the international responses included norm and law developments by key international organisations and bodies, including UNGA, UNSC, ICC, UNESCO, EU, and NATO. We may conclude that the Taliban, ISIL, and Ansar-Dine did not invent the idea that they could use cultural heritage as a weapon of war in particular, as a tool of propaganda, and as a means for targeting and gaining the attention of the international community. However, the international community, advocacy organisations, and the media played a significant great role in educating the perpetrators about the usefulness of cultural heritage for such purposes. In that way, the dynamic role of cultural heritage in conflict appears as a relational, global social field where agents with diverse interests and outlooks compete to control objects, monuments, buildings, and places identified as cultural heritage. This is done through a variety of politically interlinked practices, from the development of norms, policies, rules, and protection practices to the destruction, misappropriation, or manipulation of cultural heritage. 226

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The controversial element of this perspective is that it places militias and terrorists as agents within the same social field as the UNGA, UNSC, ICC, UNESCO, EU, NATO, NGOs, states, and academics. While the Taliban, ISIL, and Ansar-Dine are often described as ignorant radicals and vandals who blindly follow a flawed religious path, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, Palmyra, and Timbuktu reveal a much more complex picture, where their attitudes and agency significantly contribute to the formation of international politics in relation to cultural heritage.

The dark side of cultural heritage protection This is a delicate situation. The international community, namely, international organisations and professional milieus including museums, academic experts, media, and civil society organisations, certainly have an interest, as well as a moral and sometimes legal obligation to protect heritage in danger. Yet the international community, advocacy organisations, and interest groups also need to recognise the possible adverse effects of their policy and action. My aim with this chapter is not to cancel protection initiatives or silence their concerns and debates. Nor is my aim to belittle the positive aspects of protection and preservation initiatives. My point is that the negative side effects described in this chapter simply are hard to separate from the overall heritage protection initiatives. Whenever it is proclaimed that places and objects deserve special consideration and protection, others may see this as an impetus for exploiting such attributes for political or even hostile purposes. Hence, there is an “original sin” structure to heritage protection: whoever wants to do good is doomed to produce negative effects. This chapter illuminates such unfortunate collateral effects of the current policies and practices of cultural heritage protection, which call for serious selfscrutinisation. The paradox is that the more we speak about the value of cultural heritage and the importance of protecting it, the more we also bolster narratives on the dramatic loss its destruction involves, and the more interesting it becomes for armed groups, terrorists, and, sometimes, states to target it. We need to ask: To what extent do our voiced concerns and protection initiatives instigate the kind of destruction they aim to prevent? What could we do to mitigate such effects? Condemning and shaming have sometimes proved counterproductive compared to the desired end state, which is to reduce or avoid the destruction of heritage. A more sensitive approach means a focus on strategic communication with a skilled eye to conflict dynamics and the political psychology involved in conflict-related destruction of cultural heritage.

Notes 1 Study conducted by Andrea Aasgaard at the Danish Institute for International Studies in 2016 (unpublished). 2 Statements were made against the destruction by most major heritage organisations, and numerous world leaders made press statements. 3 As discussed at UNESCO’s Expert Meeting on the “Responsibility to Protect” in Paris, 26–27 November 2015. 4 Survey conducted via New York Times and Washington Post’s data-base search engines. 5 Verified to the author of article by two independent sources that for security reasons are kept anonymous. 6 For a chronology of international efforts to dissuade the Taliban from carrying out their destructive plan, see the Report of the Bureau of the World Heritage Committee, 25th Session, 25–30 June 2001, doc. WHO-2001/CONF.205/10.

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18 TURNING DESTRUCTION INTO AN OPPORTUNITY Understanding the Construction of Timbuktu’s “Success Story” by UNESCO Mathilde Leloup Introduction On 6 April 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) declared the independence of Azawad (Poupart, 2017 p.97), the northern region of Mali that includes Timbuktu. After a brief agreement between the MNLA and the terrorist group Ansar Dine (an Islamist movement linked to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) (Reuters, 2012, online)) in May, the two groups clashed (Poupart, 2017 p.104) leading to the occupation of northern Mali by Ansar Dine, AQIM and the Movement of Unity and Jihad in Western Africa (MUJWA) (UNSC, 2012 pp.2-3). The destruction of key heritage sites in the region immediately followed. Between June and July 2012 (UNESCO, 2021 online), 14 mausoleums in Timbuktu were destroyed, as was the Al-Farouk monument, and 4203 manuscripts from the Ahmed Baba Institute were burned or stolen (BBC News, 2013 online; UNESCO, n.d. online). Three years later, in 2015, these attacks, together with the ones in Iraq and Syria, were framed by Irina Bokova (2015a p. 3; 2016a p.4), then Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as a “cultural cleansing” strategy by terrorist groups (Luck, 2018), be they Ansar Dine or the Islamic State. This notion – coined by Robert Bevan to qualify the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s – can be defined as “the pointed erasure of collective memory and history, as expressed in cultural patrimony, [which] accompanied the degradation and erasure of a people as a people” (Bevan, 2016 p.53). Highlighting the link between heritage and people, “stone” and “flesh”, allowed UNESCO to appear to contribute to the global fight against violent extremism while rehabilitating its World Heritage sites. In this context, the reconstruction of Timbuktu’s mausoleums, commonly regarded as a “success story”, was used in UNESCO’s communication to prove its capacity to carry out a “crisis management” mandate on the ground and to reposition itself within the UN multilateral system. Between 2012 and 2015, these systematic attacks against World Heritage sites attracted significant interest in academic disciplines. In archaeological literature, this crisis resurrected an old debate on the dual nature of cultural heritage (Winter, 2016), which can be both a target during wars (Viejo-Rose, 2011; Viejo-Rose & Sørensen, 2015) and a source of resilience and reconciliation in their aftermath (Cunliffe, Muhesen & Lostal, 2016; Kalman, 2017). Other authors proposed 230

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typologies of heritage destruction depending on the types of armed conflicts (see Brosché et al., 2016; Cunliffe, this volume; Van der Auwera, 2010) as well as detailed studies of destroyed sites in Mali (Elias, 2013; Joy, 2016; Lostal, 2017) and in Syria (see Munawar this volume; Lostal, 2015; 2017; Jones, 2018) enriching the existing corpus on destruction in Kosovo (Defreese, 2009), Iraq (Stone & Bajjaly, 2008), and elsewhere. No works agree on a single interpretation of the reasons for cultural heritage destruction by terrorist groups. Neither do they examine UNESCO’s ability to position itself in relation to this complex and highly debated phenomenon by imposing a consensual and apolitical interpretation (cf. Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). Historically, the UN system is based on a functionalist division of tasks (Mitrany, 1944), which distinguishes the political tasks – managed by the UN Headquarters – from the technical tasks – carried out by the UN funds, programmes, and specialised agencies. UNESCO is one of these UN specialised agencies and is justified by the following mandate: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO,1945, online), through education, science, and culture. As a specialised agency, UNESCO originally had a normative role, which was (at least in part) to support the implementation of Conventions (such as the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention, 1972) and the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention, 1954). As Hladik noted when he worked in the 1954 Hague Convention Secretariat, the “principal functions of the Secretariat under the Convention are of a purely technical character, such as the provision of technical assistance under Article 23, or depositary functions (e.g., circulation of information on ratification, accession and succession or preparation of certified copies of the Convention). Consequently, the Secretariat is not authorized to interpret the Convention. That responsibility falls strictly within the power of States Parties” (Hladik, 2004 p.384). In 2015, however, as we will argue in this chapter, UNESCO asserted itself as an operational actor, acting on the ground (in the same way as UNDP, for instance). In doing so, UNESCO has fought, at least temporarily, against its gradual marginalisation in the multilateral system. This phenomenon was due to two factors: the withdrawal of the US from its funding and UNICEF’s rivalry over its education mandate (see Leloup, 2021). This chapter is based on a seven-month participant observation at the UNESCO Headquarters in 2015, as well as on interviews with its staff.1 It aims to “open the black box” of this specialised agency to understand how its reaction to an international crisis, which directly jeopardised its mandate, was successfully turned into an opportunity.

Depoliticising the destruction of Timbuktu’s mausoleums to frame UNESCO’s response in a convenient way The destruction of Timbuktu’s mausoleums has given rise to many different interpretations in the scientific community, including by archaeologists, anthropologists, and political scientists. Although initially seen by many as an act of fanaticism, later interpretations of the destruction of the Timbuktu mausoleums and of Hatra and Palmyra, which are all registered on the World Heritage list, questioned the role of the World Heritage label in their targeting. This confirmed Dario Gamboni’s idea that “the notion of World Heritage, intended as a shield, may instead act as a target” (Gamboni, 2001, online). Whether consciously or not, the UNESCO Director General avoided this complex and political issue and framed this destruction as pertaining to a “cultural cleansing” strategy of terrorist groups, paving the way for a simple, consensual (and apolitical) response on behalf of UNESCO. 231

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The various interpretations of World Heritage sites destruction in Timbuktu For some authors, the attacks in Timbuktu were directed against Muslims and can therefore be considered as a result of religious motives. To Filiu, “this is an unprecedented sacrilege […] which triggers terror among the local population. AQIM demonstrates that under the guise of bellicose speeches against the ‘unfaithful’, this is indeed against the Muslims in the flesh and blood that they are at war, against the Islam practised and lived, in Mali and elsewhere” (Trécourt, 2012 online). To Meskell, “the destruction of mausoleums demonstrates a fundamental religious difference in the limit of spatial and social life that is currently being played out in many countries between the ultraconservative structures of Wahhabism and other forms of Islamic doctrine and practice amongst mainstreamed Sunni and Shia Muslims” (Meskell, 2018 p.207). To other authors, this destruction relates to the will of the terrorist groups to impose Sharia Law in Northern Mali for political and strategic motives. For Walther and Christopoulos (2015 p.499), this destruction was a symbolic act intended to embody the dissolution of the alliance between MNLA, on the one hand, and AQIM and Ansar Dine, on the other hand, based on their divergent interpretation of Sharia, as well as on strategic considerations. For Brosché et al. imposing Sharia law through heritage destruction takes the form of a condemnation of infidels: The destruction of burial tombs in the World Heritage site of Timbuktu in Mali 2012 was motivated by the religious-political ideology of Islamic insurgents according to whom idolatry was forbidden and the influx of foreign tourists was considered harmful. These attacks were part of the Islamic rebels’ conflict goal to introduce Sharia law in Mali, as well as part of a global struggle against the ‘infidels’. (Brosché et al., 2016 p.252) Creating a link between the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ansar Dine in Mali, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Jones argues in the same vein, that their acts of heritage destruction, by targeting the “infidels”, aimed at “prov[ing] their doctrinal purity” ( Jones, 2018 p.53). According to Joy, however, these attacks can also be interpreted as an attack against the humanitarian project of UNESCO. For her: The destruction of the tombs in Timbuktu could […] be about both the forms of Islam that are considered legitimate, and also the forms of global politics that are considered legitimate. In this way, UNESCO is not only participating in conversations about what it means to be Muslim in Mali today through drawing attention to buildings and sites, but through its very presence, which comes to be associated with the buildings it seeks to protect and its global humanitarian project. ( Joy, 2016 p.69) According to Joy, this contestation of UNESCO through the destruction of World Heritage sites is twofold. It can be understood as an attack against UNESCO’s “view of the world”, that she describes as being “largely Western, secular, progressive” ( Joy, 2016 p.63). According to her, UNESCO ignored that “the destructive events in Timbuktu are not a new phenomenon, and [that] people in Mali have for a long time been dealing with competing religious ideologies linked to political movements” ( Joy, 2016 p.65). Through its “insistence on architectural integrity and the focus on the techniques of the masons and materials used [it] does not take into account the primary function of the buildings as places of worship” ( Joy, 2016 p.67). 232

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Therefore, she further explains the 2012 attacks as a contestation of UNESCO’s very authority on Timbuktu’s mausoleums. She takes the example of the speech given by the spokesman of Ansar Dine, Sanda Ould Boumama, after the destruction of the Alpha Moya mausoleum. When asked by a Radio France International journalist if these mausoleums are part of the UNESCO heritage, he replied: “that is not our business. We said that we are here for Shari’a, the Shari’a and nothing else. We will have our meeting and do whatever has been recommended and leave nothing undone”. He later added provocatively: “What is UNESCO?” (Meskell, 2018 p.208). Following the same quote, Meskell (2018 p.208) acknowledges that “UNESCO played an exceedingly prominent role throughout the proceedings [namely the trial of Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi found guilty of the destruction of the mausoleums by the ICC], and as one judge made evident since the majority of monuments were recognized by UNESCO, their attacks appear to be of particular gravity aimed at the international community”. This interpretation is shared by Berliner and Bortolotto (2013 p.11): Sometimes, as was the case in Afghanistan in 2001 (…) and very recently in Mali, where very ancient mausoleums were destroyed by Muslim zealots, UNESCO is for some the embodiment of Western imperialism. “What is UNESCO?”, the formula used by the Ansar Dine spokesman in Mali clearly shows that the idea of a “world”, universal heritage preserved for future generations only makes sense to these radical Islamists in their opposition to it, thus prolonging a long tradition of iconoclasm. Considered a “crime against culture” or “cultural terrorism” by the dominant heritage logic, these examples of “negative heritage” can be claimed by the actors of their disappearance as a legitimate expression of their cultural diversity and sovereignty over this heritage. This argument was also made by Elias (2013 p.157), according to whom the Islamic rebels in Mali justified their actions as follows: “there is no world heritage, it doesn’t exist. The infidels must not get involved in our business”. This interpretation therefore suggests that it is the very inclusion of certain sites on the World Heritage List that could have led to their destruction. UNESCO, however, has never officially considered this interpretation. Unofficially, though, some staff members admit that “the listing draws the world’s attention and triggered what happened. They [terrorist groups] wouldn’t have destroyed these sites, because they knew that media attention goes to this first” (Anonymous interview with a member of the UNESCO Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit, 2016). Irina Bokova, however, chose to qualify these attacks as a simple act of ignorance on behalf of Ansar Dine members during the adoption of the Action Plan for the Rehabilitation of Cultural Heritage and the Safeguarding of Ancient Manuscripts (UN News, 2013 online): “[W]hen a world heritage site is destroyed, because of stupidity and violence, all of humanity feels it has been deprived of a part of itself; that has been injured”. With this sentence, according to Joy, “the actions of Ansar Dine are therefore ideologically invalidated; they are dismissed as ‘stupid’ and violate an assumed common feeling of humanity” ( Joy, 2016 p.69). By privileging a single interpretation of Timbuktu World Heritage site’s destruction due to stupidity and ignorance, the UNESCO Director General depoliticised this act (Leloup, 2021 pp.173–175) by oversimplifying it. This process is even more common in international organisations (IOs) aiming at building a consensus among their member states. According to Louis and Maertens (2021 p.57), “International bureaucrats justify providing general and simplified conclusions to accommodate diverging views on political issues […] for action-oriented 233

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and evidence-based tools. Justified or not, simplification generates depoliticizing effects on the phenomenon IOs intend to streamline”. In doing so, Irina Bokova avoided questioning the responsibility of the World Heritage label in this destruction.

The “cultural cleansing” concept of UNESCO, transforming stone into blood The work of the UNESCO Director General and her communication advisers (located both in the Office of the Director General [ODG] and in UNESCO’s communication department) did more than just designating the destructive acts of Ansar Dine members, and later those of the Islamic State, as acts of “stupidity” (translation by the author, Bokova, 2013 p.2) and “barbarism” (translation by the author, Bokova, 2014a p.5). Drawing on the concept of “cultural cleansing”, they interpreted the destruction in Mali, Iraq, and Syria as damage to both sites and the human populations surrounding them (Participant Observation at UNESCO Headquarters, July–December 2015). In 2016, for the opening of the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee, Irina Bokova said that “from Mali to Yemen, heritage is under attack, cultural diversity is under attack, it is a war crime and a weapon of war, a strategy of cultural cleansing” (translation by the author, Bokova, 2016a p.4). According to a UNESCO member staff, the use of this “cultural cleansing” concept was a strategy from UNESCO to: Try to make people understand as much as possible that the destruction of cultural heritage is linked to the destruction of populations, that it is an important issue in the life of societies and that terrorists attack both and that it is intrinsically linked to the life of societies. We had to find a solution to link the two, because when we denounce the destruction of a site, the systematic and almost Pavlovian criticism is as follows: children are dying, and you are only concerned with heritage. In terms of communication, we had to find an angle of attack that would defuse this criticism. (translation by the author, Anonymous interview with a member of the UNESCO Office of the Director General, 2017a) This strategy mirrors Buzan et al.’s (1998 p.29) “securitisation” process whereby “to present an issue as urgent and existential”, it is “important that it should not be exposed to the normal haggling of politics but should be dealt with decisively by top leaders prior to other issues”. To “securitise” cultural heritage destruction, Irina Bokova used a “fragmentary style” (translation by the author, Rist, 2002 p.11) in her speeches, which creates a reflex of systematically associating different ideas in the audience’s mind. According to Rist (translation by the author, 2002 p.11), “the presence of a term implies the co-presence of another one, the two forming an inseparable unit, but also the existence of several narrative statements that, in a way, ‘call’ each other, resulting in the predictability of discourse”. In every speech from 2012 to 2015, Irina Bokova reminded the audience of the change in the nature of conflicts – “Never before in recent history have we seen such a brutal and systematic destruction of cultural heritage” (Bokova, 2015b p.1); and also of their impact on population and heritage – “[w]e see heritage sites destroyed. We see individuals persecuted on religious and cultural grounds. We see cultural diversity and free thinking targeted” (Bokova, 2015c p.2). She therefore observed the intention of the attacks against heritage: “[v]iolent extremists don’t destroy heritage as collateral damage. They target monuments and sites, to strike societies at their core” (Bokova, 2015d p.7). She reminded us of the necessity to protect not only the sites – 234

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“it is imperative that we protect them, including during an emergency, including in a situation of conflict so we can prepare in the future” (translation by the author, Bokova, 2014b p.2); but also the local communities – “the destruction of heritage is an integral part of humanitarian and security crises, and […] protection cannot be delinked from the protection of human lives” (Bokova, 2015e p.2). This allows her to contradict the common rhetoric that opposes cultural heritage protection and the protection of civilians: “People said: UNESCO is out of touch - people are dying and they only care about stones” (Bokova, 2015d p.8). At the end of her speeches, she usually concluded that culture is a security issue – “The protection of heritage is far more than a cultural issue — it is a security imperative that should be built into all peacebuilding strategies” (Bokova, 2015f p.2); and that it is a necessity to include culture in peacekeeping and humanitarian agendas – “[h]eritage stands on the frontline of conflict — it must be at the frontline of complex and multifaceted strategies for peace” (Bokova, 2015d p.13) (Leloup, 2021 pp.238–239). By using a fragmentary style in these different speeches, Irina Bokova progressively framed the destruction perpetrated by terrorist groups as a “cultural cleansing” strategy that directly impacted local populations associated with the damaged sites. This identification of the victims of World Heritage sites destruction justified the creation of “strategic partnerships” with peacekeeping and legal actors of the UN system (UNESCO, 2015 p.4).

Creating a narrative to reposition itself within the multilateral system: A new strategy for UNESCO Since the creation of the UN system in 1945, the protection of cultural heritage sites in the context of armed conflict and humanitarian crisis has never been regarded as a priority, in contrast with other more pressing issues (like international public health supervised by the World Health Organization [WHO]). This stance shifted drastically in 2015. As a result of UNESCO rhetoric based on the “cultural cleansing” concept, cultural heritage destruction was both regarded as a “threat to international peace and security” by the UN Security Council (under Chapter VII of the UN Charter) and as a “war crime” by the International Criminal Court (ICC) (under Article 8 of the Rome Statute (1998)), causing a re-evaluation of this issue (and of UNESCO) within the UN multilateral system.

Creating partnerships to promote UNESCO’s role on the ground Irina Bokova repeatedly framed the attacks against cultural heritage in Mali, Iraq, and Syria as pertaining to the same type of “cultural cleansing” strategy, albeit by different terrorist groups. This communication strategy transformed cultural heritage protection into a “humanitarian and security imperative” (Bokova, 2016b p. 10) and legitimised the role of UNESCO in taking part in the global fight of the UN system against violent extremism. In November 2017, together with the Ministers of Culture of Mali and Iraq, the Prosecutor of the ICC, and the UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights, UNESCO organised an international round table entitled Responding to Cultural Cleansing, Preventing Violent Extremism (UNESCO, 2017a online). This event presented the case of Timbuktu as a “success story” as it embodied “UNESCO’s successful efforts to rehabilitate Timbuktu’s mausoleums, highlighting the importance of culture for healing communities recovering from conflict” (UNESCO, 2017a online). It should be said, this “success story” from UNESCO does in fact constitute concrete evidence of the role of the mausoleums’ reconstruction in community rehabilitation, carried out by UNESCO together with the communities of Timbuktu. It 235

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further evidences the successful cooperation that allowed this reconstruction, with both the UN Security Council, which acknowledged cultural destruction as a “threat to international peace and security” (UNSC, 2013 p.4), and with the ICC, which qualified it as a “war crime” (ICC, 2016 p.4). However, this “success” was the culmination of work that had been ongoing since the destruction in 2012. In April 2013, thanks to Bokova’s advocacy and with the help of the UNESCO Liaison Office in New York, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2100, whose subpart (f ) (article 16) requests the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) staff “to assist the transitional authorities of Mali, as necessary and feasible, in protecting from attack the cultural and historical sites in Mali, in collaboration with UNESCO” (UNSC, 2013 p.8). Almost 2 for the first time in the history of peacekeeping, “support to cultural preservation” was acknowledged as a legitimate task of a UN operation under Chapter VII of the UN charter (UNSC, 2013 pp. 7–9), enabling UN Blue Helmets 3 to use force to fulfil this new mandated task. On the ground, MINUSMA civilian unit Environment and Culture was in charge of transporting UNESCO experts during their assessment missions in Timbuktu in June 2013 (UNESCO, 2013) and in Gao in February 2014 (UNESCO, 2014 online). Thanks to this cooperation with UNESCO, the reconstruction of the Timbuktu mausoleums was completed in 2015 (UNESCO, 2016a online; 2021 online). Additionally, the unit delivered two training modules with UNESCO to MINUSMA civilian, military, and police staff: one on the “protection of Malian cultural heritage” and another on “awareness raising on Malian society” (Anonymous interview with a member of the Secretariat of the 1954 Convention, 2019). In 2018, however, after years of struggle by the members of this unit to preserve and deepen this task, cultural property protection (CPP) was removed from the MINUSMA mandate. According to the Cultural Property Protection: Global Capacity and Financing Report (CHAC & BSI, 2021 p.4; see also Leloup, 2021 pp.196–199): In 2013 the Mission [MINUSMA] together with UNESCO reached out to member states and asked for specific capacities in the police component to handle this part of the mission namely to capacity build the host nation’s ability to counter illicit trafficking. Nations declined due to lack of sufficient expertise capacity in their own countries on this issue. On the civilian side, it took two years to get officially a position of a UN Volunteer (UNV) as associate culture officer in the budget to work on the topic, a position which was encumbered for the first four years of the Mission. Hence, mission-mandate does not always mean resources. Nonetheless, in 2017, the UN Security Council recognised the protection of cultural heritage by MINUSMA as a precedent for future peace operations by adopting Resolution 2347. This resolution welcomes in its preamble “the central role played by UNESCO in protecting cultural heritage and promoting culture as an instrument to bringing people closer together and foster dialogue” (UNSC, 2017 p.3). A year earlier, in 2016, the ICC judged Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a member of the terrorist group Ansar Dine, guilty of a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute for the destruction of areas of the World Heritage city of Timbuktu (ICC, 2016). This was in no small part due to the collaboration between UNESCO and the ICC, who had been “sharing expertise and information about the importance of the sites, about why they were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the reason why their deliberate destruction can be considered a war crime” (UN News, 2016 online). After this trial, Irina Bokova and Fatou 236

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Bensouda, ICC Prosecutor, signed a Letter of Intent to formalise their future cooperation in the field of cultural heritage protection (UNESCO, 2017b online). To legitimise the new role of her agency in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism, the UNESCO Director General capitalised on her teams’ response to the mausoleums’ destruction, framing their actions as a concrete and moral reparation undertaken (much like the Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi’s trial and subsequent reparations order (ICC, 2017)) in partnership with the UN Security Council and the ICC. By doing so, UNESCO has now gone beyond its traditional mandate as a specialised UN agency (with an essentially normative role) to assert itself as an operational actor, acting on the ground (like humanitarian actors).

Crises and international organisations: When endangerment is turned into opportunity Irina Bokova’s communication choices can be explained by the marginalisation of UNESCO within the UN multilateral system. Indeed, since its creation in 1945, UNESCO has never been considered an “operational agency” (Leloup, 2021 p.337) but only a “normative” one. Drawing on the success of its “strategic partnership” to defend Timbuktu mausoleums and manuscripts with the UN Security Council (through MINUSMA), Irina Bokova’s strategy was to set the scene for the adoption of the strategy Reinforcement of UNESCO’s Action for the Protection of Culture and the Promotion of Cultural Pluralism in the Event of Armed Conflict by the UNESCO Member States gathered at the 2015 UNESCO General Conference (UNESCO, 2015). The main goal of this strategy was to “incorporate the protection of culture into humanitarian action, security strategies and peace-building processes by engaging with relevant stakeholders outside the culture domain” (UNESCO, 2015 p.4), and to foster its role as an operational agency intervening in situations of emergency and crisis. By forcing its staff to re-legitimise the historical mandate of the organisation, the 2012–2015 crisis allowed UNESCO to be acknowledged in 2016 as a humanitarian actor during the World Humanitarian Summit of Istanbul and to gain a new legitimacy (Leloup, 2021 p. 396). According to a UNESCO member staff: Our participation in [humanitarian] clusters was, in a way, the weak point [of our engagement]. We don’t provide saving services like food, water, shelter […] but nowadays with all the humanitarian-development nexus taking place, it is pretty clear that the holistic approach is already in place […] The new Secretary General [Guterres] carries the clear message that the UN system has to be reformed, all the responses of the agencies have to be aligned, that it has to be shared without overlap, we are all humanitarians and this is a good climate for UNESCO. (Anonymous interview with a member of the UNESCO Office of the Director General, 2017b) This phenomenon corresponds to what Jim Whitman called the “reorientation of specialised agencies away from development to emergency relief ”, triggering the “political disengagement and a humanitarianism which, for all its poignant qualities, is shifting from the betterment of life to saving lives in some instances — often as the complement to, or objective of, peacekeeping activities” (Whitman, 1998 pp. 126-127). As other UN specialised agencies, to survive within the multilateral system, UNESCO gives up its “developmental ethos”, to adopt an “emergency ethos” (Whitman, 1998 pp. 133-134). 237

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Conclusion In the face of the 2012–2015 crisis, which saw the destruction of World Heritage sites becoming systematic in Mali, Iraq, and Syria, the UNESCO Director General reactivated the rhetoric of opposing humanity to barbarism. Using the term of “cultural cleansing”, Bokova demonstrated the simultaneity between the attacks against cultural sites and crimes against civilians and, therefore, the urgent need for the international community to mandate UNESCO for intervening in crisis situations. Ultimately, the 2012–2015 crisis contributed to avoiding the weakening of UNESCO within the multilateral system by questioning its moral authority on World Heritage in the name of humanity. Instead, the Director General used the crisis as an opportunity to reaffirm UNESCO’s legitimacy and relevance in the face of contemporary challenges.

Notes 1 The chapter relies on data collected through observation and interviews as part of my PhD thesis. See Défendre l’humanité en protégeant son patrimoine. Un nouveau mandat pour les opérations de paix onusiennes (Leloup, 2021). 2 In December 1995, the UN and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) signed an agreement, whose article 7(a) requested this UN peace operation to respect the principles and spirit of the 1954 Convention. 3 UN Blue Helmets are the military component of UN peace operations.

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Turning destruction into an opportunity ——— (2015a). Discours à l’occasion de la réunion Mobilisation pour le Patrimoine, organisée avec l’Université des Nations Unies [Address on the Occasion of the “Mobilization for Heritage” meeting organized with the United Nations University]. Paris, 6 May 2015. Available at: https:// unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000232970?posInSet=1&queryId=cddb9822-d6f4-4d95-b827615da7af 79bb [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2015b). Address for the Conference of Culture Ministers of countries participating in Expo Milan. Milan, 31 July 2015. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000234269?1= null&queryld=80bc58a9-9c9c-4fd8-9740-f3938cd9c947 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2015c). Address for the International Conference on Cultural Heritage at Risk, the Role of Museums in War and Conflict Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities. Stockholm, 26 November 2015. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000235720?1=null&q ueryld=d2ec0b8b-347d-4e49-ba21-b25c8ff 7dd69 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2015d). Address to the Royal Institute of International Affairs “Cultural Heritage: Extremism’s New Target”. London, 1 July 2015. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000233 661?1=null&queryld=c1d6aaf5-b462-467f-99a4-4fc059515bea [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2015e). Address for the 39th Session of the World Heritage Committee. Bonn, 28 June 2015. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000233660?2=null&queryld=be21ea515b26-4fd2-9a98-fd2fc5d83cf5 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2015f ). Address for the stakeholders roundtable “Despoiled and Destroyed: Ancient civilizations of Iraq and Syria”. UNESCO, 1 June 2015. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/ pf0000233226?1=null&queryld=efca097b-4247-4c5a-aa06-c08482f3afff [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2016a). Address for the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee. Istanbul, 10 July 2016. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000245267?posInSet=1&queryId=afdaabcb22c5-414d-8867-118d43a44761 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2016b). Address on the occasion of the Lectio Magistralis Honorary Fellowship at the University CA’ FOSCARI on the Theme “Fostering Cultural Diversity as a shared heritage to build Peace”. Venice, 3 November 2016. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000246422 [Accessed: 3 March 2023]. Brosché, J., Legner, M., Kreutz, J., and Ljla, A. (2016). Heritage under attack: Motives for targeting cultural property during armed conflicts. International Journal of Heritage Studies 23(3), pp.248–260. Buzan, B., Waever, O., and De Wilde, J. (1998). Security. A new framework for analysis. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. CHAC and BSI. (2021). Cultural Property Protection: Global Capacity and financing Expert and Stakeholder Meeting. The Nordic Center for Cultural Heritage and Armed Conflict (CHAC) and Blue Shield International (BSI), 22–23 June. Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a8ece4b12abd9a4deae2dad/t/613 3118dd188a369b528134c/1630736782851/CHAC_BSI_Stakeholder_Meeting_2021.pdf [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. Cunliffe, E., Muhesen, N., and Lostal, M. (2016). The destruction of cultural property in the Syrian conflict: Legal implications and obligations. International Journal of Cultural Property 23(1), pp.1–31. Defreese, M. (2009). Kosovo: Cultural Heritage in Conflict. Journal of Conflict Archaeology 5(1), pp.257–269. Elias, J.J. (2013). The Taliban, Bamiyan and Revisionist Iconoclasm. In: Boldrick, S., Brubaker, L., and Clay, R. (eds). Striking Images. Iconoclasm Past and Present, Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Flichy, T. (2013). Opération Serval au Mali. L’intervention française décryptée, Lavauzelle: Panazol. Gamboni, D. (2001). World heritage: Shield or Target? Conservation: The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter, 16 February. Available at: https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/ newsletters/16_2/feature.html [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. Hladik, J. (2004). Marking of cultural property with the distinctive emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. International Review of the Red Cross 86(854), pp.379–386. ICC. (2016). Trial Chamber VIII, The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, Judgment and sentence. ICC01/12-01/15, 27 September. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/ CR2016_07244.PDF [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ICC. (2017). Trial Chamber VIII, The Prosecutor v. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, Reparations order. ICC01/12-01/15, 17 August. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2017_05117.PDF [Accessed: 4 March 2023].

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Mathilde Leloup Isakhan, B., and González Zarandona, J.A. (2018). Layers of religious and political iconoclasm under the Islamic State: symbolic sectarianism and pre-monotheistic iconoclasm. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(1), pp.1–16. Jones, C.W. (2018). Understanding ISIS’s destruction of antiquities as a rejection of nationalism. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 6(1–2), pp.31–58. Joy, C. (2016). UNESCO is what? World heritage, militant Islam and the search for a common humanity in Mali. In: Brumann, C., and Berliner, D. (eds). World heritage on the ground. New York: Berghahn, pp.60–77. Kalman, H. (2017). Destruction, mitigation, and reconciliation of cultural heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies 23(6), pp.538–555. Leloup, M. (2021). Défendre l’humanité en protégeant son patrimoine. Un nouveau mandat pour les opérations de paix onusiennes. Paris: Dalloz. Lostal, M. (2015). Syria’s world cultural heritage and individual criminal responsibility. International Review of Law 7(1–2), pp.248–259. Lostal, M. (2017). International Cultural Heritage Law in Armed Conflict, Case-Studies of Syria, Libya, Mali, the Invasion of Iraq, and the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Louis, M., and Maertens, L. (2021). Why International Organizations Hate Politics. Depoliticizing the World. London: Routledge. Luck, E.L. (2018). Cultural genocide and the protection of cultural heritage. J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy 2. Available at: http://www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers/ [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. Meskell, L. (2018). A future in ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage and the Dream of Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitrany, D. (1944). A working peace system: an argument for the functional development of international organisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reuters. (2012). Islamists destroy mausoleums in Timbuktu, Reuters, 30 June. Available at: https://www. reuters.com/article/ofrtp-mali-tombouctou-20120630-idFRPAE85T01Q20120630 [Accessed: 3 March 2023]. Rist, G. (2002). The words of power: Sense and nonsense of international rhetoric. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/ sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf [Accessed: 07 January 2022]. Stone, P.G., and Bajjaly, J.F. (2008). The destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq. Suffolk: Boydell Press. Trécourt, F. (2012). Timbuktu, victim of Salafast iconoclasts, Le Monde des religions, 5 July. Available at: https://fabien-trecourt.com/2012/07/05/tombouctou-victime-des-iconoclastessalafistes/[Accessed: 3 March 2023]. UN Charter, 26 June, 1945. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter [Accessed: 15 March 2022] UN News. (2013). Experts at UN forum adopt action plan to safeguard Mali's cultural heritage. UN website, 18 February. Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2013/02/432252 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. UN News. (2016). UNESCO and ICC join forces to end impunity for destruction of cultural heritage. UN website, 14 June. Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/06/532052-unesco-and-iccjoin-forces-end-impunity-destruction-cultural-heritage [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. UNESCO. (n.d.). Reconstruction of the destroyed mausoleums of Timbuktu (Mali). UNESCO website. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/canopy/timbuktu/ [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (1945). Constitution, 16 November 1945. UNESCO website. Available at: https://www.unesco. org/en/legal-affairs/constitution [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2013). UNESCO expert mission evaluates damage to Mali’s cultural heritage, UNESCO website, 9 June. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1022 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2014). First mission to Gao since end of military occupation of northern Mali takes stock of serious damage to the city’s cultural heritage, UNESCO website, 13 February. Available at: https:// whc.unesco.org/en/news/1106 [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2015). Reinforcement of UNESCO’s Action for the Protection of Culture and the Promotion of Cultural Pluralism in the Event of Armed Conflict, 38C49. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco. org/ark:/48223/pf0000235186 [Accessed: 4 March 2023].

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Turning destruction into an opportunity ——— (2016). 900-year-old consecration ceremony held for the Timbuktu mausoleums, UNESCO website, 4 February. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1430/ [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. ——— (2017a). UNESCO – Responding to cultural cleansing, preventing violent extremism, UNESCO website, 30 October. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-responding-cultural-cleansingpreventing-violent-extremism [Accessed: 3 March 2023]. ——— (2017b). International Criminal Court and UNESCO Strengthen Cooperation on the Protection of Cultural Heritage, UNESCO website, 6 November. Available at: https://en.unesco. org/news/international-criminal-court-and-unesco-strengthen-cooperation-protection-culturalheritage [Accessed: 3 March 2023]. ——— (2021). Mali and UNESCO receive symbolic reparation on behalf of international community for destruction of Timbuktu’s mausoleums, UNESCO website, 30 March 2021. Available at: https:// whc.unesco.org/en/news/2268/ [Accessed: 3 March 2023]. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2100 (2013), adopted at its 6952nd meeting, on 25 April 2013. Available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N13/314/17/ PDF/N1331417.pdf?OpenElement [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2347 (2017), adopted at its 7907th meeting, on 24 March 2017. Available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N17/079/04/ PDF/N1707904.pdf?OpenElement [Accessed: 4 March 2023]. Van der Auwera, S. (2010) Peace Operations and the Protection of Cultural Property During and After Armed Conflict. International Peacekeeping 17(1), pp. 3–16. Viejo-Rose, D. (2011). Destruction and reconstruction of heritage: impacts on memory and identity. In: Isar, Y.R., and Anheier, H. (eds). Cultures and Globalization Series, Heritage, Memory and Identity. Vol. 4, London: Sage, pp.53–69. Viejo-Rose, D., and Sørensen, M.L. (2015). Cultural heritage and armed conflict: new questions for an old relationship. In: Waterton, E., and Watson, S. (eds). The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, pp.281–296. Walther, O., and Christopoulos, D. (2015). Islamic Terrorism and the Malian Rebellion. Terrorism and Political Violence 27(3), pp.497–519. Whitman, J. (1998). The UN specialized agencies, peacekeeping and the enactment of values. International Peacekeeping 5(4), pp.120–137. Winter, T. (2016). Heritage diplomacy: Entangled materialities of international relations. Future Anterior 13(1), pp.16–34.

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19 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION FROM A HUMANITARIAN PERSPECTIVE Jennifer Price-Jones

Introduction Cultural heritage destruction is, as is widely commented on throughout this volume, certainly not a new global issue. It is, however, a new consideration for the humanitarian ecosystem. As global attention focuses on high profile, visible heritage destruction taking place during conflicts and other humanitarian emergencies, the heritage sector is calling for cultural heritage protection to be included in humanitarian response and to become part of the humanitarian ecosystem. Though what that might look like is unclear even to them. For some, following earthquakes in Haiti in 20101 and Nepal in 2015 (ICCROM, 2016a), cultural heritage responders supported heritage staff in both countries in heritage recovery efforts immediately following the earthquake and afterwards, conducting extensive in-country staff training, and saving thousands of objects. They suggest heritage workers should be part of a humanitarian emergency response. Others suggest humanitarians generally should include heritage protection. Either way, these calls remain largely unacknowledged by the humanitarian ecosystem, frustrating the heritage sector. Consequently, this chapter will discuss heritage destruction through a humanitarian ecosystem lens in order to understand why such calls for including heritage protection in humanitarian response may be unacknowledged by the humanitarian ecosystem. The basic distinctions between heritage and humanitarian work will be explained, aiding understanding of how the humanitarian ecosystem differs in its approach to heritage destruction. The first half of the chapter presents a basic overview of the humanitarian ecosystem, highlighting the different mandates and ways of working between the two sectors. In doing so, it throws into sharp relief the fundamental operational differences, thereby explaining some of the points of conflict between their objectives. There are limits to the remit of the humanitarian ecosystem, and this will be examined through accountability to affected people (AAP) and the humanitarian principles, highlighting the need for neutrality and independence from the state and/or the heritage sector as necessary. The second half of the chapter explores the impact of cultural heritage destruction on crisis-affected people and whether it can be considered a humanitarian need or even if it should be. The first inclusions and considerations of heritage destruction by the humanitarian ecosystem are outlined, and the argument is presented for the need for further research on 242

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the impact of heritage destruction on crisis-affected people in order to build an overall better humanitarian response. Cultural heritage is not usually included in the humanitarian ecosystem: humanitarian response focuses on more immediate and understood needs such as health, food, and shelter. However, it should not necessarily be expressly excluded. The Humanitarian Charter, a series of rights and obligations aimed at ensuring the welfare of crisis-affected populations, states that crisis-affected people have the right to life with dignity, which it describes as “more than physical well-being; [dignity] demands respect for the whole person, including the values and beliefs of individuals and affected communities …” (Sphere, 2018 p.29). Although it may not be considered a need or a priority in all humanitarian disasters, this chapter presents the argument that cultural heritage, in certain circumstances, should be considered a basic humanitarian need and be included within an overall humanitarian response. Indeed, by including cultural heritage where appropriate, a better response may be delivered and the needs of crisis-affected people are more effectively met.

Overview of the humanitarian ecosystem The humanitarian ecosystem is the global architecture by which humanitarian assistance is agreed and implemented as established by the UN General Assembly. The objective of humanitarian aid is to provide life-saving assistance, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity for people in need during and after disasters, as well as to increase resilience and preparedness for future emergencies. Humanitarian action was formally established in 1863 with Henry Dunant co-founding the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC, 2010), but the modern humanitarian ecosystem is relatively new, officially formalised by UN General Assembly resolution 46/182 (UNGA, 1991). This resolution outlines the legal and operational scope of the humanitarian ecosystem. Namely, states have the primary responsibility to assist crisis-affected people in their territories, lead humanitarian coordination, facilitate humanitarian agencies, and ensure unimpeded access to affected populations in need of assistance. The humanitarian ecosystem includes a wide and diverse range of stakeholders, including national governments, United Nations (UN) agencies, international, national, and local nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and different donors. All these agencies and departments work more or less independently of each other, with different mandates and objectives, but they impact each other when working collaboratively towards the common goal of providing humanitarian assistance to crisis-affected people (Elrha, n.d.). Since the formal establishment of a specific system to focus on humanitarian aid, the humanitarian ecosystem has professionalised further with experience, gaining deeper technical understanding and experience of the needs of affected people. In 2005, the cluster system was adopted. The cluster system (Figure 19.1) is used to divide each area of humanitarian assistance into a thematic group. In doing so, interagency coordination is easier and technical standards are developed and agreed upon more effectively. Each cluster has a lead agency to manage and coordinate it. Notably, UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, has no official place in the cluster system and has no formal humanitarian ecosystem presence. The humanitarian ecosystem continues to self-evaluate and strive to do better, aiming to work in partnership with crisis-affected people and to be led by their needs and voices. There are still gaps, however, and this chapter will outline the gap in recognising and understanding the need for cultural heritage in crisis and how heritage destruction can impact affected people. 243

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Figure 19.1 Image of the cluster system. Source: UNOCHA (2020).

Basic definitions and principal ways of working of the humanitarian ecosystem Both the humanitarian ecosystem and the cultural sector work with difficult-to-define terms. What is a humanitarian emergency and what constitutes culture, for example, can differ considerably, depending on individual perspectives and organisational mandates? The perspectives and ways of working between the humanitarian ecosystem and the heritage sector are also different. As such, it is necessary to explain some frequently used concepts and understand both sectors’ different perspectives and objectives.

A humanitarian emergency The actual definitions of emergencies, disasters, and complex emergencies can differ between humanitarian organisations based on their different mandates (Inter-Agency Standing Committee Working Group, 1994). Emergencies and disasters are used interchangeably here, as for the purpose of this chapter, they have the same meaning, i.e., any disaster significant enough to need the intervention of the humanitarian ecosystem. The contexts of humanitarian relief can vary greatly, however, from environmental disasters to conflicts. If an emergency, whatever the cause, is big enough to require humanitarian aid 244

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and the affected country cannot meet the humanitarian needs itself, it may request external assistance from the international humanitarian ecosystem.

Definition of cultural heritage from a humanitarian perspective In practical terms, cultural heritage can be difficult to define, and it is beyond the scope of this chapter to establish a working definition of cultural heritage for the whole humanitarian ecosystem. For common understanding, this chapter refers to culture and cultural heritage in line with International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the UNESCO categorical definitions of cultural heritage (UNESCO, 2017): Tangible cultural heritage: • • •

movable cultural heritage (paintings, sculptures, coins, manuscripts); immovable cultural heritage (monuments, archaeological sites, etc.); underwater cultural heritage (shipwrecks, underwater ruins, and cities).

Intangible cultural heritage: •

oral traditions, performing arts, rituals.

Natural heritage: •

natural sites with cultural aspects such as cultural landscapes, physical, biological, or geological formations.

Heritage in the event of armed conflict (as defined in the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, Article 1): •

“movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people” and buildings that store, shelter, or exhibit it, to be determined by the state (O’Keefe, 1999).

Cultural heritage and cultural property have different legal definitions, however, and each term presents assumptions and perceptions. Cultural property, for example, has particular legal definitions and connotations of ownership or value (see Prott and O’Keefe, 1992 for more discussion). Prott and O’Keefe propose, and the author agrees, that the term cultural heritage is more inclusive. This is especially important when considering the people-centred nature of humanitarian work, as it will be affected communities themselves who decide their culture and their cultural needs during a humanitarian crisis, rather than a top-down approach led by states or international bodies.

Accountability to affected people: A community level approach to identifying cultural heritage of great importance International agreements and definitions clearly have an important and necessary role in international diplomacy. When considering an international issue, such as heritage destruction, the UNESCO categorical definitions, the 1954 Hague Convention, and high-profile lists such as the UNESCO World Heritage List, provide a common framework for states and multilateral bodies to work with. However, these international state and multilateral 245

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level agreements of identified cultural heritage of great, greatest, or outstanding importance (respectively above) may not always reflect the same cultural heritage of great importance to local communities. Humanitarian work follows a people-centred approach, with the concept of AAP underpinning humanitarian response. The people affected by crises should be an active partner in deciding what humanitarian assistance they receive, how it is provided, and can provide feedback and make complaints (see the CHS Alliance (2021) for further information). As such, from an operational humanitarian response perspective, cultural heritage may not be defined by the state but be identified by the affected people and communities themselves. This is a central point, as examples of this in practice illustrate people identifying their heritage needs and managing their own heritage protection during crisis.

The humanitarian principles The humanitarian principles, well established in the humanitarian sector, have also been used as guidance for some emergency initiatives by cultural heritage organisations, including ICCROM (2016b). The distinction must be made, however, between the humanitarian principles designed for humanitarian action and frameworks based on the humanitarian principles which have been adapted to other projects. The need for this distinction becomes clear when heritage destruction is explored through the humanitarian principles below. This is not to claim that the humanitarian principles are only to be used by the humanitarian sector: indeed, the framework of the principles can certainly add value to any programmes working in difficult contexts. However, they were developed specifically for humanitarian interventions in an effort to create legitimacy for humanitarian work in potentially contentious situations and take into account the specific remit of the humanitarian ecosystem. The principles are enshrined in the General Assembly resolutions 46/182 (1991) and 58/114 (UNGA, 2003), and the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) gives the definition of the humanitarian principles as below (OCHA, 2012 p.1). These definitions are widely agreed, though the precise wording of the definitions, in particular neutrality, varies between different organisations: • • •

•

Humanity: Human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found. The purpose of humanitarian action is to protect life and health and ensure respect for human beings. Neutrality: Humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious, or ideological nature. Impartiality: Humanitarian action must be carried out on the basis of need alone, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress and making no distinctions on the basis of nationality, race, gender, religious belief, class, or political opinions. Independence: Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military, or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented.

The principles are not rigid absolutes; rather, they offer a framework to aid decisionmaking, resulting in a more consistent approach, though debates continue regarding both their interpretation and practical application (see Slim, 2015 for more discussion). However, by following the principles’ guidance, an enabling environment for humanitarian work 246

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may be created whereby it is more likely to be accepted by all stakeholders, the safety of humanitarian workers is more secure, and humanitarian response is facilitated more effectively.

Heritage destruction viewed through the humanitarian principles The humanitarian principles can also highlight the limitations of humanitarian work, i.e., whether an issue is outside the remit of the humanitarian ecosystem. To understand how the humanitarian ecosystem may engage (or not) with the issue of heritage destruction and how this may differ to the heritage sector, the author proposes a consideration of heritage destruction as viewed through the humanitarian principles below: Humanity: This principle ensures a people-centred response. When applying it to the context of heritage destruction, humanitarian organisations should respond only if heritage destruction is causing human harm. In contrast, the cultural heritage sector aims to preserve cultural heritage and prevent, where possible, its destruction, often for the benefit of the heritage itself. The end objective may be to benefit affected people, but the primary beneficiary is frequently the heritage. Neutrality: It is important to understand how a situational context and an actual humanitarian response differ. This is the distinction between the humanitarian principles of the neutrality of the context and the impartiality of the needs of the affected people. When regarding neutrality, humanitarian agencies must not align themselves, or be perceived to align themselves, with any party to a conflict. This can also be relevant in disasters as humanitarian agencies can be accused by hostile or sceptical groups of influencing party politics or social norms, etc. In this regard, the crisis context is a situation to navigate and be aware of, not to engage with. It is not the role of the humanitarian ecosystem to stop conflict or any form of heritage destruction in any context. That is a political issue for states, the UN Security Council, UNESCO, and the heritage sector. This is viewing heritage destruction through the principle of neutrality. Impartiality: This neutral situation may change for the humanitarian ecosystem if the crisis context impacts significantly on the basic needs of affected people, and humanitarian assistance is requested. It is then the role of the humanitarian ecosystem to reduce the impact of the crisis based on the needs of the affected people. For example, if the impact of heritage destruction during a humanitarian emergency is widespread and severe on a particular group of people, a decision could be taken to include specific cultural heritage protection interventions in the overall humanitarian response. This is viewing heritage destruction through the principle of impartiality, i.e., meeting the basic needs of crisis-affected people, which may include cultural heritage. Independence: It is possible that humanitarian response may be politicised and used to meet external political objectives. When considering heritage destruction, the humanitarian ecosystem must remain independent of other heritage objectives of the state or the heritage sector itself. For example, if the humanitarian ecosystem was asked to restore a UNESCO world heritage site in a crisis-affected country (a state level identified heritage site of great importance), but this had little value to, or positive impact on, the local communities, it would not be considered a basic humanitarian need for that crisis. Restoration would contravene the principle of impartiality, AAP approaches (i.e., be based on the need of the affected people and consult with them on what their priorities are), and possibly neutrality. It would therefore be outside the humanitarian ecosystem mandate. Such a request, however, would fit with the mandate of the cultural heritage sector. 247

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Following this exercise in applying the humanitarian principles to heritage destruction, the different objectives and ways of working between the humanitarian ecosystem and cultural heritage sector, and why the two sectors cannot easily adapt to each other, are clear. However, it does not follow that the two sectors cannot work in partnership for a common goal of supporting crisis-affected people with their heritage needs. If each sector can understand the mandates, limitations, and working perspectives of the other, it reduces the risk of conflict and points of contention and may facilitate working in partnership more effectively. The basic workings and overview of the humanitarian ecosystem have now been presented. Attention will now turn to whether, if, and how humanitarian organisations consider the impact of heritage destruction on affected people, or even if they consider it a priority requiring a humanitarian response when compared with other basic needs during a humanitarian emergency.

The importance of empirical evidence to the humanitarian ecosystem Currently, cultural heritage protection has no official place within the humanitarian ecosystem, and it is not generally considered a humanitarian organisation’s role to protect it during humanitarian response. Although sympathetic to the impacts of heritage destruction, humanitarian organisations usually either consider it a separate, legal IHL issue, or cultural heritage issue for UNESCO and other cultural organisations (PHAP, 2016). This is most likely due to the perception that heritage destruction, unlike conflict or a large environmental disaster, does not cause harm to people, or does not have an impact on the basic needs of affected people significant enough to require a humanitarian intervention. This is contested by the cultural heritage sector: At UNESCO, we believe there is no choice to make between saving lives and saving cultural heritage. Protecting heritage is inseparable from protecting populations, because heritage enshrines people’s identities. Heritage … is a force for social cohesion and recovery. This is why protection of heritage must be part of all humanitarian efforts. UNESCO, 2013 online The primary objective of cultural organisations is to preserve at-risk heritage for current and future generations. In doing so, they believe it will also benefit the psychosocial support, well-being, and resilience of communities experiencing disasters. Numerous major heritage organisations operate from the premise that people are intrinsically linked to their heritage, claiming people cannot be separated from their culture, and as such, the well-being of people is also linked to their heritage. The UNESCO Culture in Emergencies section, for example, states that access to heritage during times of crisis can offer a sense of identity, purpose, and psychological support (UNESCO, n.d.). The Prince Claus Fund proclaims that culture is a basic need and should be integral to humanitarian relief (Chronis et al., 2011). Blue Shield International (BSI) states that its work: is founded on the belief that cultural heritage — tangible and intangible — is important. It is a vital expression of the culture that makes up unique communities and its loss during conflict and disaster can be catastrophic … Blue Shield strives to prevent the loss of heritage to communities, recognising that it is a fundamental part of their wellbeing. (BSI, n.d.) 248

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ICCROM states that their First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis programme supports “reducing risks for all types of cultural heritage in order to build disaster-resilient communities” (ICCROM, n.d.). The primary objective of humanitarian organisations, by contrast, is to lessen the impact of disasters on affected people by meeting their basic needs during crisis. The humanitarian ecosystem agrees that psychosocial support, well-being, and resilience of communities experiencing disasters are important. From a humanitarian ecosystem perspective, however, it does not necessarily follow that this is best achieved by including cultural heritage protection. The humanitarian ecosystem is under pressure, both financially and politically. It is currently navigating shrinking humanitarian space2 while struggling to meet the unprecedented scale of need in modern times (OCHA, 2021). The impacts of crises continue to grow: complex emergencies are often protracted, lasting years and even decades, and the COVID-19 pandemic has increased current needs in humanitarian contexts exponentially (OCHA, 2021). Difficult choices are constantly made by humanitarian organisations over which needs must be prioritised, knowing that not all can be met. Although this states the case in bleak terms, it does not automatically reject cultural heritage protection from the humanitarian ecosystem, far from it. The impact of heritage destruction on affected people may be considered just as significant as any other impact of a disaster if robust, empirical evidence is presented showing this in clear terms. Unfortunately, such evidence is lacking. The pressure to deliver more assistance with the same or fewer resources requires empirical evidence of the humanitarian needs. It is a key tool in justifying the allocation of limited funding. To date, however, evidence provided by the cultural heritage sector tends to be anecdotal rather than empirical. The precise relationship between people and their heritage is not defined and there seems an over-reliance on unqualified statements that people are indivisible from their heritage, with, in turn, no distinction between saving lives and saving heritage (see Frowe and Matravers (2019) for further discussion and examples of such anecdotal evidence). In fact, the opinions of crisis-affected people themselves on the importance of their heritage during disasters, especially where there are other overwhelming humanitarian needs, varies significantly. Some compare heritage destruction to caustic trauma and others explain that heritage destruction is not a priority in the face of insecurity and a lack of basic services such as food, water, and hospitals (Isakhan & Meskell, 2019). Consequently, assumptions about any linkages must be avoided.

The widening humanitarian perspective – the impact of heritage destruction on mental health Any links made between heritage destruction and the impact on affected people must be evidence-led, but as with research, asking the right questions is key. It is not standard practice for humanitarian organisations to consult with affected people about their heritage needs during an emergency, potentially missing both the heritage destruction impact on affected people and the resulting humanitarian cultural needs. Despite this, in 2019, IOM (the UN migration agency) could not miss the overwhelming impact of heritage destruction on the Rohingya refugees who had fled Myanmar for refuge in Cox’s Bazar in neighbouring Bangladesh. Identifying a huge mental health need for the Rohingya refugees, IOM conducted a rapid assessment. The assessment showed a clear link 249

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between heritage destruction, protection, and mental health, and, more specifically, identity, collective memory, and social cohesion. The results found 50% of respondents identified an identity crisis as a common problem, and 73% of respondents identified a loss of cultural identity following their forced exodus from Myanmar in 2017 as one of the main factors of their distress (IOM Bangladesh, 2021). In this instance, IOM decided the results were significant enough to implement a specific mental health and psychosocial support project (MHPSS) with a focus on cultural heritage protection. The project is the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre and IOM states that it has improved the mental health and well-being of the participants. To implement the project, Rohingya cultural liaisons were recruited to undertake hundreds of inter-generational consultations with the Rohingya refugees, supporting them to identify the most important intangible and tangible cultural heritage to preserve. A website3 and YouTube channel4 were developed. Through these forums, refugees can upload their important heritage to preserve it, and connect with the Rohingya diaspora and others globally. This project is an example in practice of APP and the affected people themselves identifying their heritage of great importance. This is a very new area for humanitarian agencies to explore and although it is still not standard practise to include cultural heritage in needs assessments or consultations, it does indicate at least a growing awareness of cultural heritage. Different factors may be responsible, including increasing prioritisation of mental health needs and the high profile and global nature of heritage destruction. Such destruction tends to be in areas and countries where humanitarian organisations are also operating. Consequently, humanitarian organisations are assisting people who are experiencing heritage destruction on a large scale, and the impact on them is beginning to become so visible and significant in some contexts that it must be seriously considered as a potential humanitarian issue. Interestingly, the impact on identity, social cohesion, and collective memory appears to be a common trend. It is experienced by different affected cultural groups in different displacement emergencies around the world. This suggests a common link between the impact of heritage destruction and mental health (see examples in Herwig & Dunmore, 2016; Rainey, 2016; Chatelard & Kassab Hassan, 2017; Isakhan & Shahab, 2019). Such mental health impacts are most apparent, or at least most documented, in contexts of displacement. This is not surprising, considering there may be fractured communities leading to a loss of collective memory and social cohesion. If the affected people are fleeing conflict or systematic violence, there may also have been deliberate heritage destruction in their home country, possibly even with the intention of attacking them as a group. It may be easily understood how this, in conjunction with the stress of forced migration, possibly experiencing or witnessing extreme violence, to be then compounded by an uncertain future in a refugee camp in a host country with different social norms, can result in serious mental health issues. It is encouraging to see this evidence of humanitarian agencies considering the impact of heritage destruction on affected people in these few instances. However, the question arises whether cultural heritage is an unidentified need in other crisis situations, and if so, does it have an impact on other basic humanitarian needs?

The need to expand understanding of the impact of heritage destruction in humanitarian emergencies Although the links between heritage destruction and mental health during crisis are perhaps becoming a little better understood, the current examples are limited only to contexts of conflict and displacement. It does not follow that heritage destruction will have such an 250

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impact only in such circumstances. Indeed, there are many different manifestations of heritage destruction, each with possible different impacts on people during crisis. A deliberate attack on a particular group, and their culture and history, for example, may have contrasting impacts to an indirect loss of collective memory and social cohesion as a consequence of forced displacement. Both may be experienced by affected people, possibly simultaneously, as in the case of the Rohingya people. Although IOM understood that both the deliberate heritage destruction of Rohingya culture and the fractured communities and loss of collective memory led to a mental health crisis for a significant number of Rohingya refugees, there is no suggestion that an analysis of the different manifestations of heritage destruction and their possible different impacts was made. This is not surprising: very few humanitarian cultural heritage studies or projects have been conducted, so the issues are not well understood or evidenced. This leaves a large gap in understanding the different impacts of heritage destruction on affected people during conflict and displacement. There is an even wider knowledge gap when considering peacetime disasters, such as earthquakes or cyclones. Manhart (2018) reports that in the immediate aftermath of the Nepal earthquake in 2015, people were simultaneously rescuing people and treasured cultural objects from the ruins of temples, offering anecdotal evidence that heritage protection was a priority for some affected people during this emergency at least. It may well be the case that heritage destruction has an impact during peacetime disasters, but without consultations with affected people or empirical evidence, it is difficult to judge. Consequently, it is unclear to what extent different types of heritage destruction and different contexts may affect the severity of the impact felt by affected people. It may be tempting to assume that deliberate heritage destruction as an attack on people will result in a more severe impact than the non-intentional loss of collective memory or that heritage destruction during conflict has a more severe impact on affected people than in peacetime. Without empirical evidence, such assumptions must be avoided. The impact could be influenced by different variables such as the context of conflict or peace, the manifestations of the destruction, the intent, or the timescale of the destruction (i.e., whether it was over a sustained period or if it was sudden, whether the destruction took place several years ago or longer, or if it happened very recently). Any, or all, of these or other factors may vary the impact felt. All that can be stated for certain is that the impacts of heritage destruction may be numerous and complex, just like heritage destruction itself. Does it matter? Is it necessary for the humanitarian ecosystem to understand the different impacts and the nuances of heritage destruction felt by crisis-affected people? The widescale mental health impact IOM found working with the Rohingya refugees suggests that it is. A more detailed understanding of the heritage needs of affected people may build a better overall humanitarian response. With such large numbers of affected people citing heritage destruction as a factor in their mental health issues, a more detailed analysis of the types of impact resulting for the different types of heritage destruction may help predict needs in future emergencies and enable more effective and appropriate response programmes. The IASC predicted, based on detailed country analyses, that in 2021, 235 million people would need humanitarian assistance and protection globally, the highest figure in decades (OCHA, 2020). Unfortunately, by 2022, this forecast had increased to 274 million people (OCHA, 2021), due to the COVID-19 pandemic, protracted complex emergencies, and climate change-related disasters. As conflict, climate-related crises, and deliberate heritage destruction are all likely to increase, the predicted number of people in need may rise further. Therefore, a detailed understanding of the impact of heritage destruction is important to support humanitarian preparedness by anticipating scenarios and predicting possible future needs. 251

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Further research is needed Although it is not standard practice to include questions on heritage destruction or protection in consultations, the success of the Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre project suggests it could be welcomed by affected people if it was. The large gap in understanding the different possible impacts of heritage destruction also leaves open the question of whether other humanitarian needs are affected. Further research is needed. The mental health impacts of heritage destruction may be considered proof of concept for a holistic, cross-cluster, empirical research study, which could analyse the impact on other humanitarian thematic concerns such as shelter, livelihoods, and education. Any such study should aim to widen understanding of the impact of heritage destruction with a view to developing a more systematic approach to heritage consultation with affected people. The results of which should be welcomed by the humanitarian ecosystem as having the potential to drive a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to humanitarian response, thereby achieving better outcomes and resulting in an immediate and significant impact on people affected by crises. It could also be a catalyst for more engagement between the cultural heritage sector and humanitarian ecosystem, something, as discussed above, UNESCO and other cultural heritage organisations have been calling for.

Conclusion Although the heritage sector believes the impact of heritage destruction and cultural heritage protection should be part of all humanitarian efforts, this discussion here outlines the difficulties. When considering heritage destruction through a humanitarian ecosystem lens, it is not the destruction itself that is the main consideration but the impact of the destruction on the people experiencing it. It may indeed be the case that people are indivisible from their culture as heritage organisations claim; however, this does not necessarily mean it is a basic need during a crisis that the humanitarian ecosystem should be meeting. Instead, the focus for the humanitarian ecosystem should be to understand the impact of heritage destruction on affected people and how it can create humanitarian needs. The Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre shows the value of cultural heritage protection to improving the mental health of crisis-affected people and can be considered a proof of concept to conduct further empirical research. The heritage sector and humanitarian ecosystem have different objectives and ways of working which can be a source of conflict in their differing approaches to heritage destruction. Nonetheless, there is great potential for both sectors to combine knowledge and experience. The values of each sector align well and the author encourages the sectors to explore partnerships, working towards the mutual objective of supporting crisis affected people when they have been severely affected by cultural heritage destruction. It is submitted that even if the professional perspectives and ways of working to meet that objective are different for each sector, there is great potential value in supporting the partnership.

Notes 1 For more on the Haiti Cultural Recovery Project, see https://haiti.si.edu/index.html 2 The concept of erosion of respect for humanitarian aid, the humanitarian principles and IHL. Shrinking humanitarian space can result in attacks on humanitarian workers and increased politisation and restrictions on humanitarian organisations and their programmes. Such restrictions may include denying organisations permission to work in an affected country, impeding, and

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Heritage destruction from a humanitarian perspective possibly, denying access to crisis-affected people in need of humanitarian assistance or expelling organisations already delivering assistance from affected regions or countries. See ICVA (2019) for further information. 3 See https://rohingyaculturalmemorycentre.iom.int/default.aspx?lang=en 4 See https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKobsWjRy-Y6PLoXT7sUCrA

References BSI. (n.d.). The Importance of Cultural Heritage. Blue Shield International website. Available at: https:// theblueshield.org/why-we-do-it/the-importance-of-cultural-heritage/ [Accessed: 30 December 2021]. Chatelard, G., and Kassab Hassan, H. (2017). Survey report Intangible Cultural Heritage of Displaced Syrians. UNESCO. Available at: https://ich.unesco.org/doc/src/38275-EN.pdf [Accessed: 4 February 2021]. Chronis, I., de le Rive Box, L., and de Merode, E. (2011). Cultural Emergency Response: At the Crossroads of Cultural Heritage and Humanitarianism. In: Klein Goldwijk, B., Frerks, G., and Van der Plas, E. (eds). Cultural Emergency in Conflict and Disaster. Rotterdam: Prince Claus Fund; Nai Publishers, pp.348–357. CHS Alliance. (2021). CHS alliance – Making aid work better for people. Core Humanitarian Standard Alliance website. Available at: https://www.chsalliance.org/ [Accessed: 1 February 2021]. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: http://www.unesco. org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/pdf/1954_Convention_EN_2020.pdf [Accessed: 7 April 2022]. Elrha (Enhancing Learning & Research for Humanitarian Assistance). (n.d.). Humanitarian architecture. Humanitarian Innovation Guide website. Available at: https://higuide.elrha.org/humanitarianparameters/humanitarian-architecture/ [Accessed: 13 September 2021]. Frowe, H., and Matravers, D. (2019). Conflict and Cultural Heritage: A Moral Analysis of the Challenges of Heritage Protection. J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers 3. Available at: https://www.getty. edu/publications/occasional-papers-3/introduction/ [Accessed: 20 September 2021]. Herwig, C., and Dunmore, C. (2016). Syria’s landmarks restored in miniature, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 5 January. Available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2016/1/56ec1eba3/ syrias-landmarks-restored-in-miniature.html?ref=tracks [Accessed: 1 October 2021]. ICCROM. (2016a). ICCROM aids post-earthquake recovery of heritage in Nepal, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, 19 February. Available at: https:// www.iccrom.org/news/iccrom-aids-post-earthquake-recovery-heritage-nepal [Accessed: 8 March 2022]. ——— (2016b). First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis. International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, 2 June. Available at: https://www.iccrom.org/news/ first-aid-cultural-heritage-times-crisis [Accessed: 1 February 2022]. ——— (n.d.). First Aid and Resilience for Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis (FAR). International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property website. Available at: https:// www.iccrom.org/section/disaster-resilient-heritage/first-aid-and-resilience-cultural-heritagetimes-crisis-far [Accessed: 19 January 2022]. ICRC. (2010). Founding and early years of the ICRC (1863–1914). International Committee of the Red Cross website. Available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/founding-and-early-yearsicrc-1863-1914 [Accessed: 9 September 2021]. ICVA. (2019). How do NGOs Navigate the Shrinking Civil Society Space? International Council of Voluntary Agencies website. Available at: https://www.icvanetwork.org/elearning/how-do-ngosnavigate-the-shrinking-civil-society-space/ [Accessed: 19 January 2022]. Inter-Agency Standing Committee Working Group. (1994). Definition of complex emergencies. InterAgency Standing Committee website. Available at: https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/system/ files/legacy_files/WG16_4.pdf [Accessed: 28 September 2021]. IOM Bangladesh. (2021). IOM Bangladesh: Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis Response. Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre. International Organization for Migration Bangladesh. Available at: https://reliefweb. int/report/bangladesh/new-cultural-memory-centre-ensures-continuity-rohingya-heritage [Accessed: 23 September 2021].

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Jennifer Price-Jones Isakhan, B., and Meskell, L. (2019). UNESCO’s project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’: Iraqi and Syrian opinion on heritage reconstruction after the Islamic State. International Journal of Heritage Studies 25(11), pp.1189–1204. Isakhan, B., and Shahab, S. (2019). The Islamic State’s destruction of Yezidi heritage: Responses, resilience and reconstruction after genocide. Journal of Social Archaeology 20(1), pp.3–25. Manhart, C. (2018). Nepal Post Earthquake Cultural Heritage Rehabilitation. In: Kruhl, J., Adhikari, R., and Dorka, U. (eds). Living Under the Threat of Earthquakes. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp.95–99. OCHA. (2012). OCHA on Message: Humanitarian Principles. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Available at: https://www.unocha.org/fr/node/897 [Accessed: 27 November 2020]. ——— (2020). Global Humanitarian Overview 2021. Global Humanitarian Overview website. Available at: https://2021.gho.unocha.org/ [Accessed: 18 January 2022]. ——— (2021). Global Humanitarian Overview 2022. Global Humanitarian Overview website. Available at: https://gho.unocha.org/ [Accessed: 18 January 2022]. O’Keefe, R. (1999). The Meaning of ‘Cultural Property’ under the 1954 Hague Convention. Netherlands International Law Review 46(1), pp.26–56. PHAP (Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection). (2016). The Protection of Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflicts. YouTube website. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKkyk20WsM&t=1s [Accessed: 7 March 2022]. Prott, L., and O’Keefe, P. (1992). ‘Cultural Heritage’ or ‘Cultural Property’? International Journal of Cultural Property, 1(2), pp.307–320. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ international-journal-of-cultural-property/article/cultural-heritage-or-cultural-property/B17F38 F4873BDA8B21EF1BEA7DCD7D45 [Accessed: 21 January 2022]. Rainey, V. (2016). Syria in Mind Project. UNICEF Lebanon website. Available at: https://uniceflebanon. exposure.co/syria-in-mind-project#!%3E [Accessed: 15 October 2021]. Slim, H. (2015). Humanitarian ethics. London: Hurst & Company. Sphere. (2018). The Sphere handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response. 4th edn. Geneva: Practical Action Publishing. UNESCO. (2013). Emergency Red List of Syrian Antiquities at Risk is launched in New York, UNESCO, 26 September. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1073 [Accessed: 17 September 2021]. ——— (2017). What is meant by “cultural heritage”? UNESCO website. Available at: https://uis. unesco.org/en/glossary-term/cultural-heritage [Accessed: 28 September 2021]. ——— (n.d.). Culture in Emergencies. UNESCO website. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/themes/ culture-emergencies [Accessed: 10 September 2021]. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). (1991). Resolution 46/182 Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian emergency assistance of the United Nations, adopted 19 December 1991. Available at: https://undocs.org/A/RES/46/182 [Accessed: 8 March 2022]. ——— (2003). Resolution 58/114 Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations, adopted 17 December 2003. Available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/ UNDOC/GEN/N03/501/42/PDF/N0350142.pdf?OpenElement [Accessed: 8 March 2022].

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PART III

Transformation of Destruction

20 CULTURAL PROPERTY DESTRUCTION AND DAMAGE IN TWO WORLD WARS1 Nigel Pollard

While significant international legal protection was extended to cultural property in conflict for the first time by the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, the subsequent century was one of unprecedented damage to cultural heritage, much of it during the two world wars. The primary reasons for this were twofold. One was the dramatic technological change in warfare (particularly aerial bombing) that rapidly outstripped the legal protection provided by the 1907 Hague Convention that applied throughout both conflicts. The second was the total character of those wars that meant they impacted on civilian populations and property as well as the combatants’ armed forces, and, in some theatres of war, manifested themselves in ideologically motivated ethnic cleansing, including deliberate destruction of cultural property. This chapter provides an overview of how those factors led to cultural property damage and destruction in the two world wars.

Legal context The principal international law protecting cultural property through both world wars was the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, that closely followed provisions of the 1899 Hague Convention (II) (O’Keefe, 2006 pp.22–34). Article 25 of the 1907 Convention deals with bombardment, drawing a key distinction between defended towns (liable to bombardment) and undefended towns (that are not). Article 27 develops this to state: “In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments … provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes”. Article 56 deals with occupation of hostile territory, stating: “The property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity, and education, the arts, and sciences, even when State property, shall be treated as private property. All seizures of, destruction, or wilful damage done to institutions of this character, historic monuments, works of art, science, is forbidden”. While circumstances relating to occupation remained largely unchanged through the world wars, the dramatic industrialisation of warfare and developments in aerial warfare in particular had a substantial impact on bombardment. The 1907 Hague Convention did not foresee the extent to which national mobilisation and industrialisation might make even DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-23

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notionally undefended towns desirable military targets. While such centres might lie far from theatres of ground combat, alongside their civilian populations and cultural heritage, they had factories for military production and transportation infrastructure that contributed to the national war effort. Nor did the 1907 Hague Convention foresee the extent to which technology would make such centres vulnerable to bombardment. In 1907, even attacks by heavy siege artillery could rarely be carried out at ranges beyond 10 km, whereas by the end of the First World War, very specialised artillery such as the Paris Gun could hit a city 120 km away, albeit with limited accuracy. However, aerial bombing by airship or heavier-than-air bombers with ranges of up to 1000 km by 1918 was even more significant as a cause of cultural property damage. These developments intensified through the Second World War, in which the combined impact of strategic and tactical bombing and interdiction of transportation systems caused about 95% of the damage to “major monuments” in Italy, according to a contemporary Allied Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) Subcommission report (Subcommission MFAA, 1946 p.25). A central problem was the relative inaccuracy of bombing even with 1945 tactics and technology, making it nearly impossible to guarantee the immunity of cultural heritage (along with civilian lives and property) even if munitions factories and railways were the intended targets. The limitations of the 1907 Hague Convention were recognised in the decades between the world wars, but ultimately, attempts to address those limitations came to nothing. For example, the Hague Air Rules of 1922–1923 (Hague Air Rules, 1923; for discussion, see Parks, 1990 pp.25–36; O’Keefe, 2006 pp.44–51) sought to introduce the concepts of discrimination and proportionality in bombardment that unfortunately remained unadopted until their incorporation in 1977s Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions. Also unadopted were the International Museums Office (IMO) proposals of 1938 (International Museums Office, 1938; for discussion, see O’Keefe, 2006 pp.53–61) that included provision for a form of “special protection” for monuments, including a 500 m demilitarised zone around them, prefiguring the concept of “immediate surroundings” later used in the 1954 Hague Convention. Likewise, widespread acceptance of the IMO regulations’ provisions for internationally supervised refuges for movable cultural property might have addressed problems stemming from the use of secret refuges by combatants in the Second World War (see Pollard, 2020a for discussion and examples from Italy). Ultimately, however, the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) remained the principal international legislation applying to cultural property throughout the Second World War, as it had been for the First. Broadly speaking, it was recognised as governing the conduct of war even by some combatants whose governments had not ratified it, like the Soviet Union, although the Soviet failure to ratify the convention was used as a justification by the Germans for their own breaches (Ginsburgs, 1960 pp.254–256).

Definitions of cultural property It is unsurprising that definitions of protected cultural property at this time were conservative, emphasising the tangible, historic, and religious. As we have seen, the 1907 Hague Convention mentions historic monuments (generally understood to also include historic buildings and archaeological sites (O’Keefe, 2006 p.27), works of art, and buildings dedicated to art, religion, and science. There is limited evidence for cultural property inventories in the First World War; however, the range of sites and buildings included in the inventories and maps produced by US 258

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civilian academics in the Second World War for Allied military use provides an overview of contemporary preoccupations and issues (Pollard, 2020b pp.126–139). While much of the emphasis was on European cultural heritage, with 13 European countries mapped in the American Council of Learned Societies series, this also included maps for China, IndoChina, Japan, Korea, and Thailand. Terms such as cultural treasures and artistic and historic monuments figure prominently in the titles of the relevant academic committees, and the list of 316 items for Campania in Italy (60 of them in the city of Naples) by Harvard-based academics included churches, palaces, castles, monasteries, museums and galleries, libraries and archives, ancient remains and sites of various kinds, scientific institutions, catacombs and cemeteries, theatres, villas, arches, towers, seminaries, and public statues. Even the concept of cultural treasures was quite narrowly defined. A request to treat film archives as protected cultural property was rejected by the US civilian commission overseeing this documentation on the grounds that such inclusions might distract specialised military personnel from “the main objective, i.e., to look after the great and irreplaceable works of art”, and there were debates within the same commission as to whether religious structures should be protected per se or only as historic buildings (Pollard, 2020b pp.137–139, 282 n.30). Items of movable cultural property such as works of art were not listed individually in Allied inventories but subsumed under the institutions in which they were held. Wartime refuges for such movable items initially were not included in these lists as their locations were unknown, although they were sometimes added as they were discovered (Pollard, 2020a pp.671–672). While the symbolic associations between cultural property and national identity were sometimes recognised – not least in deliberate German targeting of Polish cultural symbols (see below) – Allied Second World War inventories reflected, for the most part, the judgments of outsiders looking in on others’ cultures rather than (as is modern best practice – see O’Keefe et al., 2016, n.44–47) those of the owners of the cultural property, and so tended to focus on aesthetic and historical qualities of supposedly universal significance that in fact reflected the compilers’ own intellectual assumptions and prejudices (Pollard, 2020b, pp.134–139). Thus, for example, the archaeological site of Pompeii was in the three-star (most important) category in the Harvard lists for Campania, while the nineteenth-century Santuario church nearby in the modern town was listed, but as a zero-star (least important) monument, even though the latter was more significant to many local people. These discrepant valuations are highlighted by stories spread among locals after bombs hit the archaeological site that an Allied commander had deliberately “sacrificed” Roman Pompeii to save the church (García y García, 2006 p.24 n.14; Pollard, 2020b pp.127–128, 270 n.35).

Cultural property damage across two world wars Cultural property damage occurs in conflicts for one or more recurring reasons. The most dramatic is deliberate, targeted damage, ideologically motivated. Another is incidental and collateral damage in the course of combat, where cultural property is not the intended target or is not targeted primarily because it is cultural property. This occurs as the result of ground combat, artillery fire, or aerial bombardment. Other factors that lead to damage include looting by civilians or military personnel in a security vacuum or the absence of discipline; and careless occupation and use of heritage sites by military personnel (Stone, 2016; Pollard, 2020b pp.171–172). 259

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Deliberate targeting Deliberate, targeted attacks against cultural property can be ideologically motivated as a means of striking against the cultural, national, and religious identity of the enemy, motivated by a more general desire to destroy something of value to the enemy as punishment for resistance, or a combination of the two. Clear examples of deliberate attacks were few in the western theatres of either war. One possible instance was the burning of the library of Louvain (Leuven) University in Belgium by German troops on 25–26 August 1914 (Kramer, 2007 pp.6–30). This occurred in the context of widespread destruction of civilian property and atrocities against civilians in the town. Kramer (2007 pp.6–30) argues plausibly that while the destruction was instigated locally by panicked reservists led to view the town (incorrectly) as a hotbed of partisan resistance, broader characteristics of contemporary German military culture contributed too. These included widespread anti-Catholicism (Louvain/Leuven is the intellectual centre of Belgian Catholicism); obsessive fear of partisan warfare (based on Franco-Prussian War experience) undermining their respect for the 1907 Hague Convention that legitimised such resistance; and, perhaps, a more generalised militaristic German nationalism. While numerous other First World War examples of damage to cultural property in France, Belgium, and Italy were presented by Allied sources as deliberate crimes, many or most of them were probably incidental or collateral (see below). Likewise, the justification and even ideological glorification of such results in the works of some contemporary (especially German) writers and intellectuals (Kramer, 2007 pp.27–29, 167–192) did not reflect a systematic campaign of deliberate cultural destruction, in the west, at least. In the Second World War, German forces in Italy deliberately destroyed the Royal Society library in Naples (12 September 1943) and also the Neapolitan State Archive (including numerous irreplaceable medieval documents) that had been evacuated to a villa near the town of Nola (30 September 1943) (Pollard, 2020a pp.672–673; 2020b p.289 n.2). Both cases were at local initiative, punishment for resistance against German forces, although their cultural significance was known to their destroyers. The Roman ships museum at Nemi, south of Rome, may also have been burned deliberately, along with its Roman galleys raised from nearby Lake Nemi, by retreating German troops in May 1944 (Pollard, 2020a pp.672–673; 2020b p.289 n.2). Deliberate targeting of cultural heritage in the course of strategic bombing seems to have been rare, not least because the limited accuracy of Second World War bombing made it as difficult to hit cultural sites deliberately as it did to miss them (see “Incidental and collateral damage”, below). However, it might be argued that the destruction of cultural property at least played an unspoken part in the attempt to undermine enemy morale that was one of the aims of largely indiscriminate bombing of cities. An exception to this was the round of so-called “Baedeker Raids” by the German air force directed against the British towns of Exeter, Bath, Norwich, York, and Canterbury in the spring of 1942. German postraid propaganda openly suggested these towns had been targeted deliberately on account of their cultural importance as assessed in the contemporary German Baedeker guidebooks (For discussion, see Overy, 2013 pp.118–119 and, particularly, Lambourne, 2001 pp.141–144). Threats to cultural heritage in eastern Europe in both world wars were exacerbated by ideological factors relating to ethnic cleansing and contested national, cultural, and religious identities. Targeting of cultural property became relatively commonplace. One clear example is the German destruction of the Royal Castle of Warsaw (Nicholas, 1995 pp.57–80). This medieval castle was the residence of Polish kings from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century. After the re-establishment of Poland as a nation-state in 1918, the refurbished castle became the home of the president. It was an obvious target for destruction as a symbol of 260

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Polish national identity given German intentions in the Second World War to essentially destroy the Polish nation. Initial bomb damage may be excused by Polish military resistance in Warsaw. However, after the German occupation, the castle was systematically stripped of fittings and décor by German officials and its walls prepared for demolition with explosives. The building was left in ruins until the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, when the dynamiting was finally implemented as part of a widespread campaign of destruction. Throughout the German occupation, Polish churches were also targeted for ideologically motivated destruction, as were synagogues throughout Germany’s eastern conquests because of their role as foci of religious and cultural identity (Nicholas, 1995 p.64). In east Asia, cultural property damage and looting were recurring features of the Japanese colonial administration of Korea (1910–1945). However, as Japanese military reverses in the Second World War raised the possibility of Korean resistance and independence, so colonial authorities engaged in deliberate targeting of cultural heritage that might inspire it. Key examples included the 1943 destruction of the seventeenth-century stone stela monument at Hapcheon to the Buddhist monk Samyeong, who had led resistance to Japanese invasions in the 1590s (Republic of Korea Cultural Heritage Administration, n.d.a; Kim, 1998); and the sixteenth-century monument at Namwon commemorating the fourteenth-century Korean victory over the Japanese at the battle of Hwangsan (Republic of Korea Cultural Heritage Administration, n.d.b; Kim, 1998).

Incidental and collateral damage Most cultural property damage caused in the two world wars was incidental or collateral to military activity. Sometimes, historic buildings were deliberately targeted, but on the grounds of their actual or perceived military role or value rather than because of their status as cultural property – indeed, often despite that status. One example is the Benedictine Abbey of Montecassino, substantially destroyed by Allied bombing in February 1944 (Pollard, 2020b p.167; Hopgood & Richardson, 2002). The hill on which the abbey stood formed the key position in the German Gustav Line preventing Allied advance on Rome. The abbey itself does not seem to have been occupied by German troops, although they certainly occupied positions on the hill close to the abbey and could have occupied the building itself at any time had they chosen to do so. Key Allied commanders believed that the abbey was occupied by German forces, and on that basis, a decision was taken to bomb it. That decision might be challenged and the perceived military value of the bombing proved illusory anyway since the destruction made it more difficult to dislodge the German defenders from their positions. Less singular examples were the countless church towers destroyed by both sides in Italy and in Normandy in June and August 1944 because of their actual or potential use as artillery observation posts (Methuen, 1952 p.4). As noted already, two areas of technological development during the First World War vastly increased the potential for damage to cultural heritage. One was indirect fire by longerranged and heavier artillery. The Paris Gun, mentioned above, was exceptional in its range, and its fire against Paris was unobserved and inevitably indiscriminate. More typical were historic churches of northern France and Belgium that lay relatively close to front lines and were damaged by artillery fired in support of ground forces or interdiction of enemy movement immediately behind front lines. The thirteenth-century High Gothic cathedral at Reims was severely damaged by German shelling in September 1914 and damaged again as late as 1918 (Figure 20.1). Reims was certainly not an “undefended town” in the language of the 1907 Hague Convention (Article 25) and so liable to bombardment. While the convention 261

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Figure 20.1 Façade of Reims Cathedral. Photograph taken by George R. Swain, 16 October 1919. University of Michigan Collection, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, KM7.0007. The contemporary text attached reads “Shell of Reims Cathedral. The interior was gutted by fire. Part of the vaulted ceiling and roof fell in. Much of the ceiling still left over the nave is cracked and threatens to fall, so that visitors are not allowed to pass under it”.

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required “all necessary steps” (Article 27) to be taken to spare historic buildings, this formulation acknowledged the possibility of accidental damage and also included the qualification “provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes” (Article 27). Contemporary French responses advertised Reims Cathedral as an instance of deliberate attack on a cultural site. German responses included a number of claims – that the cathedral had not been targeted or that it had been targeted justifiably because it was being used by the French for military purposes, for example, as an artillery observation post (Lambourne, 2001 pp.18–22; Kramer, 2007 pp.18–19). The damage may or may not have been defensible in legal terms – this is unclear – but French propaganda and much international public opinion worked from a premise that cultural property damage was immoral and so presumably illegal, when in fact it might be legally justifiable as either accidental or a response to enemy military use (Lambourne, 2001 pp.28–30, see also O’Keefe, 2006 pp.36–39).2 Serious damage was inflicted on other historic buildings – particularly churches – near the front line in French and Belgian towns such as Ypres, Soissons, Noyon, and Saint-Quentin. Undoubtedly, much (or all) of this was incidental/collateral (damage to the twelfth-century basilica at SaintQuentin – behind German lines – was caused by Allied bombing and associated secondary explosions), but French sources presented damage caused by Germans as deliberate and immoral (Lambourne, 2001 pp.23–24). In the Second World War, the power of aerial bombing to destroy civilian lives and property (including cultural property) far from the front eclipsed artillery in such destruction. However, the latter continued to be a significant factor. The historic centre of Pisa suffered heavily from artillery and ground combat in July–August 1944, and damage to the Camposanto, its medieval monumental frescoed cemetery structure, constituted (according to a contemporary Allied report) “a major artistic disaster of the War in Italy” (Works of art in Italy, 1945 pp.42–48, see also Nicholas, 1995 pp.263–264). Demolition was also a factor in some areas. For example, historic bridges throughout Italy were demolished by retreating Germans to delay Allied advances, most famously the Arno bridges of Florence, blown up by German troops on 3 August 1944 as they withdrew from the city, to prevent their use by pursuing Allied forces (Works of art in Italy, 1945 pp.16–21; Nicholas, 1995 pp.257–259; Pollard, 2022 pp.46–50). The only exception was the Ponte Vecchio, whose approaches, however, were demolished, causing severe damage to other historic buildings. Aerial bombing emerged as a significant factor in cultural property destruction in the First World War. While this affected a number of the combatants, including Britain and Germany, the bombing of cities such as Venice, Treviso, and Vicenza in north-eastern Italy by both Austro-Hungarian and German air forces provides a well-documented case study (Reale Commissione, 1920; Kramer, 2007 pp.55–57). Numerous historic churches were damaged in these attacks, notably the vault of the Scalzi church (Santa Maria di Nazareth) in Venice with the destruction of its Tiepolo frescoes on 24 October 1915. While these instances of damage were characterised by Italian commentators as deliberate crimes against culture, contemporary air forces could rarely achieve the accuracy necessary to strike historic structures deliberately, and these were mostly incidental victims of indiscriminate attacks against urban centres, their buildings, and populations. For example, the 281 bombs dropped in an attack on Venice on 26 February 1918 damaged seven churches, but most of those bombs caused civilian casualties and damage to other civilian property (Reale Commissione, 1920 p.133). These were not defended towns in terms of the 1907 Hague Convention. In some cases, bombing may notionally have been directed at targets with military uses (the Scalzi church is very close to Venezia Santa Lucia railway station). In other cases, apparently spurious claims of Italian military use were spread to justify damage. For example, the Austrians claimed one of 263

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their aviators flying over San Marco in Venice was fired on by machine guns in the cathedral bell tower (Reale Commissione, 1920 p.130). The vastly increased importance of aerial bombing in the Second World War led to a huge increase in incidental and collateral damage to cultural heritage. Cities that were not defended in terms of the 1907 Hague Convention nevertheless contributed to the war effort as centres of industrial production and transportation. Technological advances meant that bombers could (and did) reach even distant enemy cities to drop substantial bomb loads, but with insufficient accuracy to discriminate between strictly military targets and civilian lives and objects, including cultural property. Besides strategic bombing, interdiction and close support in the battle area also damaged and destroyed heritage sites. Initially, combatants displayed a reluctance to bomb civilian populations and civilian property (including cultural property) distant from the battle area, perhaps motivated by the spirit of the non-binding Hague Air Rules and by fear of retaliation. German bombing of Polish cities that damaged cultural property, and then of Rotterdam (May 1940) could be justified under the 1907 Hague Convention as attacks on defended cities in support of operations on the ground, although they might not have passed the Hague Air Rules’ tests of proportionality and discrimination had those been applied (Overy, 2013 pp.60–61). However, escalation to the bombing of enemy cities by both the RAF and Luftwaffe after May 1940 eliminated that reluctance (Overy, 2013 pp.82–89, 238–254). While most urban centres contributed something to the war effort, limitations of contemporary bombing accuracy made it virtually impossible to bomb strictly military targets without extensive damage to civilian objects – including cultural heritage. Given weather conditions in Europe and the practical limitations of equipment such as the vaunted Norton bombsight under operational conditions, the same was largely true of United States Army Air Force precision daylight bombing after US entry into the European war (Pollard, 2020b pp.54–69, 141–167). Strategic bombing of cities took a heavy toll of historic buildings and other cultural sites across Europe, including London, Cologne, and Milan (Lambourne, 2001 pp.42–88). Tactical bombing and interdiction also caused severe damage in some areas. For example, Allied efforts to degrade German counterattacks against the Salerno beachhead in Italy in September 1943 led to cultural damage to sites including the cathedral of Benevento and ancient Pompeii, caused by inaccurate bombing of nearby transportation infrastructure (Pollard, 2020b). Interdiction and close air support, including the use of heavy bombers, had a devastating impact on the cultural property of cities like Caen and Saint-Lô in Normandy (Methuen, 1952; Lambourne, 2001 pp.68–71). The latter phase of the USA’s strategic bombing of Japan was particularly destructive, conducted as much of it was with incendiary bombs against buildings (including historic buildings) constructed largely of wood and other flammable materials. The culmination of that campaign was the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (6 and 9 August 1945), the latter substituting for Kyoto, Japan’s cultural capital, which initially had been considered as a possible target, then dropped from the target list on the basis of its cultural significance (Coccoli, 2013 pp.56–58). Numerous historic buildings in Hiroshima in particular were destroyed, and even those some distance from the epicentre suffered substantial damage (Coccoli, 2013 pp.59–63).

Looting, and careless military use or occupation While damage to cultural property in the Second World War was dominated by bombing, looting and careless military occupation of cultural sites were also significant factors, and those provided the initial focus of Allied cultural property protection efforts in the Second World War. 264

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German military and paramilitary personnel participated in the large-scale, politically authorised, looting of civilian objects including museum collections that characterised their occupation of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Nicholas, 1995 pp.57–80, 191–194, 196– 201). Such activity – overlapping with ideologically motivated deliberate damage – cannot be viewed in purely military terms. However, some smaller-scale examples of looting from the Second World War illustrate recurring themes. As noted above, Benevento Cathedral was severely damaged by bombing in September 1943, and contents of its library were moved between temporary locations for safe keeping where they may have been accessed by German troops, local civilians, and, subsequently, British troops. A twelfth-century illuminated missal (prayer book), once part of the library, was bought by a British officer apparently ignorant of its provenance from a Naples book dealer in 1944, then sent to the UK and subsequently sold to the British Library. Ultimately, its provenance was identified, and after legal proceedings, it was returned to Benevento in 2010 (Bailey, 2000; 2010). This illustrates a number of lessons, including the need to inventory and secure movable cultural property from both potential civilian and military looters as effectively as possible during periods of transition in control (belligerent or peaceful) by one occupier or another and to highlight and enforce service regulations (which did exist at that time) against purchase and export of antiquities by military personnel. In 1943, Italian civilian authorities evacuated 187 crates of collections from the National Museum of Naples to safekeeping in Montecassino abbey. As noted above, the abbey was bombed by Allied air forces in February 1944. Fortunately, in October 1943, the German Luftwaffe field division Hermann Goering that controlled the area had again evacuated the portable material from the abbey to safekeeping in Rome and the Vatican City (Pollard, 2020a pp.673–674). However, what was, on the surface, exemplary cultural property protection by German armed forces, was undermined by their misappropriation of fifteen crates of paintings and ancient sculptures sent back to Germany to Goering himself. At the end of the war, these were recovered by American soldiers in the vast German art refuge in a disused salt mine at Altaussee in Austria (Pollard, 2020a pp.677–678). The Second World War in Italy also provides examples of abusive or careless occupation of historic buildings, contrary to the 1907 Hague Convention. Significant damage was done to the Royal Palace of Naples and University of Naples after their occupation and use by Allied military personnel from October 1943, and the National Museum was occupied as a British medical store depot in 1943–1944, against recommendations of MFAA officers. However, this occupation of the Naples Museum was managed quite well, caused no significant damage, and provides a number of lessons in effective security under such circumstances (Pollard, 2020b pp.171–211).

Conclusion As shown here, a range of cultural property, quite conservatively defined, enjoyed a degree of protection under international law throughout the two world wars. Nevertheless, those conflicts provide clear examples of all the major causes of cultural property damage and destruction, including deliberate and incidental destruction, looting, and non-combat military misuse. However, the most important factor in such damage, in Second World War western Europe and Japan, at least, was bombing. As discussed above, the potential for cultural property destruction by bombing had been recognised in the interwar period on the basis of experience from the First World War, but attempts at that time to mitigate or eliminate this threat through international law had been unsuccessful. Much of this damage was due to the technological development of aerial warfare and the industrialisation of war that provided both the means to bomb and the targets to be bombed, albeit often inaccurately. 265

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This was coupled with legal protection (the 1907 Hague Convention) that was obsolete by the Second World War. It is perhaps a tragedy for both cultural property and human lives that interwar proposals such as the 1923 Hague Air Rules could not have been accepted as binding and made to work in practical terms in 1939–1945. However, while the lessons in cultural property protection learned in the Second World War were harsh ones, they did benefit later legislation, including the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1977 Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions.

Notes 1 Much of what follows derives from my chapter “Military Cultural Property Protection from Hague 1907 to Hague 1954” in Timothy Clack and Mark Dunkley (eds). Past, Propaganda, Parade: Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Conflict (Routledge 2023), pp. 66–83. 2 Lambourne (2001 p. 28) correctly highlights the “gap between legal and moral action which the World War 1 propagandists exploited to such effect” but goes on to argue that the military use qualification in Hague (1907) was “an infinitely flexible excuse for bombardment of cultural targets, as it was always possible to claim that they were thought to be in military use”, perhaps an excessively cynical perspective.

References Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions, 08 June 1977. Available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ ihl/INTRO/470 [Accessed: 1 August 2021]. Bailey, M. (2000). War Loot: Italian Cathedral Claims Missal in British Library, The Art Newspaper, 105 ( July–August 2000), pp.1–5. ——— (2010). How the Art Newspaper Changed the Law, The Art Newspaper, 1 November. Available at: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2010/11/01/ten-years-after-our-report-the-looted-beneventomissal-will-be-returned-to-the-cathedral [Accessed: 14 April 2022]. Coccoli, C. (2013). La sezione americana “Arts and Monuments” e la tutela dei monumenti giapponesi danneggiati dalla seconda guerra mondiale. Storia Urbana 140–141, pp.49–94. García y García, L. (2006). Danni di guerra a Pompei: una dolorosa vicenda quasi dimenticata. Rome: “L’Erma” di Bretschneider. Ginsburgs, G. (1960). Laws of war and war crimes on the Russian Front during World War II: The Soviet view. Soviet Studies 11, pp.253–285. Hague Air Rules (1923). Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare (Hague Air Rules), February 1923. Available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ INTRO/275?OpenDocument [Accessed: 1 August 2021]. Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, 18 October 1907, 187 CTS. Available at: https://ihl-databases. icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/195 [Accessed: 1 June 2021]. Hopgood, D., and Richardson, D. (2002). Monte Cassino: The story of the most controversial battle of World War II. Cambridge MA: Da Capo Press. International Museums Office. (1938). Preliminary Draft International Convention for the Protection of Historic Buildings and Works of Art in Time of War. League of Nations Official Journal 19(11), pp.937–941. Kim, J. (1998). Korea. Spoils of War 5, pp.60–62. Kramer, A. (2007). Dynamic of destruction: Culture and mass killing in the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lambourne, N. (2001). War damage in western Europe: The destruction of historic monuments during the Second World War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Methuen, L.P. (1952). Normandy diary: An account of the survival and losses of historic monuments in N.W. France, Belgium and Zeeland. London: Robert Hale. Nicholas, L. (1995). The Rape of Europa: The fate of Europe’s treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. New York: Vintage Books. O’Keefe, R. (2006). The protection of cultural property in armed conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Cultural property destruction and damage in two world wars O’Keefe, R., Péron, C., Musayev, T., and Ferrari, G. (2016). Protection of cultural property: Military manual. Paris: UNESCO. Overy, R. (2013). The bombing war: Europe 1939–1945. London: Allen Lane. Parks, W.H. (1990). Air war and the law of war. Air Force Law Review 32, pp.1–225. Pollard, N. (2020a). Refuges for movable cultural property in wartime: Lessons for contemporary practice from Second World War Italy. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(7), pp.667–683. ——— (2020b). Bombing Pompeii: World heritage and military necessity. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. ——— (2022). Centres containing monuments, open cities and sanctuaries for art: “Super-refuges” from the First World to the 1954 Hague Convention. In: Cunliffe, E., and Fox, P. (eds). Safeguarding cultural property in the 1954 Hague Convention: All possible steps. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, pp.39–55. Reale Commissione (1920). Danni ai monumenti. In: Relazioni della reale commissione d’inchiesta sulle violazioni del diritto delle Genti commesse dal nemico. Milan and Rome: Bestetti and Tumminelli, pp.129–187. Republic of Korea Cultural Heritage Administration. (n.d.a). Stupa of Buddhist Monk Samyeong and Stele at Hongjeam Hermitage of Haeinsa Temple, Hapcheon – Heritage Search | Cultural heritage administration, Cultural Heritage Administration website. Available at: http://english.cha.go.kr/chaen/ search/selectGeneralSearchDetail.do?mn=EN_02_02&sCcebKdcd=12&ccebAsno=13010000&sC cebCtcd=38&pageIndex=7®ion=&canAsset=&ccebPcd1=&searchWrd=STELE&startNum=&e ndNum=&stCcebAsdt=&enCcebAsdt=&canceled=&ccebKdcd=&ccebCtcd= [Accessed: 1 March 2022]. ——— (n.d.b). Site of the Stele for the Victory at Hwangsan Battle, Namwon – Heritage Search | Cultural Heritage Administration, Cultural Heritage Administration website. Available at: http://english.cha.go.kr/chaen/search/selectGeneralSearchDetail.do?mn=EN_02_02&sCcebKdcd=13&cceb Asno=01040000&sCcebCtcd=35&pageIndex=1®ion=&canAsset=&ccebPcd1=&searchWrd=H WANGSAN&startNum=&endNum=&stCcebAsdt=&enCcebAsdt=&canceled=&ccebKdcd=&cce bCtcd= [Accessed: 15 March 2022]. Stone, P.G. (2016). The Challenge of Protecting Heritage in Times of Armed Conflict. Museum International 67, pp.40–54. Subcommission MFAA. (1946). Headquarters Allied Commission, Subcommission for Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives. Final Report: General. 1 January 1946. TNA T 209/30/1. Works of art in Italy (1945). Works of art in Italy: losses and survivals in the war. Part I – south of Bologna. London: HMSO.

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21 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION AND ITS IMPACT IN SCANDINAVIA AND THE BALTIC REGION DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR Mattias Legnér In the Second World War, the potential destruction of a nation’s cultural heritage caused by aerial bombardment was feared by experts and decision-makers throughout Europe (Lambourne, 2001 p.42). In areas that were worst hit by military operations, such as in Germany and Italy between 1943–1945, bombing from the air devastated heritage (Overy, 2011 p.8). In many other areas, however, the war represented equally great or even greater risks to the survival of a nation’s heritage (Lähteenmäki, 1999; Takala, 2012; Legnér, 2022). This chapter deals with a spectrum of heritage destruction in Scandinavia and the Baltic Region during the war, and some of the impacts of this destruction. While Sweden undertook measures to protect cultural property from aerial bombardment (Legnér, 2021), other Nordic and Baltic states suffered in different ways from the conflict. Cases from Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Estonia are used to analyse how occupation, aerial warfare, and ground battles led to consequences for cultural heritage. In northern Europe, aerial warfare was believed to be the great risk that civil society needed to prepare for. As will be discussed, it caused some destruction, especially in Finland and Norway during fighting over territorial control. In reality, however, the destruction was often caused by multiple forces. Some cities and settlements in Finland, Norway, and Estonia were bombed by Soviet air forces when combat fronts moved suddenly and quickly. Yet, by far the greatest destruction was caused in battles on the ground, especially as the result of deliberately inflicted damage to cities and villages – an overlooked fact in research. Many settlements were burned by withdrawing armed forces who implemented a scorched earth policy while filling the roads with refugees. This destruction was part of military strategies that aimed to impede the enemy’s advance and wreak havoc in a territory that was about to be lost to their opponent. The destruction and politically motivated use of heritage in this region at this time has been little analysed in scholarship. The objective is therefore to discuss expressions of heritage destruction and how these manifestations were shaped depending on the context and actors involved. Some measures were taken by government institutions to try and minimise the 268

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destruction of historic monuments and collections, but in many cases such efforts were made in territories that were not badly affected by warfare. Examples of heritage destruction are given here in order to illustrate national experiences, as well as more general expressions crossing national boundaries. The first examples are from Finland, where the struggle to defend the eastern-most province of Karelia was described as a fight for the nation’s spiritual survival. It was not just a fight for an economically and symbolically important part of its territory but also against communism. Much like in Germany, the control of territory was motivated by references to racial and cultural connotations. Secondly, Norwegian heritage was lost during the invasion of the coast in 1940 and again in 1944 when German troops pulled back and burned whole settlements. The third example comes from Denmark, where archaeological sites were erased or transformed due to German war needs during occupation. Finally, in Estonia, street fighting and aerial warfare caused vast destruction, especially late in the war, as the German army was pushed out of the country by advancing Soviet forces. In the conclusion, the character and impacts of heritage destruction are discussed.

The war in the North: An overview The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939 decided how Eastern and Northern Europe would be divided between Germany and the Soviet Union. Finland, Latvia, and Estonia fell within the Soviet zone. Finland refused to cede parts of its territory, and on 30 November 1939 Soviet forces launched an invasion. After fierce fighting, the Moscow Peace Treaty was settled on 12 March 1940, forcing Finland to cede Karelia, Salla, and some smaller areas of strategic interest to the Soviet Union. Iron ore mined in northern Sweden was transported by railway to Narvik in Norway and shipped to Germany, whose war industry was heavily dependent on it. In order to pre-empt allied invasion plans, Hitler launched a surprise attack into Norway on 9 April 1940 to force them to surrender quickly. Following the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, and areas which put Soviet forces close to the Romanian oil fields, Hitler decided to attack the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. Finland feared renewed aggression from the Soviet Union and, by joining forces with Germany, hoped to recapture lost territories. Operation Barbarossa caused great damage to cultural heritage in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, both during its successful operations in 1941, and in 1944. Germany’s losses in the Soviet Union forced them to retreat through Finland, northern Norway, and the Baltic states, ultimately withdrawing from Finland and Estonia in 1944, a retreat that was characterised by heavy fighting and destruction. According to the ensuing Moscow Armistice, Finland again ceded territory to the Soviet Union and agreed to drive German troops out of its territory. In order to avoid being captured, the Germans retreated northward into Norway, which they still occupied, finally surrendering on 8 May 1945 – the same month most parts of Denmark were liberated.

A war of ideologies Much of the cultural heritage of Finland was transformed in the Second World War. The German assault on the Soviet Union in 1941 created an opportunity for Finland to recapture territories lost one year earlier. Hitler planned to cut the Soviet Union into parts, where a territory called Greater Finland would be formed out of current Finland, including Karelia up to the White Sea, and northern Russia (Paasi, 1996 p.107). The Finnish motive for participating 269

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in this scheme was revenge, fed by the idea of Greater Finland. Finnish scholars actively worked to give legitimacy to the strategic goal of recapturing the Karelian isthmus. Even greater schemes were hatched by the government and sponsored by scholars. The German idea of Lebensraum was used to support the goal of not just recapturing the isthmus but also extending it into eastern Karelia, which historically had not belonged to Finland. Journalists and scholars of different disciplines such as folklore, geography, and archaeology contributed to justifying these high-flying dreams of expansionism (Pimiä, 2012 pp.396–403). When German and Finnish forces launched their assault on 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union retaliated by bombing cities along the Finnish coast. The fighting resulted in extensive damage (from both collateral damage and deliberate targeting as a result of the cultural connotations of certain areas), and cultural damage became part of the propaganda narrative of the war. Furthermore, since borders changed, a significant portion of the Finnish population had to be relocated and vast museum collections were lost in the seized territories, whether destroyed or seized as war booty. Ultimately, all museums in Finnish Karelia were destroyed or badly damaged, together with the majority of their collections (Takala, 2012 p.3). Museums in the cities of Turku and Oulu were damaged in air raids (Cleve, 1940a p.45). Evacuation of collections was carried out in a great hurry, meaning that they were not packed properly and sustained considerable damage while stored in damp and cold places (Meinander, 1991). The city of Viipuri was the cultural and commercial centre of eastern Finland, but it also had an important role in modern Finnish history. Viipuri was the most multi-cultural city in Finland, with a strong presence of regional arts and culture. The fortified city was perceived by the Finnish as a bulwark against Russia, militarily and culturally. The struggle over control of Viipuri in early 1940 was fierce, and large parts of the city were laid waste. Not only industrial facilities and military structures were bombed by the Soviet forces, but also residential districts and even historic monuments, such as the medieval castle, the churches, the cathedral, and the oldest district. Damage to monuments was especially useful for propaganda purposes against the Soviet Union, and photos depicting the destruction were published immediately in Finland in order to raise support, and also in Sweden, which had already raised considerable financial and humanitarian support (Koponen & Viitanen, 1940 pp.90–92). Shortly before the cease-fire in March 1940, the Viipuri Museum was hit by a bomb. Whether it was accidental or deliberate is unknown, but the building was ravaged by the ensuing fire. It burned down completely, together with its collections (Figure 21.1). There was vast collateral damage to cultural property, but some of the destruction seems to have been intentional. An Orthodox monastery on Valamo island in Lake Ladoga, for example, became part of Finland once the nation proclaimed its sovereignty in late 1917. The complex was bombed repeatedly during the war, despite the fact that it had no strategic military value. The monks tried to save the book collections while the library was burning (Björklund, 2010 p.132). As Russian soldiers advanced, the collection was taken as war booty, and the monks fled to the Finnish side of the battle line. Cultural heritage in Karelia was not only damaged in air raids, by fire, and by looting but also when the border was moved as a result of the peace agreement. Days before the peace agreement was signed in 1940, the evacuation of people, animals, and objects from ceded territories was hectic. Finland lost almost all of Karelia, and approximately 10% of its territory, to Russia. The museum staff in the towns of Sortavala and Käkisalmi had to quickly evacuate the collections and take them west, but these efforts were only partially successful amidst the panic that characterised the evacuation of Karelia. There was not enough transportation to evacuate collections, since the population and cattle needed to be prioritised 270

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Figure 21.1 Finnish soldiers parading in front of the destroyed museum in Viipuri after the city had been retaken. The building was one of the city’s most well-known and representative buildings. Source: SA-Kuva, 31 August 1941.

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(Takala, 2012 p.12). Around 16,000 cultural objects burned and another 18,400 objects could not be evacuated, meaning that not more than 7,000 items were relocated to other museums in Finland before the end of hostilities. In total, 12 museums in Karelia were lost (Takala, 2010 pp.200–201) and almost 30 in Finland (Takala, 2012 p.3), with significant repercussions. The Viipuri Art Museum was destroyed accidentally, but most of its collection had been moved before the fire (Takala, 2012 p.13). Unfortunately, the remaining 120 works of art were found by Soviet troops and looted. All the windows of the modernist city library had been smashed in the fighting and books had been dispersed, possibly in a hastily conducted search for forbidden or especially valuable titles. By March 1940, Viipuri was a ghost town after evacuation of the entire population. Property that was left behind was taken by Russian soldiers to centres where war booty was stored, before being sold to people forcefully removed from other parts of the Soviet Union to Karelia. Russian museum officials participated in decisions on which cultural objects should be incorporated into Russian museum collections (Takala, 2010 pp.118–119). The substantial loss of territory had repercussions for the national economy since Karelia was an important source of wood, meat, and grain, but it also meant a loss of culture and national identity. This was nothing less than a great national trauma. At the time of the destruction, the Finnish museologist Nils Cleve (1940b p.139) argued that the loss of territory and the destruction of heritage had ravaged Finnish national culture. He described the importance of Karelia as a borderland between the West and the East. Cleve was not alone in understanding Karelia as a historical buffer zone between Evangelical Lutheran culture and the Slavic, Orthodox one. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the recording and appreciation of Karelian folk culture had been crucial in the construction of the myth of Greater Finland (Pimiä, 2003, p.82). Scholars and intellectuals sought to prove that Finnish culture encompassed a space that was much larger than the national territory, following Germany’s greater Volk idea. To Cleve (1940b p.136), the peace treaty was nothing less than a trauma for Finnish national identity. The outcome was a loss for the whole Finnish nation, whose most well-preserved rural heritage had been swept away at once. National identity would have to be restored and gradually adapted to a smaller national territory as a result of the conflict. More recent research has shown that Karelia was actually an area that had been populated by a multitude of ethnic groups for a long time, some with strong elements of Orthodox religion (Fingerroos, 2012). Cleve’s image of Karelia was highly idealised and romanticised, but his views were shared by many Finnish scholars who saw Karelia as a motherland of Finnish ethnicity. Following the Soviet bombing on 26 June 1941, Turku was heavily bombed, and the medieval castle, then a regional museum, caught fire. Since the castle had great historical importance to national identity in Finland, the decision to rebuild it was made quickly. This work, however, could not begin until after the war, since there was no labour force or building material available. Rebuilding the castle was not just a symbol for the reconstruction of the nation, but the common Finnish-Swedish heritage was also significant, particularly when re-establishing cultural and economic bonds with Sweden after the war (Legnér, 2022 pp.267–269). Viipuri was recaptured by Finland early in the Continuation War of 1941, encouraging many of its previous dwellers to return to their damaged homes (Meinander, 2020 p.76). Living, though, was quite hard, since most buildings had collapsed in the previous year’s fighting, and the Russians had left booby traps. Churches had been turned into club houses or barns, with portraits of Stalin and Lenin mounted on the walls (Laine, 2005 pp.26, 34). Concrete or gypsum statues celebrating communist leaders had quickly been erected in public spaces and buildings. 272

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However, both sides were determined to use the past for the purpose of manifesting not only territorial control but also control of all cultural expressions. Military conquest in the war was not limited to the control of territories but also extended to the control and reshaping of culture by taking possession of cultural objects. In the late summer of 1941, Finland advanced rapidly into the Soviet territory of eastern Karelia, taking the capital, Petrozavodsk, which they renamed Äänislinna. It was put under the jurisdiction of the military authorities, which were involved in surveying local heritage (Pimiä, 2012 p.407). Soviet memorials, among them a huge statue of Lenin, were removed in order to erase any remaining tangible evidence of Soviet power. The Finnish military administration organised art storage in Petrozavodsk, where the removed Russian objects would be kept while a new museum building was being prepared. Art and heritage objects were to be collected and displayed in a regional museum in order to speed up the cultural integration of Eastern Karelia into Finland, but this idea was never realised during three years of occupation (Pimiä, 2012 pp.412–413). Instead, the building had to be closed due to looting and vandalism. Both Finnish soldiers and civilians stole from unguarded homes and public buildings, behaviour which gave the military a bad reputation among the local population. After 1945, the whole of Karelia became an object of nostalgia, nurtured mostly by evacuated Karelians who remembered the pre-war life that was forgotten by museums for political reasons (Paasi, 1996 p.276). Except for being associated with popular trauma, nostalgia was a politically sensitive issue since Finland had lost the war and was forced to build friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the evacuated museum objects were kept in storage in Finland without being exhibited or researched. The dispersal of objects due to the war has eroded the cultural value of the remaining collections for Finland (Takala, 2012 pp.17–21). Gradually, the traumas of war began to disappear, and cross-border cooperation became possible. Cooperation between Russian and Finnish museums and universities has resulted in fieldwork carried out in Karelia: for example, extensive collaborative excavations have explored the origins and early history of Viipuri.

Destruction in the Arctic Norway, in particular, evidenced the massive destruction of the war, and the ramifications of the German scorched earth policy, a tactic that would also be used by their opponents in Estonia. The Norwegian coastal cities Oslo, Bergen, Narvik, Tromsø, Trondheim, Kristiansand, and Stavanger became targets in the German invasion of Norway in April 1940. These were not just populous and administratively significant cities, but they also contained important museums and historic town centres. Throughout Spring of 1940, there was fierce fighting along the coast, as Norwegian and Allied troops attempted to resist the invasion. Some northern coastal towns were levelled in air raids; many civilians were killed, and 4000 buildings were destroyed (Aavitsland, 2014 p.477). Kristiansund, southwest of Trondheim, was badly hit by bombs; this was the sole complete destruction of a Norwegian museum (Fett, 1946 p.104; Norske museers landsforbund, 1953 pp.84–90). Bridges, buildings, and roads were blown up by retreating Germans to slow down the Soviet advance, and resources that could not be removed were destroyed. In late October 1944, German troops retreating from Finnish Lapland entered Finnmark in northern Norway. As they moved southward through both regions, they burned settlements and farmsteads (Fett, 1946 p.103; Lähteenmäki, 1999 p.34). It is estimated that c. 12,000 dwellings housing a 273

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total of 60,000 inhabitants were damaged in Nord-Troms and Finnmark (Hage, 2007 p.27). After the war, the vast destruction led to the reconstruction of whole towns and settlements in northern Norway, a process that lasted throughout the 1950s and 1960s and completely transformed the urban landscape of Finnmark and Nord-Troms. During occupation the German armed forces had also added buildings that still today remind people of this dark chapter in Norway’s history.

Scorched earth policy and post-war reconstruction As a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Estonia – much like its neighbour Finland – was isolated by the Soviet Union. Once occupied, Estonia was turned into a Soviet socialist republic in July 1940. National culture was to be completely changed and its capitalist history erased. Monuments were demolished, books were forbidden, arts societies dissolved, and people from the intelligentsia were arrested, killed, or imprisoned (Tannberg et al., 2000 p.267). Parallel with the German assault in June 1941, a full-scale partisan rebellion broke out against the Russian occupiers. The country was plunged into war. After a few days, the Red Army had established a front across central Estonia, including the old university town of Tartu. Tartu was ravaged by fighting between Estonian partisans and the Soviet troops who were left behind to destroy as much as possible before withdrawing. On 9 July, the town’s great masonry bridge over the river Emajõgi was blown up by Soviet forces hoping to slow down the German advance, which also badly damaged many buildings in the old town (Rõngelep & Hesselholt Clemmesen, 2009 p.171). The Soviets also began shelling the part of the town located south of the river and burning houses on the northern side to improve their line of sight. The Red Army practised their scorched earth policy while retreating, burning down houses street by street (Rõngelep & Hesselholt Clemmesen, 2009 p.177). The city of Narva became a target at a later stage of the war. Unlike Tartu, until February 1944, the city remained relatively unharmed. However, in response to the resistance, the Red Army carried out extensive air raids in early March 1944. In just one day, on the 6th March, large parts of Narva were razed by bombs. Tapa, Tartu, and Tallinn were also severely damaged in air raids (Tannberg et al., 2000 p.274). Fighting for control of Narva continued into the summer, as neither side was strong enough to drive their opponent out of the city. The baroque town was destroyed completely; many of the university buildings were lost, as well as Raadi manor, the main building of the Estonian National Museum (Estonian National Museum, 2014). Air raids continued to devastate the city until late July. By that time, almost all of Narva had been levelled. On 26 July, the Red Army advanced into the smoking and deserted ruins of the city. 92% of the living spaces were gone, and the entire population had been evacuated (Brüggemann, 2004 pp.81–82). After the war, Estonia did not regain its pre-war independence; it was integrated into the Soviet Union. Much like Karelia, the country was gradually repopulated with Russianspeaking people from other parts of the USSR, particularly in Narva, where the Estonian population diminished over time since they were not allowed to return, permanently transforming the city’s culture. Today only 4% of the population is Estonian and the city has a distinctive Russian identity. As Kattago (2008 p.446) points out, in recent years the memory of the war and the following Soviet occupation has been re-evaluated in Estonia, but there is no consensus on how to interpret the post-1945 era. Narva’s baroque town was not reconstructed; instead, reconstruction was planned according to modern (for the time) socialist norms, but the plans were never realised. Instead, Narva became the least developed town in Estonia due to the decrepit state of the town at 274

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the end of the war and the inefficiency of the Soviet urban planning system (Brüggemann, 2004). There was also a competing idea of younger Estonian architects who wished to reconstruct the old town, a vision which was not abandoned until the end of the 1940s. Ultimately, however, the building of new, low-quality housing and the reconstruction of the Kreenholm factory were given priority over the restoration of Narva’s baroque architectural heritage.

Destruction during peaceful occupation Contrary to Norway, Denmark viewed resistance as fruitless. German policies were geared towards peaceful occupation of Denmark until 1943, when armed resistance became more violent. However, the German air force needed airfields in northern Denmark to fly troops and supplies to Norway (Nørlund, 1946 p.8), so the occupation also led to the destruction of archaeological sites and farmsteads when airfields were expanded (Mackeprang, 1943 p.39; Hvitfeldt, 1964 p.468). Historic manors were used for military purposes to provide housing for police, military, and air protection staff, although they were not destroyed (Matthiassen, 1943 p.124). Greater damage was inflicted on pre-historic burial grounds. Roughly 300 grave sites were destroyed due to the building of military structures (Nørlund, 1946 p.9). New fortifications were built along the German border – an area with abundant archaeological remains, such as the pre-historic fortification walls of Danevirke. Danevirke had long since lost its military significance but kept its symbolic function as a marker of the border between Denmark and Germany ( Jensen, 1998 pp.77–79). However, in 1944, Germany feared an allied invasion in Denmark and planned a deep ditch along Danevirke to slow down armoured vehicles. A total of 9,400 workers dug a 30-kilometre-long ditch in November 1944. Buildings for artillery positions and military staff were also constructed along it; the excavation risked the whole structure. However, it proved meaningless since the excavation would have had to stretch much further in order to be effective. As another example, Jagel airstrip ( just south of Kovirke, which is a wall connected to Danevirke) was built at the beginning of the war. It necessitated the destruction of an ancient road, Hærvejen, which was covered with cement. Interestingly, parts of the German government sought to prevent the destruction. Heinrich Himmler, Head of the SS and one of the highest-ranking leaders of the Third Reich, actually had the power to limit the continued destruction of Danevirke. Himmler saw the Viking-age town Hedeby and the fortifications adjacent to it as a heritage crucial for the preservation of ancient Germanic culture (Kühl, 1999 pp.154–155). Advised by staff from the Kiel Museum in Germany, Himmler demanded that the wall should be repaired, but the order was impossible to carry out since there was no labour available (Kühl, 1999 p.170). A renewed attempt to use Danevirke as a fortification, this time against an invasion from the north, transformed large parts of the archaeological site and the conditions for its preservation. The last winter of the war was a very harsh time for the German population. As Germany gradually fell apart and was invaded, parts of the historic Danevirke wall began collapsing into the ditch in the following winter. The decay accelerated as farmers began using the wall as a quarry, collecting brick and stone, and displaced people whose homes had been destroyed in air raids poured into Slesvig. Some of them settled along Danevirke to get some protection. The chaotic situation towards the end of the war and during the early phase of the Allied occupation of Germany meant nothing was done to prevent further decay. Although Slesvig became part of the British occupation zone, the military governor decided to ignore calls to protect the wall, leading to the accelerated destruction of the remains (Kühl, 1999 p.170). 275

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As a way of approaching Western Europe and improving its relations with Denmark, the West German government started preservation efforts at Danevirke. Today, it is managed as a cross-cultural museum with exhibits in both Danish and German. In 2018, the site, including Hedeby, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site with the aim of preserving and explaining the long and cross-cultural history of the Slesvig area.1 Once used by both Germans and Danes for nationalist purposes, Danevirke and Hedeby have today become a symbol of cross-cultural relations.

Tangible and intangible legacies of war and occupation Most of the states in northern Europe suffered from vast destruction of towns and villages, which included a great loss of cultural heritage. The areas struck worst were those where fierce fighting over territory between German and Soviet armies occurred. Cultural heritage further increased the stakes in some parts of this conflict, since the struggle for territory was often justified by ideas of the intimate relationship between space and national culture. Both Finland and Germany aimed at creating greater nations resting on the work of scholars of language, history, archaeology, ethnography, and other academic disciplines. Conquest did not end with peace but continued as a way of cultural terraforming in order to adjust the past in a way that suited the political leadership. Furthermore, the ethnic composition of the population in Karelia and the Baltic states changed radically in the years following the war, affecting reconstruction work. Consequences of heritage destruction can be immediate or have effects over an extended period of time. For instance, the destruction of dwellings has an immediate effect because people become homeless, but this destruction also changes the landscape and the possibilities to relate to the past. One such impact is the destruction of museums, which may deeply affect the development of cultural memory. In Finland, the loss of Karelia led to a kind of collective amnesia and silence around the war years, and it was not until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union that it was possible to critically reflect on the history of Karelia and to engage in scholarly research. In Germany, a new museum of Slesvig history was established in Gottorf, close to the border to Denmark, in order to promote reconciliation and create a historical narrative of multi-cultural cooperation in the region (Hare, 2015 p.172). Estonia is in an entirely different situation, where the most eastern parts are dominated by ethnic Russians. Debating the legacy of the war and the following Soviet period in a sober way has not been possible here, especially not in recent years when Estonian-Russian relations have worsened considerably. War memorials continue to stir up nationalist feelings (Kattago, 2008 p.432). In neighbouring Finland, a more critical stance towards the country’s policies in the war, including ones affecting cultural heritage, has developed in scholarship since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the end, the consequences for cultural property in Scandinavia and the Baltic region depended on differences in how the conflict played out. The heritage of Norway and Denmark was highly prized by the Nazi elite that revered it as remains of ancient Germanic culture, and for that reason at least some archaeological and ethnographic collections were protected from confiscation or destruction. In the east, the war between Finland and the Soviet Union was not only a military conflict but it was also performed as a clash between civilisations that were entirely alien to each other. This meant that little respect would be shown for the cultural heritage of the other. Finally, war did not just destroy cultural heritage and traumatise populations and their ability to remember. It also resulted in the creation of entirely new heritage, such as in Bergen, Norway, where several large Nazi German bunkers built in the harbour are today 276

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Figure 21.2 U-Boat Bunker Bruno was built by the German Navy in Bergen during the occupation, and is today a part of Norwegian Second World War heritage. Source: Photograph by Tomas Karlsson, 2019.

protected monuments (such as the U-Boat Bunker Bruno, Figure 21.2) and visited by numbers of people interested in getting close to tangible memories of a war that fundamentally changed the landscape of parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic states, as well as the cultural practices of this region.

Note 1 http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1553

References Aavitsland, K.B. (2014). Harry Fett. Historien er lengst. Oslo: Gyldendal. Björklund, E. (2010). Bataljon Sederholm. Evakueringen av Karelen i mars 1940. Helsinki: Lind & Co. Brüggemann, K. (2004). Der Wiederauf bau Narvas nach 1944 und die Utopie der ‘sozialistischen Stadt’. In: Brüggemann, K. (ed). Narva und die Ostseeregion. Narva: Tartu Ülikooli Narva Kolledž, pp.81–103. Cleve, N. (1940a). Finlands museer och Vinterkriget 1939–40. In: Svenska museimannaföreningen 1940. ——— (1940b). Förluster av kulturhistoriska värden under kriget mellan Finland och Sovjet-Ryssland. Scandia 13, pp.134–140. Estonian National Museum. (2014). History of our own building. Estonian National Museum website. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20131123092228/http:/www.erm.ee/en/about-us/newbuilding/history-of-our-own-building [Accessed: 1 February 2022].

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Fett, H. (1946). Krigen og de norske kulturminnesmerker. In: Kjœr, A. (ed). Vi vil oss et land. Oslo: Skandinavisk kulturforlag. Fingerroos, O. (2012). ‘Karelia issue’. The politics and memory of Karelia in Finland. In: Kinnunen, T., and Kivimäki, V. (eds). Finland in World War II. History, Memory, Interpretations. Leiden: Brill, pp.483–517. Hage, I. (2007). Reconstruction Housing in North Norway: Gender and the Reception of the Modern Era. Acta Borealia 24(1), pp.26–43. Hare, J.L. (2015). Excavating Nations. Archaeology, Museums, and the German-Danish Borderlands. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hvitfeldt, J. (1964). Heinrich Himmler og mindesmærkerne ved Danevirke. Sønderjyske årbøger, pp.467–476. Jensen, J. (1998). Manden i kisten: hvad bronzealderens gravhøje gemte. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Kattago, S. (2008). Commemorating Liberation and Occupation: War Memorials Along the Road to Narva. Journal of Baltic Studies 39(4), pp.431–449. Koponen, E., and Viitanen, E. (1940). Viborgs sista dagar:  skildrade på grundvalen av dokument och egna erfarenheter. Helsinki: Publisher unknown. Kühl, J. (1999). Heinrich Himmler, Søren Telling og Danevirke. In: Sønderjyske Årbøger 1999. Laine, A. (2005). Modernisation in the 1940s and 1950s in the part of Karelia that was annexed from Finland on 13 March 1940. In: Hakamies, P. (ed.), Moving in the USSR. Western Anomalies and Northern Wilderness. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society. Lambourne, N. (2001) War Damage in Western Europe. The Destruction of Historic Monuments During the Second World War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lähteenmäki, M. (1999). A village in crisis. Finnish Lapland in the war years, 1939–45. Ethnologia Finnica 27, pp.30–37. Legnér, M. (2021). The Second World War and the Protection of Saint George and the Dragon in Storkyrkan, Stockholm. Journal of Art History 90(3), pp.188–209. ——— (2022). Värden att värna. Kulturminnesvård som statsintresse i Norden vid för andra världskriget. Göteborg and Stockholm: Makadam Förlag. Mackeprang, M. (1943). Det særlige bygningssyns virksomhed. In: Bygningsfredning gennem 25 aar. Copenhagen: Gads forl, pp.35–86. Matthiassen, T. (1943). De fredede herregaards-hovedbygninger og deres nuværende anvendelse. In: Bygningsfredning gennem 25 aar. Copenhagen: Gads forl, pp.123–137. Meinander, C.F. (1991). Carl Axel Nordman. Helsinki: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. Meinander, H. (2020). Finland 1944. Mellan Hitler och Stalin. Stockholm: Lind & Co. Norske museers landsforbund (1953). Norske museers landsforbund. De kunst- og kulturhistoriske museer. Årsberetningar 1939–40 til 1951–52. Årsmøter 1945–52. Oslo: Norske museers landsforbund. Nørlund, P. (1946). Nationalmuseet i de onde aar. Fra Nationalmuseets arbejdsmark 19, pp.5–14. Overy, R. (2011). Introduction. In: Baldoli, C., Knapp, A., and Overy, R. (eds). Bombing, States and Peoples in Western Europe 1940–1945. London: Bloomsbury, pp.8–26. Paasi, A. (1996). Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness. The Changing Geographies of the Finnish-Russian Border. Chichester: Wiley. Pimiä, T. (2003). Ethnologists on the Warpath. Finno-Ugric Research and the Finno-Ugric Collections during the Period 1941–1944. Ethnologia Scandinavica 33, pp.74–83. ——— (2012). Greater Finland and Cultural Heritage. Finnish Scholars in Eastern Karelia, 1941–44. In: Kinnunen, T., and Kivimäki, V. (eds). Finland in World War II. History, Memory, Interpretations. Leiden: Brill, pp.395–431. Rõngelep, R., and Hesselholt Clemmesen, M. (2009). Tartu in the 1941 Summer War. Baltic Defence Review 1(9), pp.165–182. Takala, H. (2010). Karjalan museot ja niiden tuhoutuminen talvi- ja jatkosodassa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. ——— (2012). The Destruction of the Museums of Eastern Finland During the Winter War of 1939–40 and its Effect on Popular Memory. Public Archaeology 11(1), pp.3–25. Tannberg, T., Mäesalu, A., Lukas, T., Laur, M., and Pajur, A. (2000). History of Estonia. Tallinn: Avita.

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22 CASE STUDY The Wars of Yugoslav Succession Helen Walasek

“A cultural catastrophe in the heart of Europe” (COE 1, 1993) One of the most notorious (and most reported) features of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession that accompanied the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) into its constituent republics from 1991 was the extensive deliberate destruction of cultural heritage during the conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo. The destruction of the Bosnian War (1992–1995), in particular, became a seminal marker in the discourse on cultural heritage, leading heritage professionals to debate how (and if ) cultural property could be protected in times of conflict. The destruction was a consequence of years of nationalist rhetoric coming from the Serbia of Slobodan Milošević, the most powerful republic in the SFRY and the site of its capital, Belgrade. The rhetoric fuelled fears of an existential threat to Serbs living outside Serbia in other parts of Yugoslavia and called for a Greater Serbia that territorially incorporated these populations. Its ideology promoting the urgent need for different ethnoreligious groups to live separately was violently enforced in the first instance by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army ( Jugoslovenska narodna armija/JNA) and Serbian paramilitary units. Though the impetus for ethnoreligious separation and its devastating consequences for cultural and religious property originated in Belgrade, Serb ethnonationalism outside Serbia’s borders was not the only offender when it came to the destruction of cultural property in the ex-Yugoslav space, although it proved the worst. The political and military authorities of the (now defunct) secessionist Bosnian Croat para-state of Herceg-Bosna were held responsible for the destruction of large numbers of Muslim, Ottoman, and Serbian Orthodox structures. While each conflict had its own dynamic, the destruction typically displayed an aggressive ethnonational/ethnoreligious exclusivism where varying coalitions of state/para-state military or police forces, paramilitary forces, and local secessionist actors forcibly created monoethnic territories by ethnically cleansing unwanted ethnoreligious groups, committing multiple atrocities and human rights abuses, including destroying the built markers of the expelled population’s cultural identity. Structures most frequently destroyed or attacked were religious, though buildings emblematic of a multi-ethnic coexistence were also attacked, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The destruction of built structures frequently meant the often-total destruction of their contents, such as books, manuscripts, documents, paintings (including icons), sculptures, DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-25

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carpets, and other irreplaceable moveable cultural heritage, and should be considered part of the wider project of destroying identities and obliterating evidence of living together with the deep cultural interaction such material remains might imply. Looting and the movement of vast amounts of cultural property from their places of origin were also a feature of all three conflicts. While at times simply criminal, this movement can be associated, as well, with the attacks on the structures that held these artefacts, and part of the process of shifting moveable cultural objects to zones of mono-ethnicity created by ethnic cleansing or as cultural irredentism such as the removal of icons and other Serbian Orthodox church treasures from Croatia into Serbia over 1991–1992 by the Commission for the Protection of Cultural Goods of Serbian Origin on the Territory of War Operations on behalf of the Serbian Ministry of Culture (Arsenović, 2015). It should be noted that Yugoslavia (SFRY) was an original signatory of both The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954 and the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Indeed, Yugoslavia was considered a model of good practice with regard to the 1954 Hague Convention. Its official contribution to a 1989 implementation report declared that JNA officers (a conscript army in which those who later fought on all sides of the conflicts would have served) were well acquainted with their obligations under the convention and instructions to the armed forces included appropriate provision for the protection of cultural property (UNESCO, 1989). Given the intense scrutiny of the Yugoslav wars, not only by the media but by cultural heritage bodies and individual professionals, allegations of wartime heritage destruction became highly instrumentalised as the warring parties and competing interest groups sought to impose their versions of the pattern of destruction and attribute responsibility. Widely circulated damage lists, with often unverifiable and what later proved to be inaccurate information could result in incorrect assumptions about the destruction (Chapman, 1994; ICOMOS-US, 1999). Damage lists, particularly those produced by or on behalf of religious communities, were viewed with unease by knowledgeable heritage experts (COE 4, 1994). Any discussion of the heritage destruction of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession must include its long-lasting impact on policy-makers. The destruction (especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina) exposed the ineffectiveness of existing international legal instruments to protect cultural property from destruction during conflict and led directly to adoption of the Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention (1999). Bosnia became the paradigm of human rights abuses coupled with deliberate heritage destruction and epitomised the failure of the international community (IC), where its representatives were frequently left as passive onlookers or unwitting participants in what have since been judged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Sectors from the military (such as NATO) and international heritage bodies (like UNESCO and ICOMOS) to the human rights and humanitarian aid professions grappled with the question of whether the horrors of ethnic cleansing, with its accompanying destruction of cultural and religious property, could have been prevented. This was all the more so as in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, United Nations peacekeeping troops (UNPROFOR), European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM) observers, and personnel from humanitarian aid agencies such as UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were widely present across both territories even as the destruction took place. While from June 1994, the ECMM did begin monitoring attacks on cultural and religious heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in practice, monitors were dependent on access permitted by the warring parties and, for instance, were rarely able to operate in zones held by the secessionist Serb para-state Republika Srpska in Bosnia. The question of whether it is possible to protect cultural heritage during conflict where warring 280

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parties/aggressors are determined on destruction was brought to the fore again during the Kosovo War (1998–1999) and the role of multinational peacekeeping forces in cultural property protection came again under the spotlight. Two outcomes of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession had significant implications for the broader sphere of cultural property protection. These are Annex 8 of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) that ended the Bosnian War and the prosecutions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), both discussed below.

Croatia In June 1991, first Slovenia, then Croatia, declared independence from Yugoslavia; there was swift retaliation from the JNA (Hoare, 2010). While ethnically homogenous Slovenia suffered only a ten-day war, Croatia was historically home to a large Serb minority and came under sustained assault (1991–1995). A significant feature of the Croatian War (also the Homeland War or Domovinski rat) was the establishment of three (now defunct) secessionist Serb enclaves (Serb Autonomous Oblast/SAO) along Croatia’s borders with BosniaHerzegovina and Serbia (which included the culturally important town of Vukovar), and in Western Slavonia, which ultimately encompassed approximately a third of Croatia’s territory. It was from these enclaves that huge quantities of cultural property were transited out of Croatian territory into Serbia, as well as into neighbouring Republika Srpska in Bosnia-Herzegovina. While Croatian Serbs’ fears of the direction Croatian politics were taking were not unfounded, the SAOs received military, material, financial, and ideological support from Serbia and the JNA. The SAOs amalgamated to form the Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK), from where at its most southerly it shelled the historic monument-rich cities of Zadar and Šibenik on the Dalmatian coast. The Croatian War brought the first deliberate targeting and destruction of cultural and religious heritage by the JNA and its allies. It was clear the attacks had little to do with military necessity, particularly the intentional destruction of Croatian/Catholic heritage in the SAOs, such as the fifteenth–seventeenth century Roman Catholic church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Voćin (1991) and the Franciscan Monastery at Karin (1993). Nevertheless, the destruction was not all on one side; Serbian Orthodox churches, like the church of St Nicholas in Karlovac, and Yugoslav-era heritage, such as the immense Monument to the Victory of the People of Slavonia by Vojin Bakić (a Croatian Serb), and structures in Jasenovac Concentration Camp were deliberately attacked and destroyed by Croatian Army units and others. The Croatian authorities estimate that nearly 2500 protected cultural monuments were damaged during the conflict, from churches and monasteries to museums and galleries (Šulc, 2001; Ukrainčik, 2001). These assessments do not take into account vernacular village buildings destroyed in great numbers, especially near Dubrovnik. The bombardment of the Old Town of Dubrovnik itself (a non-militarised UNESCO World Heritage Site) by JNA/Yugoslav Navy and Montenegrin forces from October to December 1991 provoked widespread international outrage. Late 1991 also saw the devastation of the Baroque city of Vukovar, including the Eltz Palace, by JNA forces and Serbian paramilitaries and the removal of a substantial part of Vukovar’s museum and gallery collections to Serbia. Despite this, Franjo Tuđman, the first president of the newly independent state, made no secret of his desire to incorporate Bosnia-Herzegovina into a Greater Croatia (Ramet, 2006), and Croatia became embroiled in the Bosnian War through its support for the secessionist Bosnian Croat para-state of Herceg-Bosna (Mikelic, 2017). 281

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Bosnia-Herzegovina If the heritage destruction in Croatia was considerable, it paled in comparison with what took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The enormous intentional destruction of cultural and religious property during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War was the greatest destruction of cultural heritage in Europe since the Second World War. Unlike Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina was a demographic patchwork of three principal ethnonational groups (Bosnian Muslims/ Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats) that would have been impossible to separate without violence. After Bosnia-Herzegovina’s declaration of independence from Yugoslavia on 3 March 1992, secessionist Bosnian Serbs, led by Radovan Karadžić, established the longplanned breakaway para-state of Republika Srpska. With support from the JNA, Serbian paramilitary units, and Montenegrin JNA reservists, the systematic ethnic cleansing of nonSerb populations (targeting both Muslims and Croats/Catholics) was launched, during which many atrocities and human rights abuses were committed, including the destruction of the religious and cultural symbols of the expelled populations. At the same time, the siege of Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo, by first JNA, then Bosnian Serb forces (VRS/BSA),1 led by General Ratko Mladić, began. By autumn 1992, secessionist Bosnian Serbs controlled over 70% of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s territory. It was clear that the heritage destruction was an objective of the war and not a side-effect. While the Bosnian War is not considered a religious or ethnic conflict, those driving the war mobilised the past and the exclusivist ideology that underpinned the destruction of cultural and religious property as symbols of both ethnoreligious and a diverse Bosnian identity. The destruction was unambiguously identified by victims, perpetrators, and observers alike as an intrinsic part of ethnic cleansing. The removal of structures from the landscape that marked the long historic presence of the groups targeted for removal should be seen not as a separate phenomenon, then, but as going hand in hand with all the atrocities and human rights abuses of ethnic cleansing. The heritage destruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina is still sometimes portrayed as equivalent and mutual destruction by all three principal warring parties. However, scores of war crimes investigations and analyses since the end of the war have convincingly demonstrated otherwise. The greatest part of the deliberate destruction of religious and cultural property took place during campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the principal perpetrators of which were secessionist Bosnian Serb forces and their allies, followed by Bosnian Croat separatists. Evidence shows that although Bosnian government forces did breach the Geneva Conventions, it had no policies of ethnic cleansing and did not carry out such operations. The majority of attacks on cultural and religious property in Bosnia-Herzegovina were premeditated, systematic, and took place far from the frontlines, or where fighting had ceased and were in secure control of the perpetrators. Most took place during the mass expulsions of targeted communities; it was rarely collateral damage during military operations. Perpetrators showed a clear understanding of the effects the destruction had on group identity. Testifying at the ICTY, Milan Tupajić, wartime chief of the Bosnian Serb-held municipality of Sokolac, described how over a few days in September 1992, all the mosques in the area were demolished. Asked by prosecutors why he thought the mosques had been destroyed, Tupajić explained: “There’s a belief among the Serbs that if there are no mosques, there are no Muslims and by destroying the mosques, the Muslims will lose a motive to return to their villages.”2 1 VRS = Vojska Republike Srpske (Army of Republika Srpska)/BSA = Bosnian Serb Army. 2 ICTY. (2005). Prosecutor v. Momčilo Krajišnik. Case No. IT-00-39-T, Milan Tupajić testimony, 29 June, p.15431.

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In cities like Sarajevo and Mostar, structures that embodied Bosnia’s centuries-long diversity were targeted, including museums, archives, libraries, and institutions such as Sarajevo’s Oriental Institute. Two infamous episodes were the bombardment of the National Library (Vijećnica) in Sarajevo with incendiary shells on 25–26 August 1992 by the Bosnian Serb artillery ringing the city, and the shelling of Mostar’s sixteenth-century Ottoman Old Bridge (Stari Most) by Bosnian Croat forces (HVO),3 leading to its collapse on 9 November 1993. In both cases (and elsewhere), the “Muslims” were accused by the perpetrators of carrying out these attacks themselves (Walasek, 2015). Yet it was in towns and villages across vast swathes of ethnically cleansed countryside that the destruction was worst. The built heritage destroyed or badly damaged was overwhelmingly religious, overwhelmingly Ottoman, or associated with Muslims. By the end of the war (with one exception), not a single intact minaret was left standing in areas controlled by Bosnian Serb forces. The Islamic Community of Bosnia-Herzegovina has estimated that over 80% of the country’s 1144 mosques were destroyed or damaged during the war, along with scores of other Islamic structures and religious facilities (Islamic Community, 2015). At the time of writing, however, there has yet to be an independent appraisal of the classes of monuments destroyed and damaged or an evaluation of the wider significance of the loss. Despite this, drawing on disparate sources, a 2010 report of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments attempted to give an account of the damage to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s cultural heritage (Mulalić Handan, 2010). It found that of 60 valuable urban nuclei, 49 were destroyed or very badly damaged. The centres of Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Jajce, Stolac, and Foča were devastated, while those of Trebinje, Tešanj, Maglaj, Bihać, Travnik, Derventa, and Livno very badly damaged. All nine important urban-rural ensembles were seriously damaged, with Počitelj, Blagaj, Prusac, Jeleč, Jezero, and Kraljeva Sutjeska the worst affected. In Banja Luka, de facto capital of the secessionist Bosnian Serbs, the domed sixteenthcentury Ferhadija Mosque and 11 other historic mosques were systematically demolished along with other important Ottoman monuments during 1993, more than a year after the war began, in a city that saw no military action. Elsewhere, some of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s most important historic mosques, like the sixteenth-century Aladža Mosque in Foča, were demolished by Bosnian Serb secessionists and their sites levelled. Stolac, set in the limestone hills of southern Herzegovina, saw all its historic mosques and its Orthodox church totally destroyed or left in ruins by secessionist Bosnian Croat forces and their supporters, along with other Ottoman-era structures, like its notable stone mansions. These were steps in the creation of fictitious historically monoethnic spaces, where the mayor of Bosnian Serb-held ethnically cleansed Zvornik could declare to journalists in 1993 of the once Muslim-majority town: “There were never any mosques in Zvornik” (Williams, 1993). Significantly fewer Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches and monasteries were assaulted than Muslim or Ottoman sacral structures. Nevertheless, Mostar’s nineteenthcentury neo-Baroque Orthodox Cathedral and the sixteenth-century Serbian Orthodox monastery at Žitomislić were dynamited by Bosnian Croat nationalists. At Plehan, the Franciscan Monastery was repeatedly shelled by Bosnian Serb forces before being destroyed by a truck bomb carrying two tons of explosives. In rural settings or the outskirts of towns, the shells of attacked structures were left to crumble. But in town and village centres, ruins were bulldozed, remains trucked away and thrown in rivers, reservoirs, and municipal landfill sites, like the stones from Banja Luka’s

3 Hrvatsko vijeće obrane/Croatian Defence Council.

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Ferhadija and Arnaudija Mosques. The levelled empty sites of what had once been religious buildings were used for parking cars and communal rubbish bins, holding markets, or chopping wood. Rubble from destroyed mosques has been found in mass graves covering the bodies of Muslims murdered during the violence of ethnic cleansing, such as at Brčko.

The Dayton Peace Agreement The Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) that ended the war in 1995 aspired to reverse the effects of ethnic cleansing and restore Bosnia-Herzegovina’s pre-war diversity. It recognised the role heritage destruction had played during the conflict and among the treaty’s 11 annexes, Annex 8 mandated the creation of a Commission to Preserve National Monuments. Since then, Annex 8 has played a key role in post-conflict heritage management, the Commission being the only state-level institution concerned with the entire country’s cultural heritage. In addition, Annex 8 has been crucial in removing official obstacles to rebuilding destroyed heritage in areas of ethnic cleansing, particularly mosques. As refugees and the displaced began returning to the localities from which they had been forcibly removed, Annex 8 was increasingly invoked in the struggle to restore and rebuild in the face of orchestrated violence such as the 2001 riots in Banja Luka and Trebinje during ceremonies marking the start of rebuilding destroyed historic mosques. Restoration of Bosnia’s destroyed and damaged historic monuments should, in theory, have taken place within the framework of the DPA, supporting the return of refugees and the displaced to the homes and communities from which they had been expelled. Yet in the crucial first ten years after the end of the conflict, international support for restoration projects for war-affected historic structures was non-existent in just those areas where ethnic cleansing had been worst, as donors feared to become involved in what they perceived as difficult and contentious settings.

Kosovo At the outbreak of war (1998–1999), Kosovo was part of Serbia and the rump Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), its former status as an autonomous region reduced by Milošević in 1989 and revoked in 1990. Considered the cradle of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the location of some of its most renowned religious sites, nevertheless, declining numbers of Serbs lived in Kosovo; its majority population had long been ethnic Albanians who had experienced repression from Serbia for years. When open conflict broke out between Serbian police units and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) over the spring 1998, what appeared to be a repeat of the Bosnian War unfolded. Once more, Serb/Yugoslav forces (special police forces and regular army units) engaged in violent ethnic cleansing, this time of Kosovar Albanians, including the widespread destruction of their cultural and religious heritage. After the failure of international talks and no sign that Serb and Yugoslav forces were ceasing their activities in Kosovo, and with images of streams of refugees flooding the media, NATO intervened with an aerial bombing campaign between March and June 1999. Once again, claims over the damaged and destroyed heritage became highly politicised. Assertions by the Serb/Yugoslav (FRY) authorities of extensive damage to Kosovo’s important medieval Serbian Orthodox heritage during the NATO bombings, repeated uncritically in the media and international heritage fora, proved to be largely without foundation. However, around a third of Kosovo’s mosques were destroyed or damaged during the conflict, as were Islamic religious schools and libraries. The centres of the historic cities of Pec, Gjakova, and 284

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Vushtrri/Vucitrn were severely damaged, and less than 10% of Kosovo’s approximately 500 stone tower houses (kulla) survived the war undamaged. Once again, Muslim and Ottoman were targeted, as well as traditional Albanian structures. Nevertheless, after the arrival of a multinational NATO-led UN peacekeeping force (KFOR) in Kosovo in June 1999, many Orthodox churches did suffer revenge attacks. (Herscher & Riedlmayer, 2000a; 2000b). More was to follow. In March 2004, despite the presence of KFOR troops guarding Serbian Orthodox sites, an eruption of inter-ethnic violence resulted in destruction and extensive damage to 35 Orthodox sacral structures (many of them important historic monuments) by Kosovar Albanian rioters (RIC, 2005). After the Bosnian experience, KFOR troops now had a mandate to intervene with the use of force in such police/military grey areas. Yet the KFOR troops’ responses differed markedly as each contingent followed its own national rules of engagement (Serbenco, 2005; Friesendorf, 2012). Thus, while Italian troops resisted the attack on the monastery of Visoki Dećani, at Devič, Danish troops evacuated the residents of the monastery, then withdrew, leaving it to be set alight. In Prizren, German troops guarding the Serbian Orthodox cathedral of St George, whose orders only permitted the use of force in self-defence, returned to barracks, leaving the now undefended church to be devastated.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) A key mechanism in the search for justice for victims of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession was the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It became an important testing ground of international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights law (IHRL) relating to the protection of cultural and religious property, although there were other significant decisions from, for instance, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia-Herzegovina (Walasek, 2015). The ICTY’s cultural property prosecutions moved beyond the traditional model of indictments for attacks solely on those monuments and sites considered of universal significance to mankind, maintaining that destruction or damage to any cultural property was criminal, not only cultural property of “great importance” and that attacks against religious institutions as cultural property must be assessed more stringently than attacks on civilian objects (Brammertz et al., 2016). Established by the UN Security Council (UNSC) in 1993 (S/RES/827 (1993)), the ICTY was the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals following the Second World War. The inclusion of crimes relating to cultural and religious property in the ICTY’s Statute was an important addition to international legal instruments and over the period of its existence (1993–2017) it heard cases that included charges for the destruction and looting of cultural and religious property in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo. Its distinctive contribution to the prosecution of crimes against cultural heritage has been its indictments and judgements, which have established that the deliberate destruction of structures that symbolise a group’s identity is a manifestation of persecution and a crime against humanity. Nevertheless, the ICTY’s first trial for an attack on cultural property followed the classical model of heritage protection. This was against former senior Yugoslav military officers, Miodrag Jokić and Pavle Strugar, for the shelling of the Old Town of Dubrovnik over October–December 1991 by the JNA and Yugoslav Navy forces they commanded. The indictment emphasised the Old Town’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jokić and Strugar were subsequently convicted, Jokić’s judgement stating that the “shelling attack on 285

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the Old Town was an attack not only against the history and heritage of the region but also against the cultural heritage of humankind.”4 The treatment of the destruction of Mostar’s Old Bridge (Stari Most) in the Prlić et al. case was markedly different. Though described as an “international landmark,” the bridge was not given the status of an important historic monument and appeared at the end of a list of destroyed religious properties whose destruction was cited as “destruction or wilful damage to institutions dedicated to religion or education.”5 The bridge clearly was neither. Scarcely mentioned in the indictment, and not at all in the pre-trial brief, the destruction of the Old Bridge, nevertheless, featured prominently during the trial. The crucial question became whether the Old Bridge could be considered a legitimate military target since the Bosnian Army had used the bridge to move men and military supplies to a small government-held enclave on the west bank of the Neretva River. On 29 May 2013, the ICTY Trial Chamber found the defendants guilty of the wider charge of participating in a joint criminal enterprise. With regard to the Old Bridge, the Chamber found that, although the bridge was used by the Bosnian Army, its destruction caused disproportionate damage to the Muslim civilian population of Mostar and found the defendants guilty of the crime of wanton destruction of cities or villages, or devastation not justified by military requirements. The question of whether important cultural property lost its protected status when used for military purposes was still open to debate (Bartels, 2013). The defendants appealed. At the judgement on 29 November 2017 (the ICTY’s final hearing), the Trial Chamber upheld the majority of the defendants’ convictions. Yet the Chamber acquitted them of the charge relating to the destruction of the Old Bridge, overturning the original verdict, considering that the bridge did constitute a legitimate military target for which the reasoning of the original judgement could not apply. The lone opposing voice was Judge Fausto Pocar, who strongly disagreed, noting in his dissenting opinion that the Trial Chamber erred in conflating the well-established IHL notion of military target or objective and the principle of military necessity.6 Pocar observed, too, the paucity of the Chamber’s discussion of the disproportionate nature of the attack. Yet this final problematic and dubious judgement on the destruction of Mostar’s Old Bridge continues to be cited in discussions of military necessity in relation to attacks on cultural property – principally by the military and their supporters. Questions also need to be asked why some of the gravest incidences of heritage destruction of the wars were never brought to trial at the ICTY. The attack on Sarajevo’s National Library, for instance, one of the most documented and witnessed acts of heritage destruction during the Bosnian War, despite being first on a list of serious shelling incidents during the Siege of Sarajevo (though notably not as an attack on an important cultural object), was removed from ICTY indictments for Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, both later tried and found guilty. More examples and information on serious attacks on cultural and religious property during the Wars of Yugoslav Succession that were never prosecuted by the ICTY, including those on Vukovar, can be found on the website Targeting History and Memory (SENSE, 2016). Despite this, responses to the widespread intentional heritage destruction of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession remain key in the evolution of post-Second World War cultural property protection. The destruction contributed directly to landmark changes in international 4 ICTY. (2004). Prosecutor v. Miodrag Jokić. Case No. IT-01-42/1, Trial Chamber, Judgement, 18 March, n.51. 5 ICTY. (2008). Prosecutor v. Prlić et al. Case No. IT-04-74-T, Second Amended Indictment, 11 June, n.116. 6 ICTY. (2017). Prosecutor v. Prlić et al. Case No. IT-04-74-A, Appeals Chamber, Judgement, 29 November, Vol. III Section XIV, Dissenting Opinions of Judge Fausto Pocar.

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humanitarian law and policy relating to crimes against cultural heritage through the prosecutions of the ICTY and adoption of the 1999 Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention, while Annex 8 of the DPA stands as a model for post-conflict heritage management. Yet more than two decades from the end of the wars at time of writing, the international community continues to grapple with the question of how cultural property can be protected in times of conflict.

References Arsenović, J. (2015). Hrvatima blago i srpske crkve. Vesti, 14 March. Available at: https://arhiva.vestionline.com [Accessed: 18 March 2022]. Bartels, R. (2013). Prlić et al.: The Destruction of the Old Bridge of Mostar and Proportionality. Ejiltalk, 31 July. Available at: www.ejiltalk.org [Accessed: 18 March 2022]. Brammertz, S., Hughes, K.C., Kipp, A., and Tomljanovich, W.B. (2016). Attacks against Cultural Heritage as a Weapon of War: Prosecutions at the ICTY. Journal of International Criminal Justice 14(5), pp.1143–1174. Chapman, J. (1994). Destruction of a common heritage: the archaeology of war in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina. Antiquity 68, pp.120–126. COE. (1993–1997). Information Reports on war damage to the cultural heritage in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 1–10. Strasbourg: Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, presented by the Committee on Culture and Education. Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention), 16 November 1972. Available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ [Accessed: 01 February 2022]. Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention (Hague Convention), 14 May 1954. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/protectingheritage/convention-and-protocols/1954-convention [Accessed: 8 April 2022] Friesendorf, C. (2012). International Intervention and the Use of Force: Military and Police Roles. SSR Paper 4, Geneva: The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), pp.39–58. Herscher, A., and Riedlmayer, A. (2000a). Architectural Heritage in Kosovo: A Post-War Report. First published in ICOMOS US Newsletter 4 ( July–August 2000). ——— (2000b). Monument and Crime: The Destruction of Historic Architecture in Kosovo. Grey Room, No. 1 (Autumn, 2000), pp.108–122. Hoare, M.A. (2010). The War of Yugoslav Succession. In: Ramet, S.P. (ed). Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.111–135. ICOMOS-US. (1999). War Damage in the Balkans. Newsletter, No. 2 (March–April 1999), pp.1–3. Islamic Community. (2015). Dan Džamija, Islamska Zajednica, 6 May. Available at: www. islamskazajednica.ba [Accessed: 18 March 2022]. Mikelic, S. (2017). Trial Shows Croatian Money Fuelled Bosnian Croats’ War. Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), 24 November. Available at: https://balkaninsight.com [Accessed: 18 March 2022]. Mulalić Handan, M. (ed). (2010). Report on assessment of the architectural and archaeological heritage Bosnia and Herzegovina. Integrated Rehabilitation Project Plan/Survey of the architectural and archaeological heritage (IRPP/SAAH), Regional Programme for Cultural and Natural Heritage in South East Europe, Sarajevo: Commission to Preserve National Monuments. Ramet, S.P. (2006). The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. RIC. (2005). Activity Report 2005. Reconstruction Implementation Commission (RIC) for Orthodox Religious Sites in Kosovo. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998. Available: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/ default/files/RS-Eng.pdf [Accessed: 07 January 2022] Second Protocol to the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of Armed Conflict, 26 March 1999. Available: https://en.unesco.org/protecting-heritage/convention-and-protocols/1999second-protocol [Accessed: 8 April 2022].  SENSE. (2016). Targeting History and Memory/Zatiranje istorije i sjećanja [online]. Pula: SENSE Centre for Transitional Justice, www.heritage.sensecentar.org. [Accessed: 18 March 2022].

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23 CAMBODIA Gods Threatened by the Art Market and Warfare Angela S. Chiu, Helena M. Arose, and Ben B. Evans

The art market’s demand for Cambodia’s material heritage has been apparently insatiable since the 1960s. Twenty years ago, it was estimated that up to 98% of Cambodia’s historic temples had been partially or completely destroyed, while at least one temple per day was being plundered according to another assessment (Lafont, 2004). At the same time, Cambodia is noteworthy for its attempts to protect its cultural heritage by utilising the measures of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict during the Civil War of the 1970s. In this brief chapter, we firstly explore the roots of the demand for Cambodian heritage and then provide an overview of the history of its looting and protection, focusing on sculpture and architecture.

From gods to commodities Inhabited since prehistoric times, Cambodia is rich in archaeological heritage. Most famous – and desired by collectors – are the stone architecture and metal and stone sculpture of the Angkorian Empire dating from the ninth to fifteenth centuries. While Angkor was mainly centred in present-day Cambodia, it extended well beyond Cambodia’s current borders and its art and architecture are also found in contemporary Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Since the mid-second millennium, Angkor’s stone edifices, and especially the monument of Angkor Wat, have been important sites drawing Buddhist pilgrims from across Asia (Ang et al., 1998) (see Figure 23.1). The idea that Angkor was an abandoned city in the jungle discovered by the French – a notion that arose in the colonial context of the nineteenth century – is false. However, it helped justify foreign intervention in, and ultimately, marketisation of, Cambodia’s heritage. How Cambodia’s gods and sacred sites were transformed into commodities is important to understand (Kopytoff, 1986), as demand has been the principal driver of damage to Cambodian cultural heritage (Lafont, 2004; Stark & Griffin, 2004). Although the past century included periods of considerable political turbulence and military strife in Cambodia, the majority of destruction to its cultural heritage has not been due to combat but to looting. War and insecurity provided opportunities for pillagers, corrupt soldiers and officials, dealers, collectors, and others within and outside Cambodia to profit. Stone statues of Hindu gods, for example, are among the artefacts that collectors most covet. DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-26

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Figure 23.1 A map of locations mentioned in the chapter. Image by Angela S. Chiu (2021).

Material heritage holds meanings for Khmer communities beyond the aesthetic qualities valued by collectors. Thefts have caused the irrecoverable loss of knowledge about temple iconographic programmes. Statues were originally erected as divine embodiments combining Hindu gods, ancestral guardians, and territorial meaning (Mus, 2011). Many images had individual names, recorded in inscriptions. They have continued to be venerated into the modern era as guardian spirits, neak ta, whose worship “encompasses cultural memory, legends, codes of conduct, and rituals” (Miura, 2015 pp.271–272). In the colonial era, such relationships between statues and their communities were sundered. The French Protectorate over Cambodia began in 1863 after King Ang Duong sought France’s support against expansionist Siam and Vietnam. Fascinated by Angkor, the French came to view conserving the monuments as a means to showcase the benefits of French guardianship (Abbe, 2021). Upon assuming control of Siem Reap province after Siam’s withdrawal from the region in 1907, France began to clear and excavate the monuments. In 1925–1926, an area of approximately 400 square kilometres encompassing about 100 monuments (out of thousands in Cambodia) was officially designated as the Angkor Park (Abbe, 2018). French curators worked passionately to preserve, rebuild, and study the monuments, conserving the glory of Angkor and broadcasting that of France, but they also relocated Buddhist monasteries to clear the 290

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views for tourists; moved or dismantled ancient art, destroying historical evidence and contemporary sites of veneration; and restricted the daily activities of villagers who had inhabited Angkor for generations. They re-landscaped the temple sector into a pristine vision of Angkor that ultimately devalued contemporary Cambodian communities. Indeed, this vision was only achieved through Khmer labour and major charitable donations by the Cambodian populace. Despite this, so depopulated of Khmers was the Angkor Park that, as late as the 1930s, European visitors thought the Khmers almost or completely extinct (Edwards, 2007). Abroad, France presented itself as the rebuilder of Angkor, as if it were the empire’s true heir rather than contemporary Khmers (Edwards, 2007). At the colonial and international exhibitions held in Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the imperial powers displayed global commercial and cultural assets under their control. French architects built structures evoking Angkorian temples, the most spectacular being the virtually fullsized reproduction of Angkor Wat erected for the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition. Inside were displays on commodities, colonial administration, and history. Cambodian monks, dancers, and craftsmen were also positioned within, performing as “extras” (Norindr, 1996 p.28). The elaborate model of Angkor Wat aimed to inspire in exhibition visitors – who in total bought 33 million tickets – a desire for the colonies (Norindr, 1996). The model temple disconnected Angkor from its geographic setting and authentic living Khmer communities, recasting it as French heritage and an object for consumption. French official efforts cultivating desire for the colonies dovetailed with the romantic imagery of ruined temples in the jungle that had enthralled Europeans since descriptions of Angkor were published in Europe by French explorers in the nineteenth century (Abbe, 2018). The fantasy of a lost city, propagated in travelogues, novels, magazines, and exhibitions, has fuelled the exotic allure of Khmer sculptures to foreign collectors. The trope of an extinct civilisation also severed present-day Khmers from Angkor, opening Angkorian artefacts to be recast as supposedly abandoned or forgotten treasures to be rescued by enlightened foreign collectors. Further enhancing the attraction of Cambodian art to collectors was the sense of prestige conveyed in French descriptions: for instance, a nineteenth-century explorer compared Angkor to classical Greece and Egypt (Abbe, 2018), while the Angkor Society’s 1907 programme declared that “Angkor ranks alongside the Parthenon, Luxor, and the Taj Mahal, as one of the architectural wonders of the world” (Edwards, 2007 p.137). Another influential aspect of the colonial presentation of Angkor is its conflation of the identity of Cambodia and Angkor, a reductive trope that has continued to vex the present understanding of the cultural heritage of the country (Abbe, 2018). France’s deployment of Angkor Wat to represent Cambodia has likewise had lasting influence. The monument had, since its construction in the twelfth century, been particularly associated with the Khmer monarchy. Leveraging this, the French developed Angkor Wat as a symbol of the Cambodian nation (Edwards, 2007). The presentation of Angkor and Angkor Wat as Cambodia contributed to the long-time prioritisation of conservation of the Angkor Park over other elements of cultural heritage, such as monuments in remote areas (which we will discuss further below), post-Angkorian art, and intangible arts and practices (Lloyd, 2009; Abbe, 2018).

Conservation and challenges to protection in the nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries During the Protectorate, French officials shipped tons of Khmer artefacts to Paris, ignoring local prohibitions and protests (Edwards, 2007). Colonial staff also built private collections (Abbe, 2021). The first French decree protecting Cambodian monuments was issued in 1900. 291

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In the following three decades, the colonial agency designated to lead conservation, the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), and its arm, the Angkor Conservation Office, undertook extensive conservation, protection, and research on specific sites, primarily on those in the Angkor Park, which was periodically expanded. Other official measures to safeguard heritage included the classification of protected objects and monuments, setting penalties for proscribed activities, deploying police in the Angkor Park, establishing an antiquities commission, assigning responsibilities to local authorities, and collaborating with monks and villagers. Objects considered vulnerable to theft were deposited for safekeeping in the storage of the Angkor Conservation Office and in museums established by the colonial government. However, stealing and damage at historic sites, mostly committed by Western civil servants and tourists, persisted. A key problem was that the EFEO lacked the funding and staff to conduct adequate surveillance (Abbe, 2018). Even as some EFEO staff worked devotedly to prevent looting, they were no match for colonial policy and practices that ultimately cultivated Cambodian archaeological materials as objects of consumption. In 1953, Cambodia achieved independence. During the colonial period, the French had not prioritised training Cambodians to manage what the colonial period had transformed into cultural heritage. Thus, from 1956 to 1973, archaeology and conservation programmes continued to be directed largely by French EFEO staff (Abbe, 2018). The colonial-era laws governing the management of Angkor were retained until the early 1970s with minor modifications (Lloyd, 2009). Recognising the importance of cultural heritage protection, the Cambodian government in 1962 ratified the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention and its First Protocol (together 1954 Hague Convention) and in 1972 ratified the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970 UNESCO Convention). In 1965, Cambodia established the University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, whose Archaeology Department would provide the training to support the gradual handover of cultural heritage management to Cambodian nationals (Ang et al., 1998).

Protecting cultural heritage sites amidst Civil War, 1970–1975 Government efforts to manage cultural heritage were curbed in the early 1970s as a communist insurgency, exacerbated by activity within Cambodia by the various militaries fighting in Vietnam, expanded into civil war. Vietnamese armed factions, and the American military via bases in Thailand, at times operated on Cambodian territory. During this war, Cambodian government officials, supported by the French conservators then on the ground, largely succeeded in keeping military combat out of the Angkor Park (Ang et al., 1998). The Angkor Park came under threat when North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops seized control of the area in early June 1970. Though the occupying forces initially permitted continued conservation work under the French-led Angkor Conservation Office, Cambodia immediately wrote to United Nations member states of “acts of vandalism and sacrilege” by invading forces against churches, monasteries, and historic monuments and of “imminent danger threatening other monuments” (United Nations Security Council, 1970 p.1). Cambodia called on all countries, particularly parties to the 1954 Hague Convention, to assist its efforts to safeguard its cultural heritage (United Nations Security Council, 1970). Of the three parties to the conflict, only Cambodia was a signatory of the 1954 Convention, but UNESCO’s Executive Board invited the Director-General to help secure the demilitarisation of the Angkor Wat temple complex and the immediate vicinity through cooperation 292

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from the countries involved. The Cambodian government declared its aim to do everything possible to protect Angkor Wat, assuring the Director-General that Cambodia would “not take any military action which could endanger the temples”, US diplomats noted in a telegram (American Embassy in Paris, 1970). In accordance with the 1954 Hague Convention, Cambodia established a national committee to take charge of protecting its cultural heritage amidst the military conflict (Clément & Quinio, 2004). Officials reinforced the storage buildings of the Angkor Conservation Office and sent artefacts to Phnom Penh for safekeeping. Other measures set in motion included recruiting personnel who would safeguard the monuments and wear Hague Convention insignia, placing signs of the Hague Convention on all monuments, and distributing pamphlets describing Cambodian cultural heritage and the Hague Convention (Rives, 1970a; 1970b; Clément & Quinio, 2004). Long-term plans for heritage protection were also instituted. UNESCO provided technical assistance (Clément & Quinio, 2004). However, there was uncertainty over how many of the Cambodian measures would be successfully accomplished as the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese controlled access to the Angkor Park. The fragile cease-fire around Angkor collapsed and fighting in the area resumed in late 1971. The French-led conservation team was expelled by North Vietnamese troops in early 1972. There were claims that the North Vietnamese had looted sculptures from the temples and torn down signage designating temples as cultural properties to be protected (Smith, 1972). Cambodian authorities tried to further make use of the 1954 Hague Convention by attempting to secure special protection under Article 81: in March 1972, they officially requested UNESCO inscribe certain sites on the International Register of Cultural Assets Under Special Protection (Son, 1972). Concerns were again raised in June 1972 by the then President of the Khmer Republic, Lon Nol, and a month later, the request was reiterated by the country’s Permanent Mission to the UN which declared that special protection was the key to saving the monuments from destruction (Truong, 1972). Despite these appeals and the fact that the sites fulfilled the necessary criteria, special protection was not granted. Cuba, Egypt, Romania, and Yugoslavia objected, claiming that they did not recognise the legitimacy of the authority that had submitted the request. This objection referred to Lon Nol’s rise to power through a coup in 1970. Although the objection was not within the terms of the 1954 Convention, UNESCO and its constituent states parties were gridlocked over it, and Cambodia did not take up the long and expensive arbitration process. The Director-General did not provisionally inscribe the monuments, as this was only permitted during peacetime (O’Keefe, 2006). Technically, the Convention did not apply, as under Article 18(1), the “Convention shall apply in the event of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties” (Art. 18; O’Keefe, 2006). Nonetheless, while damage from warfare was minimised, the temples did not escape looting by military forces. Pillage and trafficking of statues greatly increased during this period, as National Museum of Cambodia curator Chea Thay Seng observed in February 1971. He opined, “The real problem are the great European museums. As long as they want Khmer art so badly, there will always be that force pulling it out of Cambodia through illicit exporters” (New York Times, 1971 online). In March 1972, US museum officials reported a surge in the number of Cambodian sculptures offered in the Western art market. Most were sculpted heads without bodies or bodies without heads, reflecting illicit actors’ fragmentation of statues to generate multiple sales (Taubman, 1972). 293

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In 1973, government conservation work ceased as military presence in Siem Reap prevented access to the archaeological sites (Ang et al., 1998). The Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in April 1975 and held power until January 1979, when they were driven from Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese army. Under the Khmer Rouge, the Angkorian monuments were mostly neglected, as there was no formal government policy for managing them. However, many conservation and archaeological staff lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge’s harsh regime of societal transformation. The Khmer Rouge also held the practice of Buddhism as anathema to their cause and intentionally worked to eradicate it by killing monks and destroying monasteries and Buddha images. Traditional knowledge and practices were also lost as older citizens perished and families were divided.

Looting amidst the insecurity of the 1970s to 1990s The periods of upheaval and instability in Cambodia from the early 1970s through the late 1990s were taken as opportunities for plunder by international traffickers. Corrupt officials and poorly paid soldiers assisted the trade. Extreme poverty drove villagers to sell artefacts for food (Stark & Griffin, 2004). Villagers interviewed across Cambodia by Davis and Mackenzie in 2013 reported that looting and trafficking on an organised basis, including by government military forces, began around 1970. Other sources reported plunder by the North Vietnamese army (Davis & Mackenzie, 2014). In 1979, after Vietnam toppled the Khmer Rouge government, looting increased amid the upheaval (Ang et al., 1998; Lloyd, 2009; Davis & Mackenzie, 2014). Smuggling intensified from the mid-1980s as Khmer antiquities became popular in the US and further surged in the 1990s (Lafont, 2004). In 1991, a peace agreement was signed. However, the armistice cleared access to remote sites, which were then exposed to looters (Miura, 2015). Various forces, including Khmer Rouge, government military, and paramilitaries, were said to have engaged in plunder during the 1990s (Davis & Mackenzie, 2014). Monuments were stripped at an alarming rate. Thieves first removed movable objects. Then they extracted lintels, pediments, and other reliefs using chainsaws. They hacked off statues at the ankles, leaving behind their feet attached to pedestals, and then chopped or even exploded them, the figures being easier to transport as fragments. The looters also dug beneath temples and stupas in search of gold ritual foundation deposits, causing the buildings’ collapse. Local villagers, sometimes coerced, were often the source of manual labour if not looting themselves amid conditions of severe poverty. Armed soldiers accompanied the hauls by truck across the border to Thailand or via ship to Singapore for onward sale (Ang et al., 1998; MacKenzie & Davis, 2014; Chea et al., 2021). Mackenzie and Davis have traced the trafficking of looted statues through two of the routes from Cambodia to Thailand used from the mid-1960s to mid-2000s. Antiquities were transferred by a network including regional brokers coordinating looters, intermediary traders negotiating cross-border transmission, and a Bangkok-based dealer with access to international buyers. This last was highlighted by Mackenzie and Davis as a Janus-like figure facing the criminal network on one side and foreign dealers and collections on the other; because of his crucial role, this Janus could be regarded “as the real looter” (MacKenzie & Davis, 2014 p.737). The authors found that the networks’ activity had declined by the time of their fieldwork in 2013, with former illicit actors ascribing the abatement to looters’ personal fears, improved temple security, and the sense that the artefacts of marketable quality had already been removed (MacKenzie & Davis, 2014). 294

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Protecting cultural heritage at the border: The example of Prasat Ta Moan Thom Monuments near Cambodia’s northern and north-western borders with Thailand have been especially vulnerable to damage given their remoteness and their proximity to Thailand’s art market. After the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, the Khmer Rouge withdrew to bases along the Cambodian-Thai border, rendering some areas inaccessible to authorities; their last members surrendered only in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, following the Vietnamese departure in 1989, the nascent Cambodian government had limited financial resources available to develop border regions (Ngoun, 2016). Prasat Ta Moan Thom (Prasat Ta Muean Thom or Ta Muen Thom in Thai)2 is an Angkorian temple located in the forested mountains on the border between Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province and Thailand’s Surin province. Its recent history provides an example of the challenges that military conflict has posed for conservation efforts. The case also involves Cambodia’s relationship with a neighbour with whom it has a long, shared history: Thailand, a country that has extensively conserved significant examples of Angkorian art and architecture in its territory but has also been a major market and base for traffickers of Khmer artefacts. Built in the eleventh century, Ta Moan Thom is strategically situated at a mountain pass on a road that enabled the movement of people, commerce, and ideas between the capital of Angkor and what is today northeast Thailand. Ta Moan Thom was surveyed by Thailand’s Fine Arts Department (FAD) in 1960–1961 (Fine Arts Department, 1967). However, it suffered immense destruction some time subsequently. Researchers have claimed that fighting by Khmer Rouge forces occupying the temple caused severe structural damage and that in subsequent years, looters hacked away “every potentially saleable bas-relief ” (Siribhadra & Moore, 1992 p.135). According to another researcher, the Khmer Rouge occupied the site for several years in the 1980s and, together with dealers, extracted all commercially valuable carvings even by using dynamite (Freeman, 1996). In 1991, the FAD began to restore and excavate the temple.3 In 2000, a Cambodia-Thailand commission was established to begin demarcating the entire border, following episodes of contestation of parts of the boundary set by France and Siam in 1904–1908. Nonetheless, whether Ta Moan Thom belongs to Cambodia or Thailand became a subject of military dispute in 2008. Recent disagreements along the border have been politically sensitive within both countries, as they evoke histories of invasion, issues of national identity, and the integrity of the national geo-body (Winichakul, 1994). Angkorian temples have become symbols of national identity and pride in both countries. The most high-profile border disagreement has been over the eleventh-century Angkorian complex of Prasat Preah Vihear (Prasat Khao Phra Wihan in Thai), which the Thai military occupied in 1954. In 1962, the International Court of Justice granted Cambodia sovereignty over the temple. In 2007, Cambodia applied to have Preah Vihear listed as a World Heritage site, which UNESCO accepted in July 2008. The Thai government considered attempting to make it a joint Thai-Cambodian application but ultimately did not pursue it. The decision infuriated Thai nationalists, who accused the government of relinquishing sovereign territory. A rapid build-up of both countries’ armies along the border followed – including at Preah Vihear and at Ta Moan Thom about 150 kilometres to the west (Breitenbücher, 2013). In 2008, Cambodian and Thai militaries had a tense, non-violent confrontation at Ta Moan Thom, for which each faulted the other. Both sides insisted that the temple was within its border. In February 2011, tensions near Preah Vihear were again stirred, this time with 295

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weapons fired. Several weeks later, the two militaries had an armed encounter at Ta Moan Thom and a nearby temple, Prasat Ta Krabei (Prasat Ta Kwai in Thai). Thousands were evacuated from Cambodian and Thai villages. Eight Cambodian and three Thai soldiers died, and dozens of troops and civilians were injured until a cease-fire was established after several days (Breitenbücher, 2013). In 2018, a team of researchers with the Documentation Center of Cambodia, including co-author Ben Evans, interviewed dozens of soldiers, locals, and government officials in Oddar Meanchey province about the conflict there with the Thai and its implications for the 1954 Hague Convention.4 Soldiers stationed at Ta Moan Thom gave accounts of the strife that often conflicted with each other, not unexpectedly given that the events had occurred seven years earlier. Some troops claimed that no one ever occupied the temple (Lab, 2018), while others said that it was used to shoot at Cambodian soldiers (Tlang, 2018). Interviewees in the villages nearby and a soldier garrisoned at Ta Moan Thom described Thai forces as only briefly using the temple to fire on Cambodian soldiers before departing, resulting in only minor damage to the temple (Tlang, 2018). A YouTube video uploaded beginning in 2012 by various users ( Jaipet2008, 2012; Thai Citizen News, 2012) shows what appears to be Thai soldiers inside a temple building shooting rocket-propelled grenades in the direction of Cambodia – followed by extensive machine gun fire. The video seems to support accounts of interviewees who claimed that Thai troops used Ta Moan Thom for military purposes, exposing the site to possible damage. However, the extensive interviews undertaken in 2018 also revealed a shortcoming in the Cambodian military’s attention to cultural heritage protection: none of the Cambodian soldiers interviewed reported receiving any training on safeguarding cultural heritage during times of war as required under Articles 7 and 25 of the 1954 Hague Convention (Tlang, 2018). Fortunately, no significant harm to the temple during the 2011 episode was reported. In 2017, Thailand’s committee to restitute Thai artefacts abroad discovered that a carved stone lintel at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) seemed to closely resemble one from Ta Moan Thom in photographs published by Thai archaeologists in 1967 and 1973. The Thai restitution committee shared the photographs with US government authorities, who then requested information regarding the lintel from the MMA. The Thai restitution committee has had some discussions regarding the possible impact on the restitution process of the uncertainty over which country holds sovereignty over Ta Moan Thom. In late 2020, committee member Tanongsak Hanwong observed that committee members largely preferred to continue to gather information on the lintel while delaying the execution of the restitution stage and that Ta Moan Thom is “shared cultural heritage of the two countries. In my understanding, if shared culture is put ahead of the border issue and politics, we might be able to get the lintel returned” (Thai PBS, 2020 online). The history of Ta Moan Thom may yet come full circle if a cooperative restitution opportunity arises and is taken by both countries, as the temple would reprise its position connecting people on both sides of the mountains.

Cambodia’s cultural heritage protection initiatives, 1990s to present Even as Cambodia continues to face challenges to protecting cultural heritage, it has, particularly in the last three decades, made substantial progress in improving protection and conservation. “Angkor”, based on the Angkor Park, was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992, after years of work by Cambodian staff in coordination with international parties. With support from UNESCO and other partners in the 1990s, the Cambodian government strengthened its legal and institutional cultural heritage framework, reflecting the significance 296

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of cultural heritage management as a national priority. Among other actions, in 1993, the government enacted a constitution declaring the state’s duty to protect cultural heritage and in 1996 adopted the Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage to safeguard cultural property from illicit destruction, modification, alteration, excavation, alienation, export, and import. In 1994, Cambodia established a national cultural heritage zoning system, and in 1995, created the Authority for the Protection and Safeguarding of Angkor and the Region of Angkor (APSARA) to manage the conservation of monuments and related dimensions, including urban and rural development and tourism (Ang et al., 1998; Lloyd, 2009). The government has also sought collaboration with authorities in demand countries, such as signing a US-Cambodia bilateral agreement in 2003. Cambodia has had notable successes in recovering stolen artefacts. Lafont counted over 100 items repatriated as of April 2001. Among the largest returns were 117 pieces of a wall from Banteay Chhmar allegedly stolen by military forces and discovered in trucks by Thai border police in 1999 (Lafont, 2004). Between 2013 and 2016, seven statues from Koh Ker were returned by eminent US museums and auction houses. In early 2021, Cambodia announced that the daughter of deceased Briton Douglas Latchford had agreed to repatriate over 100 artefacts from his collection. The agreement was reached after years of negotiations between Cambodia and Latchford, during which US authorities indicted him. In 2019, they charged Latchford, who operated from bases in Bangkok and London, with conspiracy, smuggling, wire fraud, and related charges, alleging that he “built a career out of the smuggling and illicit sale of priceless Cambodian antiquities, often straight from archaeological sites, in the international art market” (U.S. Attorney’s Office, 2019 online). In October 2021, investigative reporters exposed how Latchford and his family deposited antiquities and financial assets in secret offshore trusts and companies. This concealed them from government authorities, although his daughter denied any illegitimate intent. The reporters also highlighted that despite Latchford’s indictment, they found at least 43 Khmer antiquities previously handled by Latchford or his associates in certain prominent US, UK, and Australian museums, raising questions about ethics in museum practices (Whoriskey et al., 2021). The revelations illustrate the complex challenges to Cambodia’s restitution campaign and the crucial role that foreign prosecutions, international regulatory reforms, principled museum actions, and informed international public understanding of the problem can play in supporting Cambodia in effecting repatriations and curtailing the foreign demand at the root of the devastation of its cultural heritage.

Conclusion In the colonial era, Cambodia’s gods and temples were detached from living Khmer communities and transformed into commodities of the international art market. During the civil war of the early 1970s, the Cambodian government was able to secure the protection of its historic monuments from direct military combat and to engage international attention; Cambodia’s attempts to utilise the provisions of the Hague Convention remain exceptional. However, it could not stop the destruction caused by looting by military forces. The relentless foreign demand for sculptures has supported the formation and growth of networks of looters, intermediaries, traffickers, dealers, and collectors within Cambodia and abroad. Cambodia’s periods of insecurity and military conflict in particular provided illicit actors with opportunities for plunder. Border sites have been especially vulnerable. Nonetheless, in recent decades, Cambodia has greatly advanced its legal and institutional basis for the protection of material cultural heritage. It has productively leveraged its ratification of relevant international 297

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treaties and has secured cooperation and assistance from multilateral, government, and nongovernment entities. The country has also successfully achieved repatriation of a number of looted artefacts from abroad. Given the role of foreign demand, further international cooperation with Cambodia is critical to preventing the trafficking of stolen Cambodian antiquities and effecting repatriations.

Notes 1 To qualify for special protection, a site must be of very great importance, situated at an adequate distance from a large industrial centre or important military objective, and not used for military purposes. Any State Party may submit a request for special protection of a site within its territory to the Director-General; however, should another State Party object, the requesting State Party must either pursue arbitration or withdraw the request. The only valid grounds for objection are that the property is not cultural property or the property does not comply with the conditions listed (Articles 13–14 of the Regulations for the Execution of the 1954 Hague Convention). 2 The Khmer is also romanised as Tamone Thom and Ta Mean Thom. Our usage of the Khmer names of this and other temples is for convenience and does not indicate a position regarding the question of sovereignty over the monuments. 3 Whether there have been official discussions between Cambodia and Thailand regarding the FAD’s activities, we have not been able to discover as of the time of writing. 4 Thailand signed the Convention on 2 May 1958.

References Abbe, G. (2018). Le Service des arts cambodgiens mis en place par George Groslier: genèse, histoire et postérité (1917–1945). PhD thesis. Paris: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. ——— (2021). The selling of Khmer artefacts during the colonial era: Questioning the perception of Khmer heritage through a study of traded Khmer art pieces (1920s–1040s). In: Tythacott, L., and Ardiyansyah, P. (eds). Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution. Singapore: NUS Press and SOAS Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme, pp.41–61. American Embassy in Paris. (1970). US State Department telegram, June. General Records of the Department of State (RG 59). Washington, DC. Ang, C., Prenowitz, E., and Thompson, A. (1998). Angkor: a manual for the past, present and future. 2nd edn. [No city]: APSARA, Royal Government of Cambodia. Breitenbücher, D. (2013). Cambodia/Thailand, border conflict around the temple of Preah Vihear. How does law protect in war? Casebook website. Available at: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/ cambodiathailand-border-conflict-around-temple-preah-vihear [Accessed: 18 June 2021]. Chea, S., Muong, C., and Tythacott, L. (2021). The Looting of Koh Ker and the Return of the Prasat Chen Statues. In: Tythacott, L., and Ardiyansyah, P. (eds). Returning Southeast Asia’s Past: Objects, Museums, and Restitution. Singapore: NUS Press and SOAS Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme, pp.62–86. Clément, É., and Quinio, F. (2004). La Protection des biens culturels au Cambodge pendant la période des conflits armés, à travers l’application de la Convention de La Haye de 1954. Revue Internationale De La Croix-Rouge/International Review of the Red Cross 86(854), pp.389–400. Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict with regulations for the execution of the convention, 14 May 1954. Available at: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/ HQ/CLT/pdf/1954_Convention_EN_2020.pdf [Accessed: 21 February 2022]. Davis, T., and Mackenzie, S. (2014). Crime and Conflict: Temple Looting in Cambodia. In: Kila, J.D. and Balcells, M. (eds). Cultural Property Crime: An Overview and Analysis of Contemporary Perspectives and Trends. Leiden: Brill, pp.292–306. Edwards, P. (2007). Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press. Fine Arts Department. (1967). Raingan kansamruat lae khuttaeng boranawatthusathan nai phak tawan ok chiang nuea, phak 2 pho so 2503–2504/Report of the survey and excavations of ancient monuments in northeastern Thailand, part two: 1960–1961. Phranakhon, Bangkok: Krom Sinlapakon.

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Cambodia Freeman, M. (1996). A Guide to Khmer Temples in Thailand and Laos. New York: Weatherhill. Jaipet2008. (2012). Thahan thai rop kap khmen. YouTube website [Thai Citizen News]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd-aVs2cPTM [Accessed: 18 June 2021]. Kopytoff, I. (1986). The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process. In: Appadurai, A. (ed). The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.64–91. Lab, H. (2018). Interview by Evans, B.B., 13 July. Lafont, M. (2004). Pillaging Cambodia: The illicit traffic in Khmer artrt. Jefferson, MO: McFarland & Company. Lloyd, G., (2009). The Safeguarding Of Intangible Cultural Heritage Law And Policy. PhD dissertation. Sydney: University of Sydney. MacKenzie, S., and Davis, T. (2014). Temple looting in Cambodia: Anatomy of a statue trafficking network. British Journal of Criminology 54(5), pp.722–740. Miura, K. (2015). From “originals” to replicas: Diverse significance of Khmer statues. In: Groth, S., Bendix, R.R., and Spiller, A. (eds). Kultur als Eigentum: Instrumente, Querschnitte und Fallstudie. Göttingen: Göttingen University Press, pp.269–293. Available at: http://books.openedition.org/ gup/550 [Accessed: 30 April 2021]. Mus, P. (2011). India seen from the east: Indian and indigenous cults in Champa. Mabbett, I., and Chandler, D. (eds). Mabbett, I. (trans). 2nd edn. Caulfield: Monash University Press. New York Times. (1971). Pnompenh seeks to save statues [sic], New York Times, 21 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/21/archives/pnompenh-seeks-to-save-statues-at-angkorwat-enemy-troops.html?searchResultPosition=4 [Accessed: 16 June 2021]. Ngoun, K. (2016). Narrating the national border: Cambodian state rhetoric vs popular discourse on the Preah Vihear conflict. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 47(2), pp.210–233. Norindr, P. (1996). Phantasmatic Indochina: French colonial ideology in architecture, film, and literature. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. O’Keefe, R. (2006). The Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rives, L. (1970a). US State Department telegram, 29 June. General Records of the Department of State (RG 59). Washington, DC. ——— (1970b). US State Department telegram, 11 July. General Records of the Department of State (RG 59). Washington, DC. Siribhadra, S., and Moore, E. (1992). Palaces of the Gods: Khmer Art and Architecture in Thailand. London: River Books. Smith, T. (1972). Breakdown of truce at Angkor imperils Cambodian temples, New York Times, 12 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/12/archives/breakdown-of-truce-atangkor-imperils-cambodian-temples.html?searchResultPosition=2 [Accessed: 16 June 2021]. Son, N.T. (1972). Telegram, 26 April. General Records of the Department of State (RG 59). Washington, DC. Stark, M.T., and Griffin, P.B. (2004). Archaeological research and cultural heritage management in Cambodia’s Mekong Delta: The search for the “cradle of Khmer civilization”. In: Rowan, Y., and Baram, U. (eds). Marketing heritage: Archaeology and the consumption of the past. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, pp.117–141. Taubman, H. (1972). Sculptures put on market stir concern for Angkor. New York Times, 14 March. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/14/archives/sculptures-put-on-market-stirconcern-for-angkor.html?searchResultPosition=7 [Accessed: 16 June 2021]. Thai Citizen News. (2012). Samoraphum ta muean thom. YouTube website. Available at: https://youtu. be/6GuQs0narDk [Accessed: 25 February 2023]. Thai PBS (2020). Sen khetdaen upasak thuangkhuen thaplang ta muean thom, Thai PBS, 20 October. Available at: https://news.thaipbs.or.th/content/297585 [Accessed: 15 September 2021]. Tlang, M. (2018). Interview by Evans, B.B., 13 July. Truong, C. (1972). Letter from the permanent representative of the Khmer Republic to the United Nations to the secretary-general of the United Nations, 6 July. General Records of the Department of State (RG 59). Washington, DC. United Nations Security Council. (1970). Letter from the permanent representative of Cambodia to the United Nations addressed to the president of the security council, 22 June. General Records of the Department of State (RG 59). Washington, DC.

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Angela S. Chiu, Helena M. Arose, and Ben B. Evans U.S. Attorney’s Office. (2019). Press release. Antiquities dealer charged with trafficking in looted Cambodian artifacts, Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 27 February. Available at: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/antiquities-dealer-chargedtrafficking-looted-cambodian-artifacts [Accessed: 12 September 2021]. Whoriskey, P., Politzer, M., Reuter, D., and Woodman, S. (2021). Global hunt for looted treasures leads to offshore trusts, Washington Post, 5 October. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ world/interactive/2021/met-museum-cambodian-antiquities-latchford/?itid=hp_pandora-brights [Accessed: 12 October 2021]. Winichakul, T. (1994). Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.

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24 DESTRUCTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN TIMES OF CONFLICT The Case of Syria Nour A. Munawar Introduction Since 2011, cultural heritage has been suffering from the consequences of the revolutionary Arab Spring movement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This started with a first wave in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria and continued with a second wave in Sudan and Algeria. The destruction of cultural heritage not only damages ancient cities and sites but also psychologically affects local populations residing within those areas (Viejo-Rose & Sørensen, 2015), where a loss of safety and security is an inevitable consequence of warfare (Isakhan, 2013). The ongoing conflict in large areas of Syria and Iraq gave rise to IS1, a group of nonstate radical actors with their own extremist ideology based on misleading interpretations of religious tenets. Their emergence was accompanied by hostile actions that were spread all over media platforms. One of IS’s main antagonistic activities was cultural cleansing, a term coined by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. This involved removing, displacing, persecuting, enslaving, and eliminating local communities, indigenous groups, and ethnic minorities. It also involved the intentional and targeted destruction of cultural heritage, such as that faced by the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq (Cunliffe et al., 2016; Isakhan & Shahab, 2020). As the conflict in Syria unfolded, the destruction of cultural heritage escalated. All of the country’s World Heritage Sites (i.e., the Ancient City of Aleppo, the Ancient City of Bosra, the Ancient City of Damascus, the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria, Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El Din, and the Site of Palmyra) sustained some form of damage. Sites, monuments, museums, and heritage buildings from all periods have suffered due to the conflict in Syria. These include the archaeological sites of Ebla, Dura-Europos, and Apamea, and the national museums of Aleppo, Idlib, and al-Raqqa. These exceptional incidents of heritage destruction attracted the attention of the international community, academic institutions, and media agencies to the consequences of the conflict and the negative impact it is having on the outstanding universal value of Syria’s patrimony. Over the past ten years of conflict, heritage destruction has taken many different forms, both direct and indirect. Different local and international actors have been involved, including DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-27

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the Syrian government, armed opposition groups, and non-state actors (e.g., IS, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as al-Nusra Front) in addition to global and regional powers (e.g., Russia, Iran, and France). I consider the establishment of IS, and its seizure of relatively large areas of Syria, one of the major turning points in the history of Syria’s asymmetric conflict, particularly with regard to the destruction of cultural heritage. This chapter provides an overview of the destruction of Syria’s cultural heritage from midMarch 2011 to April 2021. The heritage destruction is examined via key characteristics of three different phases of the conflict: phase 1 – heritage destruction pre-IS (March 2011–May 2014); phase 2 – heritage destruction under IS ( June 2014–March 2017); and phase 3 – heritage destruction post-IS (April 2017–April 2021). However, it should be emphasised that although the focus of damage changes in each phase, many forms are present throughout.

Phase 1: Heritage destruction Pre-IS (March 2011–May 2014) Since March 2011, Syria – including the state, the people, and the cultural heritage monuments and institutions – has been a victim of a conflict that has deeply damaged and destroyed many social, economic, and cultural aspects of the nation. As a survivor of Syria’s war and eyewitness to the prelude of the conflict, I will begin with a brief explanation of the background of Syria’s devastating twenty-first-century war. As a part of the Arab Spring public uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010, peaceful demonstrations ignited on the streets of Daraa in Southern Syria, in mid-March 2011, with people demanding economic and social reforms from Syria’s regime/government, which came to power in 1963 (Dupont & Passy, 2011; Dabashi, 2012; Howard & Hussain, 2013; Bishara, 2022). These protests were met with an oppressive and violent response by Syria’s notorious intelligence forces, which resulted in the arrest, injury, and death of local people demanding reformations. As a reaction to the government’s ferocious suppression attempts, demonstrations spread to other Syrian cities and villages, eventually provoking the public to demand the overthrow of the Ba’athist regime (BBC, 2016; González Zarandona & Munawar, 2020). Later, Syria’s regime deployed army troops to suppress public protests, while state-controlled media started to call the demonstrators infiltrators and saboteurs. Syrian cities and towns were besieged and starved by the Syrian Army (e.g., the siege of Daraa during April– May 2011). In July 2011, these bloody events stimulated some soldiers from the Syrian army and other citizens to form the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to defend the unarmed demonstrators. A division within Syrian society became apparent: state-controlled media labelled the uprising a crisis, while armed opposition groups called it a revolution. The United Nations later called this public uprising a civil war (Charbonneau, 2012). The asymmetry of Syria’s conflict attracted widespread international attention, and different alliances formed. Russia, Iran, and China supported Syria’s regime/government, and Türkiye, the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, in addition to other Western and European states, supported the rebel groups. At the same time, public demands for democratic reform continued (Munawar & Symonds, 2022). Escalating violence spread to Syria’s major cities (e.g., Daraa, Hama, and Homs), threatening cultural heritage sites and facilities, including Syria’s 38 museums located in the 14 governorates. As early as July 2011, a document leaked on social media revealed a statement issued by Syria’s prime minister, Adel Safar (April 2011–June 2012), about gangs of organised looters. The statement mentioned that these bands, which were equipped with sophisticated technology and had previously operated in Iraq and Libya, were now in Syria preparing to attack and loot archaeological sites and facilities (Cunliffe, 2012). Also in July 2011, one of the 302

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first instances of cultural heritage destruction occurred when a gold-plated, bronze statuette of an Aramaic deity, dating to the eighth century BCE, was looted from Hama Archaeological Museum (Cunliffe, 2012; Ali, 2013; Fakhro, 2020). The lack of security threatened all Syrian museums. Some were turned into military barracks or caught up in battles (i.e., museums in al-Raqqa, Deir Ez-Zor, Idlib, Ma’arat al-Nu’man, and Qal’at Ja’ber). Other museums suffered vandalism and looting (i.e., the Educational Museum of Aleppo and museums in DuraEuropos and Hama) (APSA, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c, 2012d; Ali et al., 2014). Many artifacts were stolen from the museum of Dura Europos in Eastern Syria, the folklore museum in Aleppo, Qal’at Ja’bar museum in al-Raqqa, and the museums in Ma’arrat al-Nu’man and Deir Attiyeh. This included pottery artifacts, metal weapons, glassware, a marble statuette, dolls and statues made of mud and clay, bronze coins, and a small golden earring (Abdulkarim, 2013; Ali et al., 2014; Deeb, 2015; Fakhro, 2020). During this conflict period, many cultural heritage and archaeological sites suffered, including Ebla (55 km south of Aleppo), Apamea (55 km north of Hama), the World Heritage Sites of Crac des Chevaliers and Palmyra, the Ancient City of Aleppo (particularly the Citadel of Aleppo and the historic souks of Aleppo), and the Great Umayyad Mosque, with its famous minaret that collapsed in April 2013. Some sites were occupied by the military forces of the regime/government or the rebels, and others were extensively damaged by shells and gunfire. In response to the heritage destruction, the United Nations condemned the use of archaeological and heritage sites for military purposes. They urged the fighting parties to stop military actions in cultural heritage areas and respect international conventions like the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (United Nations, 2014). Notably, Syria was one of the first signatory member states of this convention. A joint statement was issued by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova, and United Nations and League of Arab States Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi: “We call on all parties to halt immediately all destruction of Syrian heritage, and to save Syria’s rich social mosaic and cultural heritage by protecting its World Heritage Sites, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2139, adopted on 22 January 2014” (UN, 2014 online). Despite the UN’s condemnations, Syria’s heritage continued to be utilised as strategic location in the conflict by both the regime and the opposition. Phase 1 (see Figure 24.1) can be characterised by the increased media attention given to the destruction and loss of cultural heritage in the Ancient City of Aleppo. In July 2012, hostilities reached the core of Aleppo’s historic centre, and both fighting parties seized control of strategic locations in the city centre. Clashes eventually took place inside Aleppo’s Great Umayyad Mosque since the Syrian regime army and the FSA used it as a military base. Similar battles later occurred at other archaeological sites and facilities, such as Ebla and Palmyra (BBC, 2013). In addition to its local value, the Great Umayyad Mosque has been a tourist destination due to its clear historic and aesthetic values. In April 2013, a significant escalation of the hostilities occurred when the mosque’s minaret, which dates back to 1089–1094 CE, collapsed. The Syrian government claimed that the FSA surrounded the minaret with dynamite and then blew it up. On the other side of the narrative, the FSA accused the Syrian army of attacking the minaret with mortar shells from their tanks. However, the responsible party for the destruction is still anonymous since the media coverage was extremely limited during the hostilities in the old city of Aleppo. Syria’s conflict not only damaged tangible cultural heritage sites but also created counter-narratives of the war. It seems likely that these contesting narratives, produced by both parties in the conflict, have deepened the fragmentation of Syrians at home and in diaspora. The crux of 303

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Figure 24.1 Heritage destruction in Syria during pre-IS Phase 1 (March 2011–May 2014). © Nour A. Munawar 2022.

the matter is that the minaret is destroyed, and what is left is an accumulation of stones: meanwhile, both parties continue to accuse each other, just as they both used the minaret for sniper attacks. Moreover, many parts of the mosque, from the entrances to the corridors and halls, were burnt during the fighting, and the marble courtyard floor was pulled out and used for barricades (Karam, 2012). Another important feature of the Great Umayyad Mosque is the al-Waqfeya library. Located beneath the mosque, it contained more than 27,000 books, many tools for scientific research, and dozens of ancient manuscripts. In March 2013, it was burnt and destroyed: most of the books turned to ashes, and almost all the ancient manuscripts were either destroyed in their special lockers or smuggled out and sold illegally. As a result of the continuous violence in the Ancient City of Aleppo, most of the historic buildings have been either partially ruined or completely destroyed (Cunliffe, 2012; Abdulkarim, 2013; Perini & Cunliffe, 2014; Munawar, 2018; UNESCO/UNITAR, 2018). For instance, the perimeter of the Citadel of Aleppo was surrounded by historic buildings, including the al-Khusruwiyah Mosque (dated to the sixteenth century CE) and al-Sultaniyah Madrasa (dated to the thirteenth century CE). These were destroyed by explosives placed in tunnels dug beneath them (themselves arguably dug through older unexcavated levels of Aleppo). Warfare hostilities continued to damage the Ancient City of Aleppo and its historic monuments until December 2016, when the FSA fighters agreed to evacuate the city with their families after months of siege and starvation by the Syrian regime’s army. 304

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Phase 2: Heritage destruction, terrorism, and IS (June 2014–March 2017) When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of IS (2014–2019), gave his first speech in the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq, in July 2014, he announced the establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (IS). However, this organisation was not new. IS emerged as part of Osama bin Laden’s multi-national terrorist group, al-Qaeda. At that time, IS was called Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. It was founded in 1999 and later claimed to have mandated itself to join the Iraqi resistance against the US–UK-led invasion to Iraq in 2003. The name changed to the Islamic State in Iraq, and in 2013, the current name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant became official. Daesh is the Arabic-derived acronym of that name. The organisation is a radical militant group that claims to have adopted the Salafi jihadist ideology, which originated from Islamic fundamentalist Wahhabist doctrines (Schwartz, 2014; Tharoor, 2014; Sekulow, 2015; Wood, 2015; Jasko et al., 2018). After IS’s public announcement establishing the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate in Mosul in 2014, the extremists expanded their operations, seizing large areas of Syria and Iraq in addition to operations elsewhere, such as Libya and Egypt. Their seizure of lands was executed with brutality and involved cultural cleansing and the destruction of cultural heritage. With the rise of IS, the interest of media agencies and academic institutions covering heritage destruction initiated by radical extremists in the Arab region increased. The heritage destruction perpetrated by IS is characterised by different forms and motivations. IS seized control of the World Heritage Site of Palmyra in May 2015, launching a series of destructive, iconoclastic actions (Munawar, 2017). During IS’s first occupation of Palmyra, they demolished the statue of the Lion of al-Lat (dated to the first century CE) in June 2015. They destroyed the Baal-Shamin temple (dated to the second century BCE), the Bel temple, and the Tower of Elahbel (dated to the first century CE) in August 2015. Palmyra’s monumental Arch of Triumph (dated to the third century CE) was destroyed in October 2015 (Danti et al., 2017; Kamash, 2017; Munawar, 2017; Plets, 2017; Yazdi & Massoudi, 2017). IS’s destructive actions at Palmyra were motivated by a belief that such monuments promoted infidelity and a polytheistic ideology (De Cesari, 2015; Harmanşah, 2015; Munawar, 2017). When IS controlled Palmyra in 2015, heritage destruction extended to harming Syrian archaeologists. Tragically, the director of the Palmyra Museum, Khaled al-Asaad, was beheaded in 2015. In March 2016, Palmyra was liberated by the Syrian government army with the support of the Russian air force. The liberation was commemorated by a Russian orchestral concert and an online speech delivered by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, which was broadcast in Palmyra’s Roman theatre (dated to the second century CE). However, the liberation did not last long, as IS re-occupied the site in December 2016. During the second occupation of Palmyra, IS damaged the Roman theatre, where the Syrian-Russian celebration was held, and destroyed the Tetrapylon at the site (Meskell, 2018; Mudie, 2018; Munawar, 2019; Abdulkarim, 2020). In March 2017, Palmyra was finally liberated by Syrian forces. IS’s destruction of heritage has been well-documented by the extremist fighters themselves, who recorded incidents and sent them to media agencies (for further discussion of the documentation of IS’s heritage destruction, see Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). IS also published material in their own online magazine Dabiq. During this period, heritage destruction also included increasing attention to illegal excavations and the looting of archaeological sites (see Figure 24.2). For instance, it was reported that sites at Mari and Dura-Europos were extensively pillaged (AAAS, 2014; Daniels & Hanson, 2015; Frahm & Brody, 2019; Baird, 2020). Plundering archaeological remains was one of IS’s sources of revenue, alongside the oilfields they controlled in Northern Syria. As an indication of the 305

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Figure 24.2 Terrorism and heritage destruction in Syria, under IS Phase 2 ( June 2014–March 2017). © Nour A. Munawar 2022.

importance they placed on these activities, IS established a department of antiquities. The Manbij Archaeological Administration (MAA) (Al-Azm, 2015) and Diwan al-Rikaz (office of resources) were created to organise and manage the illicit trafficking and trade of archaeological antiquities. Casana (2015) analysed satellite images that documented looting in Syria. The images revealed that archaeological sites within IS-held areas had suffered the largest amount of illegal excavation and looting. Of the surveyed sites, over 40% had been looted, compared with about 22% of sites in the area controlled by the Syrian regime. Analysis shows that the pillaging of archaeological sites took place not only in areas held by IS but also in areas controlled by the other conflicting state and non-state parties. Archaeological sites held by Kurdish militias in Northern Syria and opposition-held areas were also looted; of the analysed sites, it is estimated that about 9% and 14% were impacted, respectively (Casana, 2015). IS, therefore, are not the only bad guys in Syria’s conflict: the different parties involved in the conflict (e.g., the Syrian regime, the FSA, Russia, Iran, and other regional and international powers) have all participated, in one way or another, in obliterating Syria’s patrimony.

Phase 3: Post-IS heritage destruction (April 2017–April 2021) Scholars and heritage observers note that the provocative actions of IS prompted international powers to directly intervene in the Syrian armed conflict. In response to IS’s expansion, particularly in Northern Syria, which is rich in archaeological sites and oil, the USA established 306

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a global coalition of 83 states to fight and liberate the IS-held areas in Syria and Iraq (Global Coalition, 2021). The global coalition worked with local non-state actors, such as the SDF, comprising a majority of Kurdish fighters and part of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), to help liberate Northern Syria and fill the security gap. Türkiye, which shares a 900 km border with Syria and hosted over three million Syrian refugees during the conflict, found the alliance unacceptable (the Turkish government considers YPG a terrorist organisation). Therefore, Türkiye decided to launch its own military operations (2016–2020) to clear the region of YPG, and any remaining IS militants to establish a safe zone for displaced Syrians seeking refuge. The liberated Northern Syria area was placed in the hands of the Turkishbacked FSA to avoid an absence of security that might otherwise lead to another occupation by IS fighters, as occurred in Palmyra in late 2016. Russia, on the other hand, continued to support the Syrian regime (see Munawar, 2017). Following the second liberation of Palmyra and the collapse of IS in Syria (and Iraq), the international community and media began focusing on reporting heritage destruction in these areas controlled by the other parties involved in the Syrian conflict. A different type of destruction began to emerge. In Northern Syria, at Manbej, al-Raqqa, and al-Hasaka, areas formerly under the control of IS and later Kurdish militias, there have been reports of illegal excavations supervised by French and American teams. The reports note that the discovered material was transferred to French and American military bases in Northern Syria and most likely smuggled out of the country (Adra, 2018; Misto, 2020). Syrian authorities condemned these foreign excavation teams, accusing them of looting Syria’s patrimony. Nevertheless, the armed conflict and lack of security at archaeological sites in Northern Syria may have re-awakened colonial practices from previous centuries, whereby Western powers unearthed biblical pasts. Simultaneously, social media platforms (i.e., Facebook) were proved to have become a source for recently uncovered mosaics and artifacts found in Northern Syria and elsewhere through the conflict. When Al-Azm and Paul (2018) pointed out how the looting and trafficking of Syria’s cultural goods were circulating on Facebook, the looters increased their work on private social media platforms, such as WhatsApp. However, illegal excavation in Northern Syria is still providing a source of income for local people suffering from the drastic consequences of the deteriorating economic situation: people dig for ancient artefacts and coins to sell on the black market as a way to support their families and fund daily living expenses (Karam, 2020). Combat damage continued in the post-IS heritage destruction period, with the devastation of the 3000-year-old temple at Ain Dara near the city of Afrin (considered to be one of the most extensively excavated sites in Syria) during the military operations to liberate Northern Syria (Engelhaupt, 2018). Heritage destruction in the post-IS period also extended to areas that have been outside of Syrian government control since 1967 (see Figure 24.3). The Syrian Golan Heights were occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. In 1981, the Israeli government passed a decision through the Knesset (Israeli parliament) to start constructing settlements there: this annexation defied United Nations Security Council resolution 497. More recently, the Israeli government convinced the USA’s Trump administration to recognise the area as a part of Israel. Organised Israeli archaeological teams have now been excavating in the occupied Golan Heights. For example, in November 2020, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared that an archaeological excavation team there discovered a 3000-year-old fort near the Israeli settlement of Hispin (France24, 2020; Gershon, 2020). No one can argue against the importance of such a discovery, its contribution to an understanding of the region’s 307

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Figure 24.3 Post-IS heritage destruction in Syria, Phase 3 (April 2017–April 2021). © Nour A. Munawar 2022.

history, nor the obligations of Israel as a member state of the 1954 Hague Convention to preserve and safeguard the cultural property of the occupied territories (Article 5).2 However, it is legally and ethically unacceptable to conduct archaeological excavations in occupied territories. The Israeli excavations in the Syrian-occupied Golan Heights, and their disregard of international conventions, further reflect how a nation’s cultural heritage can be impacted in times of conflict. Phase 3 of Syria’s cultural heritage destruction has been characterised by damage to archaeological and heritage sites that are out of the Syrian government’s control. The heritage destruction that took place between April 2017 and April 2021 was at a different scale, took new forms, and even had new perpetrators. The complexity of the Syrian armed conflict and the shaky legitimacy of Syria’s regime/government as the curator of the nation’s past, which has deteriorated drastically since the beginning of the conflict, both significantly contributed to the increased extent of damage to the patrimony of one of the world’s richest areas of archaeological remains.

Conclusion The destruction of Syria’s cultural heritage sites and monuments has obviously angered and saddened many people in the Arab region, as well as Western observers. Noticeably, the enormous public outcry in the West is related specifically to how monuments, such as Palmyra, are felt to have international significance. It has been the aim of this chapter to examine 308

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the destruction of Syria’s heritage during the past ten years. The destruction has not been committed by one particular party or during one single incident: instead, this chapter has shown it has taken many different forms and had many perpetrators with different motives. Some sites were deliberately targeted and damaged by particular groups for ideological reasons (e.g., Palmyra), while other sites suffered significant damage due to combat (e.g., Ancient City of Aleppo) or looting (e.g., Dura Europos). The destruction of cultural heritage, that has been taking place in Syria since the armed conflict began in March 2011, is not the only instance of damage to Syria’s cultural patrimony. Syria’s heritage has experienced destructive forces caused by humans (i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood’s uprising in 1982) and natural disasters (i.e., the devastating twelfth-century earthquake and the Kahramanmaras (Turkey) earthquake in Aleppo on February 6, 2023). Throughout history, events have affected cultural heritage sites and monuments. From an archaeological perspective, the destruction of Syria’s heritage has, in one way or another, left a mark on Syria’s past. As I have argued elsewhere, the processes of heritage destruction during Syria’s armed conflict, have the capacity to create a new heritage of conflict or, as I call it, a process of “heritigising the present” (Munawar, 2019). Viewing heritage as part of an ongoing historical narrative may eventually help people who have been affected by damaged heritage to overcome the trauma of war and start rebuilding their devastated homes and fractured multi-cultural communities. As a local archaeologist who witnessed the prelude of Syria’s war, heritage destruction has not only threatened – and damaged – heritage sites, monuments, and facilities, but it also has extended to include displacement of people, social, and ideological fragmentation in the local community. Narratives of heritage destruction by one side of the conflict provoked the other to create and promote counter narratives. This process continues nowadays; (hi)stories of conflict are now planned to be included in school curriculum in a way that criminalises the other and accuses them with terrorism. Syrians, at home and in diaspora, suffered the most from a conflict that (a) destroyed their heritage; (b) displaced more than half of the population; (c) engraved deep wounds in the collective memory; and most importantly (d) divided people who used to live under the same roof. Hence, it is my belief that post-conflict heritage should have a healing role to become a tool for national reconciliation, tolerance, and resilience and not to be used as an opportunity to re-write the history of a conflict.

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 For further clarification, see Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention, 14 May 1954. Available at: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/pdf/1954_Convention_EN_ 2020.pdf [Accessed: 2 May 2021].

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25 IRAQ Creative Destruction and Cultural Heritage in the Warscape Zainab Bahrani

An accounting of historical destruction in Iraq might begin in the present moment and move back to the past, as in an archaeological process of uncovering layers and the traces of activities that they leave behind with each ensuing generation appearing upon, and taking up as its own, the ravaged landscape of the earlier ones. An ancient land of wide vistas punctuated with ruins and vestiges of the past gradually rises to the craggy mountains at the east and to the north; a land with centuries of historical architecture, monuments, and antiquities, Iraq has seen considerable destruction through warfare and development. The latter is directly tied to the former in several ways and, more recently, has taken the form of what David Harvey calls neoliberal creative destruction (Harvey, 2007). The so-called Islamic State (IS)1 destruction, disseminated in advanced forms of visual media, is perhaps best known (Harmansah, 2015; Flood, 2016; Cunliffe & Curini, 2018; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018). Here, I will shift the focus and begin earlier in the story, exploring the larger landscape of destruction. Beginning with the rise of imperialist-colonial archaeology, I contend that episodes such as those of IS are part of a geographical transformation of Iraq by means of the long war, a transformation that depends upon the entanglement of the geopolitical, the biopolitical, and the geo-economic (Gregory, 2011), an entanglement that I argue includes the landscape of what has come to be defined as cultural heritage. In this transformation, Iraq became a staging ground for wars and for particular strategies of occupation that depended upon the reconfiguration of landscape and neighbourhoods, and the dislocation of peoples and communities, all of which involved to greater or lesser extents instrumentalisations of ideas of heritage and the built environment, as well as cultural appropriation and historical representations. After a brief overview of the rise of scientific archaeology in Ottoman Iraq, a process that ushered in a new age of destructive appropriation and collecting, I present a broadly sketched account of the Gulf Wars and their aftermath from 1990–2021. This period is characterised by war, terrorism, and military occupation; by looting for an international market of heritage commodities; and by development, all of which have resulted in the destruction and recasting of historical environments, landscapes, and monuments, as well as traditional neighbourhoods within urban centres. The US occupation of Iraq ended in 2011, yet there has neither been a survey of war damage nor any accountability for it, or for civilian deaths. It may seem that death counts and laws of war are unrelated to heritage; however, my argument is that this destruction can DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-28

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be understood along the lines of biopolitics. One cannot address IS’s demolitions without mention of slavery and death. Likewise, the injury and destruction resulting from the 1991 war and embargo have yet to be recognised, either in terms of death counts and human suffering, such as the targeting of civilians in the Amiriyeh air raid shelter (Boustany, 1991) or in an accounting of historical damage. IS turned both the destruction of monuments and the killing of human beings into an international spectacle that captured the attention of the world, reviving stereotypes of Muslim iconoclasm (Harmansah, 2015; Flood, 2016). However, the entanglement of people, monuments, and landscapes means that this destruction of the built environment was not iconoclastic so much as biopolitical. It fits within a framework of division and allocation of the association of what came to be defined as pure ethnic or sectarian groupings with buildings and heritage sites. Heritage, as the editors of this volume point out, is a construction. It is not a neutral category to set apart from the political, and the re-definition of heritage in ethnocentric and sectarian terms has increased since 2003, first encouraged by the Coalition Provisional Administration, then by the new sectarian government apparatuses and their related distribution of finances and positions along what is known as the Muhasasa system. Cultural heritage – as a term in policy papers and in academic publications – is inadequately theorised, and often presented as a transparent category when it is not. Yet apart from the epiphenomenal world of NGOs and ivory tower archaeology, there is nevertheless the lived experience of people in relationship to historical and natural environments. Their destruction results in the loss of ways of life and livelihoods, such as farming and sheep herding, and inabilities to participate in religious ceremonies at sacred sites. The loss is thus also that of the related tangible and intangible cultures associated with such places. In the past decade, international preservation efforts have also emerged as an aspect of the larger problems with development and restructuring that leads to forms of long-term damage, dislocation, and re-definitions of historical monuments along ethno-sectarian lines (Bahrani, 2017). My aim here is not to provide a comprehensive survey but to reveal the links between war, development, and biopolitics, conjoining the creative destruction of neoliberalism with sovereign power and the domain of life, its social management and regulation through strategies of knowledge production about cultural heritage on the one hand, and the death and displacement of people and devastation of environments on the other.

Colonial archaeology: Collecting for the empire In the nineteenth century, digging at ruins, the extraction and transportation of antiquities increased in terms of proportion and scale. Although travellers had always come to the east, and many had picked up antiquities to take back to Europe, the scale of acquisition in the nineteenth century was unprecedented. These efforts increasingly relied upon more complex technologies of removal and shipment in order – for example – to take large-scale architectural sculptures to the newly established museums in London and Paris (Bahrani et al., 2011; Çelik, 2016). This turn of events in which diplomats, spies, and East India Company officials turned to digging, is marked by a growing employment of technologies and developments in industrial engineering and the growth of popular print media that supported the efforts of removing antiquities. It also conscripted the acquiescence of people at home in Europe by presenting these efforts in such a way as to allow the public to feel invested as subjects and citizens at the centre of a civilising empire (Bennett, 2004; Malley, 2012). It was an effort that allowed new museum collections to anchor the positionality of the imperial subject at the centre of an imperial range of acquisition so that from London or Paris, a vast and exotic geographical stretch could be substantiated materially and simultaneously defined historically. 314

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Thus, the activities of early archaeology and collecting came to mark an era of territorial claim to a landscape which was soon reconfigured and renamed, partly by means of the discursive and increasingly relied on new archaeological definitions and labels to conjure Mesopotamia. They purported to delineate with the scientific accuracy of the mapmaker’s craft and the archaeologist’s eye, a land that could be classified and chronologised, packed and shipped, known by the intrepid orientalists, but not by the primitive Orientals who misapprehended their own past (Said, 1978, 1991; Bahrani, 1998; 2003). Colonial archaeology sought not only to acquire material objects and monuments for economic value or as cultural capital but also to shape relations to the past both through dislocation and the exercise of particular forms of knowledge and expertise, for example, in museums and scholarship (Said, 1978; Foucault, 1982; Bennett, 2004).

Gulf Wars: The new category of collateral damage This was the background of Near Eastern Archaeology when in 1990, the first Gulf War was declared. In 1991, the US did not specifically target ancient sites or monuments with aerial bombardment, yet several were nevertheless hit. During this war, both the civilian death toll and the destruction of environments and heritage began to be classified as collateral damage. Although first used during the Vietnam War and now common in popular culture and warfare alike, at the time it was a newly deployed term that sanitised the violence of warfare. The ziggurat of Ur and its ancient sacred precinct were hit by US missiles, and the archaeological site of Tell al Lahm was used as a US military position, where large-scale machinery excavations took place to accommodate the troops (Gibson, 1997). The latter case prefigured what was to come in 2003–2004 when heritage sites such as Babylon, Ur, and Kish were occupied by the military (Bahrani, 2010). Although requested, both by the Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage and UNESCO, an inventory of war damage was denied by the UN Security Council because of the international embargo on Iraq (Gibson, 1997). Some monuments suffered structural damage because of the scale of the sorties and the power of the bombing campaign. The quantity of explosives dropped on Iraq in that monthlong air assault surpassed that of the entire allied offensive of the Second World War (Ismael & Ismael, 1994). The Iraqi dead were never counted (Ismael & Ismael, 1994; Baudrillard, 1995; Eleey & Katrib, 2020). Among the historical buildings damaged indirectly in the air campaign, and further by the lack of conservation materials during the years of sanctions, was the Arch of Ctesiphon, known as Taq Kesra or Ayvan-i Kesra (the arch of Khusrau, the Sasanian king). This colossal arch, 84 ft/26 m high, is the last remaining vaulted Iwan of the Parthian-Sasanian palace at al Mada’in. It is the largest single span, parabolic barrel vault in the world. As a result of the US bombing, a new crack appeared in the vault. Yet a report on the recent stabilisation effort led by Michael Danti states that the damage is due to neglect and climate change (Gronlund, 2021). Ctesiphon is a good example of how the historical architectural monuments of Iraq, now classified as cultural heritage by international organisations such as UNESCO, had been relevant in Iraq long before the invention of that classification. The arch was known as a landmark ancient structure, valued throughout the Ottoman era, and considered to be the site of a divine miracle in the Muslim traditions of Iraq and Iran. It also became a source of inspiration for the Iraqi Modernist Movement of the mid-twentieth century (Bahrani, 2020). Thus, when such monuments are destroyed, the damage is not limited to the historical structure itself. It affects one’s sense of context and belonging. 315

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The 1991 war was followed by popular uprisings in a concerted effort to overthrow the government, but they were soon quashed by the regime. At Kirkuk, the city’s population was punished with attacks and demolition of historical architecture and its surroundings (Bahrani, 2020). The Baathist regime’s response to these uprisings was brutal, and in the chaos, nine of the thirteen regional museums were looted and damaged. Their contents were most likely destined for an international market in antiquities that was to grow exponentially during the years of the embargo. Thousands of Islamic era manuscripts, ancient artefacts, and cuneiform tablets were looted in 1991 (Gibson & McMahon, 1992; Baker et al., 1993; Fujii & Oguchi, 1996). The economic sanctions established by UN Resolution 661 of August 1990 meant that no preservation efforts were allowed and that materials necessary for such work were banned (Gerbner, 1992; Zangana, 2007), as were items of scholarship and teaching such as journals or books. Pencils and paper for children were prohibited, being described as dual usage, potentially dangerous items (Gerbner, 1992; Zangana, 2007). The sanctions decimated the population rather than the regime. Iraqi artists and writers responded to this devastation by transforming heritage traditions in contemporary art, taking up the theme of destruction as an anti-war theme (Eleey & Katrib, 2020). Archaeological sites suffered a massive increase in looting. In countries such as the US, Great Britain, Switzerland, Israel, and Japan, illicitly acquired antiquities were purchased by museums, and authenticated by leading scholars, while officials high in the Baathist regime also participated in selling off the country’s heritage (Longworth, 1992; Gibson, 1997). The flow of antiquities into this growing consumer market increased, supported by claims of Global Cultural Heritage – a notion of heritage posited in opposition to national claims, seen as retentionist by those who argued for the benefit of removing antiquities from what came to be termed “source countries” (e.g., Cuno, 2008).

Occupation: History and strategies of war During the 2003 war and US occupation, museums and archaeological sites were further looted, and historical monuments and architecture again suffered extensive damage, in part because of policy decisions. These disasters were accompanied by the large-scale destruction and looting of archives and libraries. The material and tangible losses were exacerbated by a decision of the Coalition Provisional Authority which resulted in long-term historical erasure. Under the rule of Paul Bremer, a de-Baathification process removed museum staff and academics from their posts, gutting museums and institutions of higher learning, and pushing many professionals and intellectuals to leave the country. At the same time, and continuing for the following five years, Iraq saw a massive wave of targeted assassinations of scholars and scientists. Issam al Rawi, a Professor of Geology at Baghdad University and head of the Association of University Teachers of Iraq, recorded hundreds of names before he too was murdered in 2006 (Baker et al., 2010). Those responsible for the assassinations have not been identified. What is clear, however, is that the de-Baathification process brought about long-term institutional damage well beyond the initial days of looting and burning. The Bremer plan resulted in the large-scale destruction and evisceration of apparatuses of knowledge and memory. The physical damage and losses that occurred because of the looting of museums and the burning of the National Library and State Archives – which took place during the ground war in 2003 – were thus accompanied by the demolition of forms and institutions of knowledge and memory, and the killing or displacement of hundreds of academics and intellectuals. 316

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At official heritage sites (listed or categorised as heritage by organisations such as UNESCO or by disciplines such as art history or archaeology), another type of destruction took place (Bahrani, 2010). In 2003 US and coalition forces took over the ancient city of Babylon and transformed it into a military base. It was the largest base outside Baghdad, housing thousands of troops, as well as large installations of the military contractor, KBR. It required digging for sewers and water for barracks. A helicopter landing zone was built into the centre of the site, and the area was covered with tanks and heavy vehicles (Bahrani, 2005; 2008; 2010; Kathem & Ali, 2020). Coalition forces used the Hellenistic theatre and the Babylonian processional way for military victory parades (Mirzoeff, 2004). Walls were damaged by soldiers who deliberately removed ancient objects as souvenirs of a tour of duty. The damage to the structures and the archaeological layers was extensive and irreversible. Only after months of negotiation with Iraqi archaeologists and representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, the camp was shut down. When some years later, a UNESCO report was drawn up, the document was flawed by the fact that it was produced from an internal investigation by official representatives of the same occupying powers responsible for the damage that they were tasked to investigate (UNESCO, 2009). A lead author was the British civil servant John Curtis, curator at the British Museum, whose galleries display many antiquities from Iraq acquired with the nineteenth-century practices I described before. Wall texts installed there for public outreach purposes described the damage at Babylon; yet written in the passive voice, they avoided reference to the forces responsible, which included the British military. As a result of the military occupation of Babylon, the remaining walls of the Ishtar Gate were damaged by soldiers. Coalition troops believed they had all been built by Saddam Hussein, who indeed had ordered bad reconstructions with bricks bearing his own inscriptions in Arabic.2 A hundred years earlier, the German architect Robert Koldewey had excavated Babylon, and the Ishtar Gate and processional way reliefs were later transported to Berlin. The site was stripped of most of its glazed brickwork surfaces and its monumental gate. The 1980s reconstructions were thus a misguided effort to rebuild at a site bereft of structures taken to Berlin and this original removal I contend, resulted in long-term, multiple layers of destruction. Now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, Babylon has thus been subjected to large scale damage since the earliest excavations. Several heritage sites became coalition military bases in 2003, although Babylon was the largest of these encampments (Bahrani, 2008; 2010). Post-war surveys of the damage have yet to be conducted. During the 2003 war and its aftermath, looting of archaeological sites to feed the trade in antiquities has been especially destructive and continues unabated. However, another aspect of the loss of historical or heritage material from Iraq that ought to be considered as a key act of erasure and control of the narrative has been the burning and removal of archives (Al-Tikriti, 2007). Archives taken from the country during the occupation have been the subject of heated debates about the right to historical documents (Eskander, 2008; 2014; Alshaibi, 2019; Whiting, forthcoming). Approximately 100 million pages of documents were seized and taken to Qatar to be searched for evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Whiting, forthcoming). Other archives were ostensibly removed for purposes of conservation. The latter includes archives of the former Baath regime, files kept from the surveillance of the Iraqi people, as well as the Iraqi Jewish Archive of documents and religious texts of the Iraqi Jews who were forced out in the mid-twentieth century. The Baath archive was returned in August of 2020, but its seizure and relocation to the United States for 17 years meant that knowledge was inaccessible to Iraqis. That the removal and control of archives influence control over the writing of history is self-evident (Eskandar, 2008; Whiting, forthcoming). 317

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Terrorism: The erasure of a history of diversity A vast destruction took place under the regime of IS, which took over large swathes of Iraq and Syria and made the city of Mosul in northern Iraq their centre in 2014. The Mosul Museum, the Assyrian capitals of Nimrud/Kalhu and Nineveh, and numerous other historical and religious monuments were attacked. Their attacks resulted in extensive destruction in Mosul, in Sinjar, and elsewhere across Iraq including Kirkuk and the regions of Diyala, Salahaddin, and Anbar. However, I will focus here only on one monument: the shrine of Nebi Yunis (the Prophet Jonas) at Mosul. The destruction of this historical-religious site demonstrates that the attacks were not limited to a single religion or community (although there is no question that the Yezidi community was a foremost target of annihilation and that a large part of the Christian population was attacked or displaced) but rather, Nebi Yunis was a place for joint worship. It was not a site that represented tolerance of the other, but one that represented a community that was one of interfaith practices and traditions, where people of different faiths held many of the same shrines to be sacred and where Nebi Yunis stood for this possibility of peaceful co-existence. Its destruction (and that of many other sites) can thus be understood as a desire to eliminate the material evidence of this history of interfaith practices. Interfaith shrines are (or were) widespread in Iraq. Numerous shrines throughout the country had been multi-religious, as seen in the example recently described by Jane Arraf, Baghdad’s Tomb of Joshua (Arraf, 2021). It was also not uncommon in the traditions of Iraq for a Christian to make a vow (Nithir) in a mosque or for a Muslim to make a vow in a church, and historically, at least some Yezidi and Shiite shrines were one and the same (Gailani, 2014). IS’s aim was to erase this history. Alongside the genocidal killing of people, their aim was to obliterate the material evidence of their existence. The current ethno-sectarian ideologies of the state of Iraq, including Iraqi Kurdistan, have also re-written these histories of diversity for their own political goals, at times erasing traditional toponyms in use for centuries, another well-known strategy of erasure in colonialism. In parallel with these internal state efforts, international funding agencies for preservation projects have often chosen to delineate sites and shrines along clear-cut and delimited sectarian or ethnic lines. Thus, both local and international decisions separate and re-define religious sites and histories that in the past were far more fluid and indefinite and might even be described as erratic and haphazard, growing out of the unstructured (and uncategorisable) lived experience of people in a diverse, multilingual, ethnic, and religious society. In many ways, the crisis mode of reaction to IS has inadvertently perpetuated their ideology through narratives of destruction and funding support defined along ethnocentric and sectarian lines. An industry of cultural heritage crisis response has now emerged, and that industry has propelled NGOs, academic appointments, and publications, including the present volume. Archaeologists and heritage experts, many of whom have never been to Iraq and know none of its languages or traditions, present themselves as spokespeople for us. A new sector of heritage professionals is increasingly tied to political and economic investment aimed at the neoliberal restructuring of Iraq initiated in 2003. Post-war preservation projects, like development, are tied to aspects of warfare (Bahrani, 2017).

Development, cultural heritage, and the politics of the past The IS episode was not the first time that religious fanatics had destroyed Iraq’s historical shrines. In 1802, a group of Wahhabis from Arabia entered Iraq and attacked the Shiite pilgrimage sites at Kerbala (Çeylan, 2011). These shrines were restored soon after, but today 318

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they are endangered by development, now one of the biggest threats to heritage. Near ancient Assur, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, the Mak’houl Dam will flood a large area around the city and destroy numerous smaller ancient sites around. Everywhere across the country, development is set to destroy sites classified as cultural heritage, but equally important is that traditional neighbourhoods are vanishing. This is nothing new. Between 1869 and 1872, the Ottoman governor Midhat Pasha ordered the extensive demolition of Baghdad for the sake of urban development and expansion so that much of the historical city was demolished in the nineteenth-century push for modernisation (Çeylan, 2011). A massive restructuring of neighbourhoods also took place in 2003–2004. This time the changes were not simply a loss of historical architectural fabric but included population displacement into purified ethno-sectarian zones (Damluji, 2010). At Erbil, while the citadel has been renovated, the lower town below, its streets filled with equally significant Ottoman era houses, is being left to collapse, no doubt to permit development in that prime location at the city centre. The neighbourhood had its population removed, ostensibly for renovation, and is now a ghost town of Ottoman era ruins.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that the destruction of cultural heritage in Iraq must be looked at in the longue durée and that imperial-colonial archaeology, with its removal of entire walls and structures to the West, left behind devastated contexts that in turn led to further destruction. In many ways, this process of appropriation depended upon re-definitions of antiquity, which scientific archaeology dissociated from the living people and the land, both physically and discursively (Bahrani, 1998; 2003). The ways in which people and historical environments are entangled were then also disrupted and damaged by the Gulf Wars and by IS. I further argued that this targeting of lives and contexts of living, of the material evidence of diversity, alongside the direction of forms of knowledge and expertise, in Foucault’s terms, falls under the biopolitical restructuring of the domain of life and livelihood. The devastation of historical sites, archives, and material traces of the past, cannot be understood as epiphenomena, unrelated to colonial-imperialist interests. This fraught history, in which layers of destruction continue to spur on ever new forms of neoliberal demolition for development and tourism and ever-increasing sectarian divisions, was supported first by teleological histories and now by the category of cultural heritage itself.

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh (derived from an acronym) and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 The remarks on the military occupation at Babylon are based on my own observations there in the spring and summer of 2004.

References Al-Tikriti, N. (2007). “Stuff Happens”: A Brief Overview of the 2003 Destruction of Iraqi Manuscript Collections, Archives, and Libraries. Library Trends 55(3), pp.730–745. Alshaibi, W.H. (2019). Weaponizing Iraq’s Archives. Middle East Report 291, pp.3–9. Arraf, J. (2021). Tomb of Joshua, Revered Prophet, Beckons Believers in Baghdad. New York Times, 20 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/world/middleeast/baghdadiraq-joshua-tomb.html [Accessed: 20 February 2021].

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Iraq Gronlund, M. (2021). Arch of Ctesiphon: Clock is ticking to preserve 1,700 year old ancient arch in Iraq. The National News, 14 February. Available at: https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/art/ arch-of-ctesiphon-clock-is-ticking-to-preserve-1-700-year-old-ancient-arch-in-iraq-1.1165341 [Accessed: 14 February 2021]. Harmansah, Ö. (2015). Isis, Heritage, and the Spectacle of destruction the global media. Near Eastern Archaeology 78(3), pp.170–177. Harvey, D. (2007). Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 610(1), pp.22–44. Isakhan, B., and González Zarandona, J. (2018). Layers of Religious Iconoclasm under the Islamic State Symbolic Sectarianism and pre-Monotheistic Iconoclasm. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24, pp.1–16. Ismael, T.Y., and Ismael, J.S. (1994). The Gulf War and the New World Order. 2nd edn. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Kathem, M., and Ali, D.K. (2020). Decolonising Babylon. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(2), pp.163–177. Longworth, R.C. (1992). Iraq Artifacts Stolen During War. Chicago Tribune, 5 March. Available at: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-03-05-9201210178-story.html [Accessed: February 2021]. Malley, S. (2012). From Archaeology to Spectacle in Victorian Britain. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Mirzoeff, N. (2004). Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture. London: Routledge. Said, E.W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. ——— (1991). Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books. UNESCO. (2009). Final Report on Damage Assessment in Babylon. International Coordination Committee for the Safeguarding of the Cultural Heritage of Iraq. Available at: https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/ Damage_Assessment_in_Babylon.pdf Whiting, R.A. (forthcoming). Destruction and Displacement: the 2003 war and the Struggle for Iraq’s Records. In: Prescott, A., and Wiggins, A. (eds). Archives: Power, Truth, and Fiction (Oxford TwentyFirst Century Approaches to Literature). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zangana, H. (2007). City of Widows. New York: Seven Stories Press.

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26 IRAQI AND SYRIAN RESPONSES TO HERITAGE DESTRUCTION UNDER THE ISLAMIC STATE Genocide, Displacement, Reconstruction, and Return Benjamin Isakhan and James Barry Introduction The rapid advance of the “Islamic State” (IS1) across Syria and Iraq from 2013 onwards had devastating consequences for the myriad peoples of the region and their key heritage sites. In terms of human suffering, the IS executed thousands and dumped their bodies in mass graves, kidnapped women to be used as sex slaves, and forced millions to flee their homes to become internally displaced or refugees in foreign lands. Not surprisingly, such actions – especially where they targeted specific ethnic and religious minorities such as Yezidis, Christians, Shiites, and others – prompted international condemnation and have been recognised as a genocide by several key state governments and multilateral bodies (UNAMI/OHCHR, 2015; UNHCR, 2015; Mitchell, 2016; Moore, 2016; Stone, 2016). As (then) US Secretary of State John Kerry put it, the IS are “genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions” (Kerry, 2016). Paralleling their genocidal pogroms, the IS also undertook a systematic iconoclastic campaign across the territories they controlled which included the looting and razing of ancient archaeological sites, the annihilation of spiritual centres which contradicted their strict Salafist-jihadist doctrine, and the desecration of museums, libraries, and art galleries. Most notoriously, throughout 2015, the IS released several propaganda videos at which they documented their destruction at key heritage since, including the Mosul Museum,2 where IS militants used sledgehammers to topple and destroy priceless statues and artefacts; the ancient Assyrian cities of Nineveh and Nimrud where they used power tools to deface giant wingedbull statues and, at Nimrud, went on to detonate explosives rigged across the site; and the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Hatra and Palmyra where, at the former, the IS used assault rifles and pickaxes to destroy invaluable carvings and, at the latter, they used explosives to lay wreckage to monuments, temples, and historical buildings. In response to this destruction, a number of scholarly works have sought to document, analyse, and interpret various aspects of the heritage destruction wrought by the IS. This has included works which attempt to uncover the ways in which the IS have selectively re-interpreted specific theological doctrine and historical events to justify their iconoclasm (Melčák & Beránek, 2017; Isakhan & González Zarandona, 2018), their use of social media to 322

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shock local and global audiences (Smith et al., 2016; Cunliffe & Curini, 2018), the failures of state governments, multinational bodies, and international law to respond effectively (Brodie, 2015; Al Quntar & Daniels, 2016) and the role that heritage reconstruction may come to play in some form of post-conflict stabilisation and peacebuilding process (Lostal & Cunliffe, 2016; Isakhan & Meskell, 2019). However, to date, very few studies have sought to document how Syrians or Iraqis who witnessed the destruction of their heritage sites and were forcibly displaced by the IS have perceived and interpreted the destruction of their heritage, the complex ways in which such destruction shaped their displacement, and the extent to which heritage reconstruction can play a role in their return (Isakhan & Shahab, 2020). This is generally true of the broader study of heritage in conflict. Indeed, despite the large volume of literature on heritage in conflict, only a handful of recent studies have begun to document how people who have been displaced by conflict experience heritage destruction or their efforts to reconstruct and reclaim their heritage in diverse contexts (Butler & Al-Nammari, 2016; Peutz, 2017; Wollentz, 2017; De Cesari, 2019; Hochberg, 2020; Kuutma & Annist, 2020; Orjuela, 2020). This chapter seeks to contribute to this emerging body of scholarship by presenting the results of 53 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Iraqis and Syrians, many of whom were eyewitnesses to heritage destruction and were forcibly displaced by the IS.3 It begins by documenting their feelings of trauma at witnessing the destruction, the ways in which this challenged the very fabric of their personal memories and communal identities, and the extent to which it was viewed as integral to the broader genocidal campaigns undertaken by the IS across Syria and Iraq. As many were forced to flee in the face of such destruction, the chapter proceeds to focus on the ways in which heritage destruction shaped their physical and emotional displacement. It then documents the interviewees’ divergent experiences and understandings of the role that heritage reconstruction can play in fostering their return. The chapter concludes that further research is needed to catalogue the complex ways that displaced people experience heritage destruction and the role that heritage reconstruction may play in re-building inter-communal dialogue and peace.

Trauma, genocide, identity, and memory Having endured the horrors unleashed by the IS across Syria and Iraq, it is not surprising that several respondents commented on their sense of loss and trauma at the destruction of heritage sites. As just one example, a Sunni Arab woman from Mosul described her deeply emotional response after watching the destruction of the Nabi Yunus mosque on television and then subsequently visiting the site after it had been destroyed. “My reaction was like trauma. When I heard of this destruction, it was like trauma for me … Every time I am going and seeing this destroyed mosque, I feel like something has been destroyed in my life or inside me” (IN025). For many others, the trauma of witnessing the destruction of their heritage was viewed as a deliberate strategy by the IS and an integral component of the broader genocidal campaign undertaken against the myriad peoples of Syria and Iraq. One Assyrian man from Mosul provided an example of the link between the destruction of heritage and the persecution of people. He stated: It is a genocide because genocide is not only killing you, but a genocide is also by removing your identity. So, when your foundation is removed, it is a genocide too. They didn’t have the chance to kill you, so they removed your culture, they removed your identity, they removed your churches. (IN019) 323

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This was explained in more detail by one Yezidi man from Sinjar: The vast majority of the shrines in the area [Sinjar] that were accessible to ISIS were blown up and burned and destroyed completely. This is part of their cultural genocide. They wanted to erase everything that connected us to our culture and heritage because Sinjar is an ancestral homeland for the Yezidi people. And ISIS knew exactly what they were doing. They raped the women, they traumatised the community, they forcefully converted them to Islam so people will lose their faith. And also, they blew up their religious places and shrines so they have no place of worship … the community interpreted the loss of their shrines as part of genocide. (IN014) Key to understanding the extent to which the destruction of heritage sites across Syria and Iraq was experienced as part of the broader IS genocide is the important role that these sites played in providing a sense of identity and belonging. For many respondents, these were much more than mere historical or religious sites, they were also significant hubs for social gatherings, communal solidarity, and cultural practice. As one respondent, a Chaldean woman from Baghdad explained, “The building is for prayer and worship. But it is also for community. To see and speak with our neighbours” (IN033). By targeting these heritage sites, the IS were therefore able to rupture the fundamental role that such places played in communal identity and a sense of belonging. As one respondent, a Yezidi woman from Bashiqa put it: Yes our shrines and the churches have been destroyed and that left a big scar in our hearts. Before ISIS we did not have parks we just had the shrines so in that place we could find our mental and psychological rest. We the Yezidis consider it the link between God and us, we leave our wishes there and it was also a place for lovers and friends to meet each other. So when it was destroyed we were effected a lot. It holds a lot of nice memories like the religious ceremonies where we would gather and have beautiful parties there … In there the Yezidi bury their dead and visit their dead. Also, it is the place of their prayers to God. As well as a place to gather the people and to make the special ceremonies for the Yezidis. The shrines are all of that to the Yezidis, so imagine the negative effect its destruction will leave on the community. (IN028) Given the role that heritage sites played in building and maintaining communal identity and belonging, it is little surprise that several respondents also documented the profound loss of memory they experienced when their heritage sites were destroyed. As an example, one interviewee, a Chaldean woman from Tel Eskof who returned briefly to her hometown after it was liberated from the IS, recounted her pleasant memories of her local church and her reactions to it being damaged by the IS. For her, the church “was a quiet and comfortable place, where you could feel peace and close to God”. More to the point, the building was filled with the memories of significant life events, “My family were baptised there, and it is where I got married”. But when she witnessed the destruction of the church, she reported feeling “that all my memories had been broken and my heart. It was a very difficult thing. I had a lot of memories there from childhood … When we saw this [the destruction] had happened, we cried” (IN034). Another respondent, an Armenian man from Aleppo, expressed similar sentiments: 324

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when you are destroying a church you are destroying a memory, a history. When there is no history, there is no memory. I feel the same about Syria, but I hurt. My everything has gone. (IN016)

Displacement and heritage destruction This sense of profound loss and trauma was also evident in the ways that respondents discussed the mass displacement of many Syrians and Iraqis since the IS onslaught from 2013. Thousands became internally displaced, fleeing to other parts of Iraq and Syria where most lived in makeshift camps; others crossed borders and became refugees in neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon; and many fled further afield to seek asylum or migrate to Europe, the US, Canada, or Australia. Several respondents stated that the destruction of heritage sites by the IS had in fact been a key catalyst in people’s decision to leave, as they felt that there was nothing left to keep them in the region. Putting it succinctly, one interlocutor claimed that “when people saw that churches were being destroyed, schools were being destroyed, they said ‘yes, it’s time to move out’” (IN016). Another respondent, an Assyrian woman from Dohuk, elaborated: The one reason that keeps Assyrians to stay in Iraq [is] … the feeling that they are belonging to this country. And the one proof that they belong to this country are those [heritage] places. If they are destroyed, we are not feeling we are from this country. (IN022) However, for many other interviewees and despite several of them now living away from their traditional homelands, the mass exodus from Syria and Iraq also posed an existential threat to the survival of the unique cultural and religious mosaic of the region. As one respondent, a Syriac Orthodox man from Bartella, put it: “If our community leaves and doesn’t return, if all our holy sites are destroyed, then our community will completely disappear forever. Thousands of years of beautiful history will be gone forever” (IN050). Other respondents offered concrete examples of how displacement was negatively affecting the ability of certain groups to practise their unique cultural customs. For small minorities like the Yezidis, life in refugee camps had significantly undermined their ability to participate in specific religious rituals. As one Yezidi man from Sinjar put it: When a lot of Yezidis were displaced — the vast majority of them were displaced into refugee camps — the Yezidi people then had no way of practising their religion and their culture and their religious holidays and so on. Those days were like we had lost our culture. Because there was no way to practise our religion … many of the children and young people were starting to forget about their identity. (IN014) Other respondents focused more specifically on the plight of those who had migrated out of the Middle East and the challenges this posed to the survival of specific cultural practices and religious rituals. As another Yezidi man from Sinjar explained: Another problem is that a very big number of Yezidis have immigrated to Western countries. And this is another way that Yezidi culture is being destroyed. Especially the children because they are not getting enough information about their religion. 325

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They will forget their religion … So it’s not only by destroying the places that our culture is being destroyed — also by our people when they leave the country because they can no longer practise their culture, religion and traditions. (IN015) These sentiments were not unique to the Yezidis, with others expressing concerns that migration out of Syria and Iraq would lead to the erosion of the intangible elements of their culture, such as language, traditional dress, and religious rituals and customs. As one Chaldean man from Baqofah put it: Day by day we are losing our heritage. We are losing our language. Our people who have travelled to America, to Canada, to Europe. They speak this language but for how many years? The parents they speak the language, but the children are using English now. Also when people are not together there are difficulties in keeping the culture alive because we become weak. (IN023)

Reconstruction and return While heritage destruction motivated some respondents to flee their ancestral homelands, it also led others to consider the role that the reconstruction of heritage sites may come to play in fostering inter-communal dialogue and (post-)conflict peacebuilding. However, for others, the destruction of heritage sites had not only been a key motive for many to flee Syria and Iraq but was also one reason why they might never return. As one Assyrian woman from Dohuk explained: When I saw they damaged everything, in the media, on the news, I cannot describe. We should not say it — but we are feeling that whatever happens to Mosul we do not care anymore because they destroyed everything there. Why is it necessary for people to return back to Mosul? You can build again houses, you can build again schools, you can make people go back, but what can we do without these [heritage] places? (IN022) Following a similar line of thought, several respondents pointed to the tension between re-building heritage sites belonging to Christian, Yezidi, and other smaller religious and ethnic communities and the fact that these same minorities had left their ancient homelands in large numbers. For example, one interlocutor reflected on his experiences of having witnessed the reconstruction of several churches in Homs despite the absence of a significant Christian community. As he recounted it: Most of the churches [in Homs] have now managed to be rehabilitated or restored. But if you go nearby you will see that they demolished completely entire neighbourhoods and buildings. Therefore the Christians cannot go back. So now we have restored the buildings but we do not have the living stones [the community] … What good are old stones [heritage sites], if you do not have living stones? What does it mean to have heritage, but nobody pass by those heritage? … What does it mean now to pass

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by ruins where you don’t have human beings? If you lose the human beings nothing remains in my opinion. (IN012) It is also important to mention that several respondents argued that reconstructing heritage sites was not a priority, given the complex set of political and humanitarian challenges facing contemporary Syria and Iraq. As one Sunni Kurdish man from Kirkuk put it: I am from Kirkuk and there is a huge need there. We have tension with Kurds and Arabs. We have sectarian violence. We have people starving, we have ladies who have been raped, we have kids with no school and all they have seen is violence and terror. Children raised on death and destruction. They need help: hospitals, schools, roads, psychology, jobs, food, water, electricity, education. We need hygiene and security and work. We don’t need an old minaret. It was useless anyway … Heritage is not a priority for us. (IN040) Other respondents were cynical about the political motives behind the reconstruction of heritage sites across Syria and Iraq – particularly when the reconstruction was being led by state governments or key multilateral bodies, such as UNESCO. Some argued that such projects sought to use the reconstruction of heritage as a symbol of unity, social cohesion, and peace in communities still riven with deep-seated ethnic and religious tensions. As one Chaldean man from Koya put it: The whole returning of families is politicised … The government wants those Christian families to return back to Nineveh Plain and even Mosul town itself, because there are some political agendas to say that Iraq is multicultural and to show to the international floor that there are still Christians here, they feel safe. If the churches are a reason for people to go back you will see millions of dollars donated and quick action taken to rebuild churches. (IN023) Beyond such issues, other respondents raised concerns about specific projects, such as the UNESCO-led project to “Revive the Spirit of Mosul,” which includes the reconstruction of key heritage sites destroyed by the IS across the city. Here, several interviewees expressed concerns that heritage reconstruction would be utilised by international actors to promote peace at the expense of a more sustained and expansive effort at post-conflict stabilisation and to develop inter-communal harmony. As one interviewee, a Sunni Arab man from Damascus explained: I think this whole project by UNESCO to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’ is just a marketing campaign. I don’t know how you revive a spirit. A spirit is dead and gone. Perhaps that’s what they should do: leave the monuments destroyed like the spirits of our ancestors. But I think UNESCO want to rebuild to use Mosul as a symbol to say ‘we defeated Da’esh and we are for peace.’ Its just going to be a nice photo at the end and a political celebration. But it won’t bring real peace to Mosul. (IN046)

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Despite such concerns about the merits of heritage destruction across Syria and Iraq, many respondents felt strongly that key heritage sites ought to be re-built. As one Sunni Arab man from Mosul noted: “The main demand of the masses is the restoration and rehabilitation of the religious places, mosques and churches which were attacked” (IN008). However, several respondents made it very clear that it ought to be Syrians or Iraqis who are ultimately responsible for the reconstruction of their heritage sites. One respondent, a Sunni Arab man from Homs, put it succinctly: “We don’t want others to just come and rebuild it all for us. We destroyed it so we should rebuild it together” (IN037). Many thought that the very process of Syrians and Iraqis re-building their heritage together could help to re-establish intercommunity solidarity and herald a move towards a more peaceful future. In this way, the reconstruction of heritage sites was seen as playing a key role in fostering communal dialogue, promoting peace, and re-building trust between communities. One Greek Orthodox man from Aleppo argued that to re-build trust: takes time, maybe it takes a generation. And this is why rebuilding the heritage should not be by one sector [ethnic or religious group], it should be by the whole Syrian people, because it will contribute to bring people together again, as it … [has contributed] in the past, to bring people and to bring different nations together. To come and to contribute to intercultural relationships and connections. (IN012) Other respondents went a step further, explaining that they had already returned to their hometowns and joined together with their local community to re-build heritage sites on their own terms. As one Yezidi woman put it: “We in Bashiqa returned after its liberation and we did not rely on the government, we cleaned it by ourselves and brought electricity and water … But what kept us calm/peaceful is we returned and rebuilt our shrines again” (IN030). Another respondent described his involvement in the clean-up of Bashiqa and the reconstruction of several key Yezidi heritage sites and the critical role this played in motivating exiled Yezidis to return home. He states: After Bashiqa’s liberation from ISIS this group of students … decided to reach Bashiqa to start cleaning and start bringing hope to Bashiqa citizens because the situation there was horrible and it was scary for people to find their houses had been destroyed and everything taken … [We] gathered many young people like all the youth of Bashiqa who are above 12 years old and less than 30. We started funding ourselves from our pocket money … to buy tools, to buy trees, to buy paint, everything we need, then to pay for a mini-van to drive everyone to Bashiqa to start working there for holidays [weekends]. Then we started working to clean the rubbish, to clean the streets, to paint the walls and hide the ISIS marks … and these slogans of ISIS … [We cleaned] different places including the shrines … I also helped on a project documenting the shrines that had been destroyed … We went anytime we had a chance to clean and renovate together and come back. We wanted to encourage people to come back and to give them spirit to motivate them for that by cleaning the city. And this thing encouraged people to come back to Bashiqa, many of them came back. (IN029) Beyond the fact that the cleaning and restoration of Yezidi towns and heritage sites had facilitated the return of Yezidi people to their traditional villages, another interviewee also 328

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related an example of inter-communal cooperation, where Yezidis and Christians together restored a ruined church: We start[ed] cleaning the church together to say the church also will stand in the town. And …we made a festival in the church where Yezidis and Christians [came together] … We [performed] ceremonies to open the church again by ringing the bell and making a mass in there. (IN027)

Conclusion The above responses indicate that for these respondents, at least, the IS attacks on heritage sites across Syria and Iraq were perceived as traumatic and indicative of the genocidal intent of the IS. However, the destruction of these heritage sites was lamented less for their perceived “value” and more because the sites embodied their connection to an intricate web of communal identity and personal memory. For many, such destruction mobilised them to want to flee their ancestral homelands, constituting a watershed moment that threatened the very existence of some minority communities and the broader regions long history of ethnic and religious diversity. Others longed to return and re-build, seeing heritage reconstruction as a vital way to restore social cohesion and foster peace. However, they argued against such reconstruction being solely led by state governments or multilateral institutions, believing that if communities worked together to re-build their heritage they might entice others to return and to forge a more peaceful future. In returning to their traditional homelands and reconstructing their heritage sites, the people of Syria and Iraq have demonstrated remarkable resistance and resilience in the face of the genocide perpetrated by the IS. This is among few positive developments across Syria and Iraq after the IS and further research in the field of heritage studies is urgently needed in order to document, analyse, and interpret the complex ways in which displaced people experience heritage destruction and the role that heritage reconstruction can play in fostering their return.

Acknowledgments and funding statement The authors gratefully acknowledge the hard work and enthusiasm of several colleagues who helped collate some of the materials presented and analysed in this article: Ahmed Hassin, Sofya Shahab, Taghreed Jamal Al-Deen, and Antonio González Zarandona. We are also grateful for the support of the Alfred Deakin Institute at Deakin University, Australia, and acknowledge the insightful comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewer and the editors of this volume. We also acknowledge funding in support of this research from the Australian Department of Defence and the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE120100315). The views expressed in this chapter do not reflect those of Defence or Government policy.

Interviews IN008. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Mosul (Iraq), July 2017. Male Sunni Arab from Zummar (Iraq). Now living in Mosul (Iraq). IN012. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Melbourne (Australia) to Beirut (Lebanon), October 2017. Male Greek Orthodox from Aleppo (Syria). Now living in Beirut (Lebanon). 329

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IN014. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Philadelphia (US) to Houston (US), November 2017. Male Yezidi from Sinjar (Iraq). Now living in Houston (US). IN015. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Melbourne (Australia) to Berlin (Germany), November 2017. Male Yezidi from Sinjar/Sheikhan (Iraq). Now living in Berlin (Germany). IN016.  Interviewed in person in Sydney (Australia), November 2017. Male Armenian Christian from Aleppo (Syria). Now living in Sydney (Australia). IN019. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Melbourne (Australia) to Dohuk (Iraqi-Kurdistan), December 2017. Male Assyrian Christian from Mosul (Iraq). Now living in Dohuk (Iraq). IN022. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman (Jordan) to Dohuk (Iraqi Kurdistan), May 2018. Female Assyrian Christian from Dohuk (Iraq). Now living in Dohuk (Iraq). IN023.  Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan), May 2018. Male Chaldean Christian from Koya (Iraq). Now living in Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan). IN025. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Dohuk (Iraqi Kurdistan), May 2018. Female Sunni Arab from Mosul (Iraq). Now living in Dohuk (Iraqi Kurdistan) but working in Mosul (Iraq). IN027. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Dohuk (Iraqi Kurdistan), June 2018. Male Yezidi from Bashiqa (Iraq). Now living in Dohuk (Iraqi Kurdistan). IN028. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Bashiqa (Iraq), July 2018. Female Yezidi from Bashiqa (Iraq). Now living in Bashiqa (Iraq). IN029. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Bashiqa (Iraq), July 2018. Male Yezidi from Bashiqa (Iraq). Now living in Bashiqa (Iraq). IN030. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Amman ( Jordan) to Bashiqa (Iraq), September 2018. Female Yezidi from Bashiqa (Iraq). Now living in Bashiqa (Iraq). IN033. Interviewed in person in Marka ( Jordan), September 2018. Female Chaldean Christian from Baghdad (Iraq). Now living in Marka ( Jordan). IN034. Interviewed in person in Marka ( Jordan), September 2018. Female Chaldean Christian from Tel Eskof (Iraq). Now living in Marka ( Jordan). IN037. Interviewed in person in Mufraq ( Jordan), October 2018. Male Sunni Arab from Homs (Syria). Now living in Zaatari ( Jordan). IN040. Interviewed in person in Beirut (Lebanon), October 2018. Male Sunni Kurd from Kirkuk (Iraq). Now living in Kirkuk (Iraq). IN046. Interviewed in person in Bar Elias (Lebanon), October 2018. Male Sunni Arab from Damascus (Syria). Now living in Beirut (Lebanon). IN050. Interviewed via Phone/Skype from Melbourne (Australia) to Bartella (Iraq), March 2019. Male Syriac Orthodox Christian from Bartella (Iraq). Now living in Bartella (Iraq).

Notes 1 This chapter uses the simplified English name of “Islamic State” (IS) to refer to the jihadist terrorist network known in Arabic as Da’esh and alternatively in English as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 2 Although many of the statues inside the Mosul Museum were replicas, the IS intention to destroy them remains the same. 3 These 53 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Syrians and Iraqis were specifically designed to examine issues of heritage, its destruction, and reconstruction in the context of the ongoing conflicts. The ongoing security situation prevented comprehensive fieldwork inside Syria or Iraq. Although the researchers were able to conduct some in-person interviews inside Iraq and in neighbouring states with high numbers of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and migrants ( Jordan and

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Iraqi and Syrian responses to heritage destruction Lebanon), as well as with those who had migrated further afield, several of the interviews were conducted “at a distance” via phone/Skype in either Arabic or English over a period of approximately two and a half years (March 2017–October 2019). The interviewees were identified via targeted or purposive sampling; they were specifically chosen not because they are representative of a broader population but because of their experiences of, and knowledge about, heritage destruction and reconstruction in Syria and Iraq. It is important to note that the interviewees represent a broad spectrum of different people from across Syria and Iraq. First, the interviewees represent a broad geographical spread, many coming from a city or town occupied or threatened by the IS and other Islamist factions. The majority were from Iraq (35), including participants from Baghdad (9), Mosul (7), Bashiqa (4), Dohuk (3), Sinjar (2), Zummar (2), and one each from Kirkuk, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Koya, Tel Eskof, Khanaqin, and Baqoufah. The remainder were from across Syria (18): four each from Homs, Aleppo, and Damascus, and one each from Jaramanah, Raqqa, Maaloula, Mahardah, Suweida, and Qamishli. It is also important to note that of the 53 respondents, only 16 had been able to remain in their hometown during the conflict, the remainder were either internally displaced (10) or had fled further afield to Jordan (11), Lebanon (6), the United States (3), Germany (2), Australia (2), the Netherlands (2), and Turkey (1). Second, the respondents also self-identified as being part of a particular ethnic, religious, or cultural group, including Sunni Arab (22), Christian (17), Yezidi (6), Sunni Kurd (4), Shia Arab (3), and Druze (1). Finally, a little over one-quarter of the participants were women (15). The interviews were collected in accordance with the ethical standards of the Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee, Australia. Informed consent was obtained for all participants, who remain anonymous and non-identifiable. The interviews listed at the end of this chapter under the heading “Interviews” provide further details on the interviewees cited in the text.

References Al Quntar, S., and Daniels, B. (2016). Responses to the Destruction of Syrian Cultural Heritage: A Critical Review of Current Efforts. International Journal of Islamic Architecture 5(2), pp.381–397. Brodie, N. (2015). Syria and its Regional Neighbors: A Case of Cultural Property Protection Policy Failure? International Journal of Cultural Property 22(2–3), pp.317–335. Butler, B., and Al-Nammari, F. (2016). “We Palestinian Refugees”: Heritage Rites and/as the Clothing of Bare Life. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 3(2), pp.147–159. Cunliffe, E., and Curini, L. (2018). ISIS and heritage destruction: a sentiment analysis. Antiquity 92(364), pp.1094–1111. De Cesari, C. (2019). Heritage and the cultural struggle for Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Hochberg, G. (2020). From Heritage to Refugee Heritage: Notes on Temporality, Memory, and Space. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 40(1), pp.43–50. Isakhan, B., and González Zarandona, J.A. (2018). Layers of religious and political iconoclasm under the Islamic State: symbolic sectarianism and pre-monotheistic iconoclasm. International Journal of Heritage Studies 24(1), pp.1–16. Isakhan, B., and Meskell, L. (2019). UNESCO’s project to ‘Revive the Spirit of Mosul’: Iraqi and Syrian opinion on heritage reconstruction after the Islamic State. International Journal of Heritage Studies 25(11), pp.1189–1204. Isakhan, B., and Shahab, S. (2020). The Islamic State’s destruction of Yezidi heritage: responses, resilience and re-emergence after genocide. Journal of Social Archaeology 20(1), pp.3–25. Kerry, J. (2016). Remarks on Daesh and Genocide. US Department of State. Available at: https://20092017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/03/254782.htm [Accessed: 17 May 2021]. Kuutma, K., and Annist, A. (2020). Home and heritage out of place: the disjunction of exile. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(10), pp.942–954. Lostal, M., and Cunliffe, E. (2016). Cultural Heritage that Heals: Factoring in Cultural Heritage Discourses in the Syrian Peacebuilding Process. The Historic Environment: Policy and Practice 7(2–3), pp.248–259. Melčák, M., and Beránek, O. (2017). ISIS’s Destruction of Mosul’s Historical Monuments: Between Media Spectacle and Religious Doctrine. International Journal of Islamic Architecture 6, pp.389–415. Mitchell, A. (2016). Kerry: ISIS is Committing Genocide Against Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims. NBC News, 17 March. Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/ john-kerry-isis-committing-genocide-n540706 [Accessed: 16 July 2021].

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27 HERITAGE DESTRUCTION IN THE CAUCASUS WITH A SPECIFIC FOCUS ON THE ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN CONFLICT Ali Mozaffari and James Barry Introduction This chapter presents an overview of the types and causes of heritage destruction in the Caucasus. Existing scholarship has established the link between heritage destruction and socio-political instabilities and transformations (Pappé, 2006). The Caucasus is particularly suited to such investigation as, in addition to other causes of heritage destruction, it has been through multiple, often violent transformations in the past two centuries. Heritage destruction is committed by multiple groups and under various circumstances for different motivations. A useful way to determine a more systematic picture of destruction is to distinguish three factors in destructive processes: motivations, which may be intentional or unintentional (e.g., ideological, material gain, or accidental); sources, which may have human or nonhuman (natural) origins (e.g., war, earthquake, tsunami, but also neglect and spoliation); and the instruments or means referring to the nature of the act of destruction, such as looting for theft or the more destructive acts of ransacking. Within these interrelated categories, one might also recognise soft or hard destruction, the former indicating definitive acts of demolition or erasure and the latter more subtle forms of memory work including misclassification, change of use, and manipulation of historical records. Looking into these categories, heritage destruction in this region is intimately linked with shifts in population composition and even wholesale displacements in the form of deportations, plantations, ethnic cleansing, war, and development. The recent history of the Caucasus is replete with examples of all the above-mentioned categories. The focus of much of the scholarship on heritage destruction has been on explicit and purposive acts, especially in the South Caucasus, which has been a particular feature of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict (Harutyunyan, 2014a; 2014b.). In this case, acts of destruction are used as a means of removing the evidence of each other’s presence on their respective territories (see Huseynov, 2001 for an outline of Azerbaijani concerns and Chapple, 2020 on the destruction of the Armenian Julfa Cemetery [located in Azerbaijan]); and an iteration of ethnic or cultural cleansing (Pappé, 2006; Üngör, 2015; Walasek, 2019). In other words, in this conflict, heritage destruction is linked to significant human rights issues of historic genocide and current DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-30

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ethnocide. Importantly, heritage destruction in the context of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is changing, with outright destruction now being replaced with alteration of sites, particularly older sites, to deny the heritage claims of ethnic rivals. For example, newer cultural artefacts are destroyed as symbols of occupation, such as the Jebrayil church (an Armenian church built on Azerbaijani territory occupied by the Armenian army from 1993 to 2020), while an organised program of expropriation by Azerbaijan of older cultural heritage, such as the Dadivank monastery, removes the ethnic Armenian heritage of the site and reinvents the site as Albanian. Given the limitation of space, we will elaborate some illustrative examples of heritage destruction in the Caucasus. We will preface these examples with brief information about the historical and geographical background of the region, where we discuss forms of heritage that are present. Within this region, we will dedicate major focus to the case of ArmeniaAzerbaijan heritage conflicts on the grounds that this is the latest iteration of a major conflict that incorporates the factors discussed above. We will, however, preface this with some broader contextual discussion of heritage in the Soviet period.

The Caucasus Geographically, the Caucasus refers to a region between the Black and Caspian Seas, defined by the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountains (Figure 27.1). With a topography of highlands and isolated valleys, the region is characterised by religious and ethnic diversity, with

Figure 27.1 General topographic map of the Caucasus. Artwork in public domain (Creative Commons) by Bourrichon – fr:Bourrichon with English translations, additions, and corrections by Ketone16. Available from Wikimedia, 2016.

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Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (among other religions) represented in many forms and at least 60 different languages spoken, many of which are exclusive to this part of the world (Coene, 2010; de Waal, 2018). Despite the region being relatively isolated, the peoples of the Caucasus have never been isolated from one another, with many sharing villages, and major historic centres, such as Tbilisi, Derbent, and Shusha, being characteristically multicultural (Suny, 1994; Shamilyevna & Gazhimuradovna, 2018). The geography and demographic mix of the Caucasus is also reflective of its borderland status, where it has often been the frontier of kingdoms, or the meeting point of empires, as it was with the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Turkish Empires before the twentieth century. Today the area is divided between four nation-states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia – and dotted with numerous autonomous regions and separatist de facto states (such as Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia). Contestation and borderland status continue into the present, with the region being the location of international competition for influence between Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States, and the European Union (Kereselidze, 2015; Oskanian & Averre, 2018; Kakabadze, 2020). However, despite the diversity of the population of the Caucasus, a process of homogenisation has occurred unevenly and with varying degrees of success, especially since the Russian takeover of the region at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Atkins, 1980; Altstadt, 1992; Bournoutian, 1998, 2018; Berberian, 2001; Marshall, 2010). Population exchanges, Russian colonialism, conflict, and military occupations during the nineteenth century changed the demographics in several regions, particularly Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Circassia. In the Soviet period, when the entire region remained under centralised Russian rule, this practice continued with several deportations of nationalities, at times followed by repopulation at a later date by returnees (Dunlop, 1998; Hasanli, 2015). Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, a combination of the collapse of authority and rising nationalism, faced with issues of imprecise borders and multicultural polities, led to mass violence and further migration throughout the region (Zürcher, 2007; Hille, 2010; Geukjian, 2011; Foxall, 2014a; Saparov, 2014; Shafiyev, 2018). Many of these conflicts remain alive and unresolved. Importantly, heritage destruction processes have usually followed every major population movement in this region.

Types of heritage Essentially, types of heritage in this region begin from pre-historic heritage, which ends with the Neolithic period and is evidenced through archaeological remains (Moroni et al., 2015). Later examples that are more numerous and diverse may be seen related to all subsequent periods, but particularly significant examples date from late antiquity to the early modern period and are, therefore, especially susceptible to acts of destruction. This shifting context has fostered two kinds of heritage associations. The first is the strong association that exists between heritage and ethnic and religious group identities (Vladimirovna, 2020; Dzutsati, 2021). At times, such strong associations translate into national identities seamlessly. This is exemplified by the Armenian Churches, which are linked to national identity through the historical role the institutions of Armenian Christianity have played in fostering the sense of a national identity (Barry, 2019). The second is the deliberate association of ethnicised heritage with territorial ownership by several groups throughout the Caucasus, which is a means of creating a sense of indigeneity for contemporary ethnic groups. Evidence of human presence in the Caucasus dates back to the Palaeolithic Period and human settlement to the Neolithic, 6000–5000 BCE (Sagona, 2018). Prehistoric forms of art 335

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and artisanship are found throughout the Caucasus, most notably rock art, monoliths, and megaliths (de Waal, 2018). Some well-known examples of these are the Dragon Stones common in the South Caucasus and closely associated with Armenia (Frincu, 2019; Hovsepyan, 2021), Gobustan Rock Art in Azerbaijan (Sigari, 2017; Farajova, 2018), and the Dolmens (labyrinths) of Circassia (Núñez Pariente de León, 2019). The destruction of this type of heritage is usually caused by natural elements and insufficient conservation measures. In some instances, there has been direct human interference towards heritage such as the placing of a 4000-year-old Dragon Stone as a public monument in Paplavok Park in central Yerevan. In later periods, the heritage of much of the region reflects its history as a borderland (Akhipova, 2005; Coene, 2010; de Waal, 2018). Therefore, there are many sites from antiquity representing the presence of ancient influences from the Hellenic, Persian, Scythian, and Arab periods and so on (Minns, 1965; Morrit, 2010; Bradley, 2011; Tumanyan, 2017; Foltz, 2019). This presence has also influenced the kind and prevalence of heritage monuments in the region, which includes a variety of defensive, trade and travel-related, and religious sites and cemeteries. The building of stone towers is a practice dating back perhaps 5000 years in the region, and several notable examples exist across Chechnya and Ingushetia in Russia and the Svaneti and Tusheti regions of Georgia (Brown, 2018). The significance of the region’s heritage is well recognised internationally. Not counting parts of Iran, the region has nine listed World Cultural Heritage sites and one natural heritage site (Western Caucasus, see: UNESCO, n.d.). Considerable examples of monumental heritage dating from the classical antiquity to the early modern period are in evidence in the region. Many of these take the form of religious sites, ranging from churches, mosques, temples, and synagogues to shrines, mausoleums, and grave sites of various sizes and levels of importance vis-à-vis pilgrimage. This heritage is a particularly potent register of cultural (and religious) change, as well as population displacements in the region.

Heritage destruction as a nuanced and interpretative process While we enumerated some causes that individually or together lead to heritage destruction, it is important to note that the boundary between intentional and unintentional heritage destruction is often blurred. Furthermore, at times, acts of destruction, while intentional, may not be motivated by political objectives. A clear example of the latter case is spoliation, where new constructions incorporate the use of older heritage structures. In other cases, in the Caucasus, for example, there are instances where heritage sites have been abandoned and deteriorated over time. Of course, extraneous circumstances, such as war, may exacerbate destructive processes: structures like the towers mentioned above have suffered damage over time through spoliation, but especially during the two wars in Chechnya of the 1990s and early 2000s, where many were destroyed (Dunlop, 1998). However, exceptions do exist and there are rare examples of sites being preserved despite changes in belief or demographics. The early medieval churches of Tkhaba-Yerdy and Alby-Yerdy in Ingushetia, for example, remained intact even after the Islamisation of the Ingush in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, neither being repurposed as mosques nor destroyed (Zlyazikov, 2004). In most instances, however, heritage sites have fallen into disrepair following human actions – whether ransacking or destruction, but more often spoliation of building materials, neglect, or development processes – with the corollary effects on population composition. In the nineteenth century, for example, the Russian Persian Wars (1804– 1813 and 1826–1828) caused population exchanges of Armenians and Azerbaijanis (then known as Muslim Tatars) across the Russian-Iranian frontier. Consequently, many villages 336

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were abandoned or resettled by people of different ethnicities and religions (Broers, 2019). This process led to the decline of mosques in towns and villages in modern Armenia, which also continued under the population engineering and anti-religious policies of the Soviet era (1922–1991) (Herzig & Kurkchiyan, 2004). While on the one hand, these are not viewed by Armenia as acts of wilful destruction of heritage, as in many cases it was Russian rather than Armenian authorities causing the destruction, on the other hand, Azerbaijan views this as deliberate destruction aimed at erasure, and this forms a key part of the Azerbaijani argument in the disputes over heritage destruction between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which will be discussed further below. In addition, and more important than age value (Riegl, 1982) – not all heritage items are necessarily ancient – is the representational affordance and symbolic content of heritage. Furthermore, some destructive acts, including erasure, may be employed by some as a gesture of goodwill. An example is the Memorial to the Victims of the Deportation of 1944 by Chechen (Wikimedia, n.d.) in Grozny, Chechnya, which was inaugurated in 1992 by the Chechen independence movement. The memorial was damaged and defaced during both Chechen wars (1994–1996 and 1999–2000), and after the recapture of Grozny by the Russian military in February 2000, a perimeter was placed around the memorial to prevent local access and its use for commemorations. Several attempts to demolish the site were resisted by local residents after 2000. However, in February 2014, local authorities quietly dismantled the memorial in the middle of the night (Caucasian Knot Correspondents, 2014). Some argue that the timing of this destruction was a gesture of friendship by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. These Winter Olympics had been controversial in the Caucasus, as Sochi lies on Circassian territory that was ethnically cleansed upon Russian conquest in the 1860s, an event known as the Circassian genocide (Foxall, 2014b; Yasar, 2015; Kazemzadeh & Shahrokhi, 2020). Furthermore, the closing ceremony of these Olympics coincided with the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush, which may in part explain the timing of the destruction of the site, as well as the rise of terrorist activity by Chechen separatists in the lead up to the Olympics, particularly the Volgograd attack. The monument held important significance for the Chechen people, all of whom either have ancestors who were deported or are survivors of the deportation itself. These are but few examples of contested tangible heritage, but the scope of contestation also includes intangible heritage. This includes forms of music and musical instruments, historical figures (cultural and political), cuisine, sports, and material culture such as rugmaking. An elaborate discussion of these examples is beyond the scope of this chapter, but between Armenia and Azerbaijan, for example, carpet weaving has been employed in each country’s national identity to both represent the ingenuity of the nation and to claim indigeneity to regions by using geographic indicators on specific styles of rugs. In particular, Karabakh and Nakhichevan rugs have been specific sites of contestation. The above contextual example serves to complicate our understanding of heritage destruction. Suffice to say that both tangible and intangible heritage are significant sites for pursuing and addressing ethnic disputes and conflict. This cautions against reductionist and simplified heritage interpretations and it is with this cautionary note that we turn to our focus on the heritage destruction implications of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflicts.

Case study: Armenia and Azerbaijan The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict presents an important case in the study of heritage destruction in the South Caucasus, which demonstrates the centrality of motivations, sources, and instruments in determining heritage destruction. The conflict has its roots in the development 337

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of nationalism both in the Imperial Russian era and under the nationalities policies of the Soviet Union, which consistently defined ethnicity by language and rooted ethnicity to territory (Mozaffari & Barry, 2021). In the multi-ethnic Caucasus, this led to several territorial disputes both during and after the Soviet era, as multilingual and multireligious regions were apportioned to one ethno-national group over all others. In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, there were several disputes over land that was allocated to each republic during the Soviet era, but the most sensitive was the Armenian-majority region of NagornoKarabakh in Azerbaijan, which has resulted in two wars to date (1992–1994 and 2020). In the course of this conflict, both Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused one another of having state sanctioned programs to eradicate heritage alongside ethnic cleansing, motivated by maximalist control of contested territory, facilitated by war, and carried out through rebranding sites that erase the cultural connections of rivals (such as designating mosques as Persian rather than Azerbaijani heritage, or churches as Caucasian Albanian rather than Armenian). The issue has arisen in the past two decades, most notably after the systematic destruction of the famous Julfa khachkars (carved-cross steles) of Nakhichevan was caught on camera in 2005 (Crispin & Baker, 2017.; Short et al., n.d.; Galichian, 2009). Since then, the destruction of Armenian heritage, both in Azerbaijan and in Turkey, has been an important rallying point for Armenian activists, both in Armenia and the Diaspora. For Armenia, all aspects of the conflict, including heritage destruction, are linked to the Armenian genocide, which is a central point of modern Armenian identity which closely links the erasure of heritage with the erasure of people (Kaufman, 2001). Azerbaijan has countered with similar claims: much of the heritage of Azerbaijan in Armenia has also been destroyed, although mostly through neglect and plunder. This is especially apparent in the regions occupied by Armenian forces between the early 1990s and 2020. However, the degrees of destruction Armenia is accused of are not as organised or coordinated as those in Azerbaijan, particularly the Nakhichevan enclave. Nakhichevan is an enclave wedged between Iran and Turkey that is separated from Azerbaijan’s mainland by Armenia’s Syunik and Vayots’ Dzor provinces. Its incorporation into the Soviet Union and autonomous status resulted from the 1921 Treaty of Moscow between Turkey and the Soviet Union (Cornell, 1998; Broers, 2019). Since 1991, it has largely been isolated from the rest of Azerbaijan as a result of the First Karabakh War (1992–1994), although the agreement ending the Second Karabakh War (10 November 2020) includes terms that should increase its access to Azerbaijan through Armenia. Due to its isolation, it has developed into a dictatorship within a dictatorship, and this in part explains the type of unrestrained heritage destruction in Nakhichevan as below. Like the rest of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Nakhichevan has been inhabited by both Armenians and Azerbaijanis for centuries (Broers, 2019). In recent centuries, the Muslim population has formed a clear majority throughout the area, while the Armenian minority has been in sharp decline, especially during and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The remaining Armenian population fled during the violence which erupted in the late 1980s (Saparov, 2014). While Armenia has historically claimed Nakhichevan in part or in whole both during the First Republic and throughout the Soviet period (Hasanli, 2015) and since 1991, there has never been a serious intervention on the part of the government in Yerevan to pursue these claims. However, the Nakhichevan autonomous government has used Armenian claims as a motivation to eradicate or rebrand most Armenian heritage – churches, inscriptions, khachkars, cemeteries – to bolster Azerbaijani claims to the region. Unfortunately, this has led to the loss of many historic sites, particularly from the early and late Middle Ages. The issue of heritage destruction defines the conflict in many ways, which is why it arose again during the Second Karabakh War of 2020. As Azerbaijan regained much of the territory 338

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lost in the first war, Armenia and its Diaspora rallied around the issue of heritage, as many historic churches and monasteries were located in Azerbaijan’s newly regained territories. Azerbaijan for its part has declared a new strategy in line with its nationalist propaganda on Armenians, which includes pseudohistorical claims about the origins of Armenians as a recently arrived mixed race. This strategy is threefold. Firstly, pre-nineteenth-century heritage (mostly churches) is misappropriated to Caucasian Albanian culture, as the Azerbaijani establishment has designated the Albanians as ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis (for example, see Kaufman, 2001). While this strategy keeps Armenian heritage intact, it does lead to heritage destruction on a smaller scale as ancient Armenian inscriptions are removed from churches and other structures to rebrand them as Albanian (Tokluoglu, 2005; Cederman & Girardin, 2007). Secondly, some nineteenth and twentieth-century heritage may be partly preserved as evidence of a pseudohistorical narrative promoted by the government in Baku that Armenians came into the Caucasus only after the Russian takeover of the region between 1813 and 1828; for example, newer churches, such as the nineteenth-century cathedrals of Baku and Shusha, are likely to be preserved in the absence of an Armenian population on the grounds that they prove the recent arrival of Armenians to the region. Finally, more recent heritage is destroyed as symbolic of an occupying regime, as was the case with the Jebrayil church. Through a war of rhetoric, Armenians are portrayed as inauthentic and foreign, and Azerbaijanis as the autochthonous inhabitants of the land. This poses a strong risk of further erasure and destruction of heritage, especially after the cessation of hostilities in November 2020.

Conclusion The use of heritage destruction for erasing the presence of one or another ethno-religious group is not confined to the Armenia-Azerbaijan case, as the complaints by Georgia regarding heritage destruction by the Russian military in Abkhazia demonstrate (Tevzadze & Cunliffe, 2021). Yet, it is a central part of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in a way that has not occurred in other parts of the Caucasus. Heritage destruction in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is in itself both a product and cause of the weaponisation of heritage to achieve domination over the other and territorial gain. It is at once a way of erasing the territorial claims of the other and of creating a rallying cry, especially for Armenia, to delegitimise their opponents in the international community. Heritage destruction also points to the propensity for human rights violations; processes such as ethnocide or ultimately genocide often have a heritage component. In this chapter, we have demonstrated that while each act of heritage destruction is born of unique circumstances, there are general patterns that are consistent across different settings. We have endeavoured to summarise the myriad actors and intentions behind destruction by focusing on motivations, sources, and the instruments or means. We concluded that in each category in the context of the Caucasus, heritage destruction is intimately linked with population movements, especially during forced displacement and ethnic cleansing, but also through economic and social developments under the Soviet Union. In some instances, there was semioclasm, that is, iconoclasm without destruction or alteration of a sign (Deschepper, 2019 p.494), triggered by revolution, war, modernisation, and so forth. The intent behind heritage destruction is also a potential contributor. In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, heritage destruction is a symbolic act, at once a symptom and a foreshadowing of ethnic conflict and cleansing. Furthermore, in the absence of resolution to many of these conflicts, it is likely that the trend towards heritage destruction will continue. 339

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Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge and thank the anonymous reviewer for their intellectual generosity and helpful comments. All usual caveats apply. This work was made possible by a generous funding provided to Dr Ali Mozaffari by the Australian Research Council (Grant Number DE170100104).

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28 WEAPONISED HERITAGE Urbicide by Construction and Destruction in Nablus, Palestine Nurhan Abujidi

Introduction Using the concept of urbicide – which refers to the intentional destruction of urbanity – this chapter attempts to understand how the built environment in general and symbols of identity in particular are the targets of war machines in a colonial context. Looking at this from a Palestinian context, this chapter argues that not only the tangible and intangible symbols of identity are singled out in war times, and occupation and that heritage sites as well as all aspects of the built environment are weaponised and used for military control and oppression as well as for emancipation.

The city and war The histories of cities and of political violence are inextricably linked. As Mumford (1961) observed, security is one of the very reasons for the origin of urbanisation. The evolution of urban morphology is closely connected to the geographies and technologies of war and political violence: especially the fortification and the bounding of urban space through defensive and aggressive architecture are central to this long and complex story. So too, is the fortification of cities through the symbolic demonstration of wealth, power, and aggression and by the commercial demarcation of territorialities. The elaborate histories of siege craft, atrocity, the symbolic sacking and erasure of urban space, and the interplay of tactics and strategies of attack and of defence, are other demonstrations of this process. Urban sites and cities represent the icons of victory, domination, and political or religious regime change. While most cities act as a magnet for artistic, financial, and intellectual activity, this very concentration of wealth and cosmopolitan behaviour can also convert the urban arena into a cultural battleground when communal vulnerabilities are exacerbated. In these cases, the city can be interpreted as a political stage, citadel, icon, idol, treasury, emblem, and incubator – of both tolerance and prejudice – all at the same time (Charlesworth & Calame, 2012). Thus, urban warfare is not a new phenomenon; cities have been featured as a stage for violence since humans began building them, and images in recent years – from Aleppo, Mosul, and Sana’a to Marawi, Mogadishu, Donetsk, and Mekelle – leave little room for doubt that towns and cities will remain primary battlegrounds for future armed conflicts (Gisel et al., 2021). DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-31

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Urbanity and urban destruction: The emergence of urbicide The systematic targeting of urban areas and cities is often interpreted as targeting architecture based solely on the cultural and social value of the buildings (Elfversson & Höglund, 2021). Targeting architecture is thus a process of targeting symbols of city identity. However, this interpretation is based on a quite limited perspective of identity and urbanity. Locating the city’s identity solely in symbolic buildings and cultural artefacts ignores the fact that normally in urban warfare a larger scale of destruction is witnessed in devastated cities. This in fact limits the opportunity of understanding the global picture and reality of urban destruction. This is evident in the destruction which took place in Nablus Old City. Therefore, a detailed documentation of this larger urban destruction is rarely found in the histories of such cities, which impairs this field of research. Indeed, critical theorists Bishop and Clancey (2012) suggested that modern urban social science in general has shown marked tendencies since the Second World War to directly avoid tropes of catastrophism (especially in the West). They argue that this is because the complete annihilation of urban places conflicted with its underlying, enlightenment-tinged notions of progress, order, and modernisation. In the post-war Cold War period, especially, “The City” they write, had a “heroic status in both capitalist and socialist storytelling” (2012 p.46). This worked against an analysis of the city as a scene of catastrophic death. “The city-as-target remained, therefore, a reading long buried under layers of academic Modernism” (2012 p.67). Diverse discourses emerged to describe and conceptualise urban destruction. In the Second World War, the physical and material destruction of cities was termed “place annihilation” by Kenneth Hewitt (1983) and was extended to “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo by Hugh Clout (2016). The urban destruction that occurred in Palestine in 1948 and Bosnia in the 1990s was identified by scholars like Ilan Pappe (2006) as “ethnic cleansing” and discussed as a type of spatial violence. In these historical cases the focus of academic research and theoretical discourses was on the mass displacement of inhabitants in which the physical destruction was marginalised and considered a consequence of such displacement. Other terms emerging during these wars included “cultural cleansing” or “cultural genocide” (Bilsky & Klagsbrun, 2018) and “identicide” (Meharg, 2001). They were mainly used to indicate the fate of mosques, churches, museums, archives, libraries, schools, and other symbolic buildings (Abujidi, 2014). Apart from urbicide, these discourses discuss and approach urban destruction either from the type and nature of destruction (cultural cleansing and cultural genocide) or by the consequences of urban destruction such as “identicide” (Meharg, 2001), “memoricide” (Blazina, 1996) and “place annihilation” (Hewitt, 1983). Other authors question the logic and motives behind destruction, such as the usual assertion of “collateral damage” only as a consequence of actions due to security reasons that refer to the incidental destruction of urbanity as a consequence of the fighting or because the target represented a strategic military target (Slim, 2016; Gisel et al., 2021; Gordon & Perugini, 2021; Palmieri, 2021). I argue that these different discourses offer only a limited comprehension of and perspective on the phenomenon of urban destruction. Their limitations are mainly based on the context analysed and the accounts they give of these armed conflicts or wars. Most of the above-mentioned discourses focus only on one context, ethno-religious targeting of buildings, such as that which occurred in Bosnia. This in effect has narrowed the discussion of urban destruction to ethnic and religious conflict, which is not representative for all armed conflicts and wars. The other difficulty that constrains the capacity of these discourses to explain and define urban destruction lies in their addressing of only one layer of urban destruction, namely the destruction of cultural artefacts and symbols of identity. This gives 344

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the erroneous impression that destruction in wars is selective, which is not normally the case. In fact, it is hard, if not impossible, to target specific types of buildings, though, in modern wars with the use of advanced military weapons, it might be true “in theory” that precision bombing of targets can be achieved. In reality, however, and especially in the case of urban warfare, this has proven to be nearly impossible, as a massive devastation of urban areas was and is witnessed in recent and contemporary wars such as in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria (Graham, 2002; 2003; Moulin, 2018; Spence, 2019). If this can indicate something, it is that the target of armed conflict is usually not one building for its strategic location or significance. In urban warfare, it is rather the entire built environment that is under assault. This is where urbicide appears to be a more relevant and suitable concept in explaining the nature and mechanisms of urban destruction. It was during the Balkans’ armed conflict of the 1990s that the deliberate destruction of the city as an act of military strategy began to be defined and was singled out as urbicide (Coward, 2010). This highlighted the need for addressing urban destruction as a concept problematic in its own right rather than merely treating it as a side-product of other forms of political violence. As Stephen Graham (2004) argues, urbicide is based on organised strategies that destroy specific social and physical aspects of urbanity.

Urbicide in Palestine: The case of Nablus1 The destruction of the Palestinian built environment has a long history, starting even before the 1948 war and the creation of Israel. However, academic literature defining the destruction of the Palestinian built environment as a form of urbicide only began appearing after the Israeli military incursion into Palestinian Territories in 2002. Scholars such as Eyal Weizman (2004) and Stephen Graham (2003, 2002) have made a link between the military occupation as urbicide using the notion of “construction and destruction”. The deliberate destruction in 2002 and the one in 1948 describing both events as part of the same process driven by the enterprise of colonisation and expansive settlement. Indeed, as Weizman observes: The deliberate bulldozing of whole districts of cities by Israeli Defense Forces in spring 2002 is an intensification of an old policy. Bulldozing has been used as a weapon of collective and individual punishment and intimidation and as a means of shaping the geopolitical configuration of territory, since Israel’s independence in 1948. (Weizman, 2004 p.197) I argue that, apart from destruction, urbicide can also be caused by other less violent and less destructive measures such as Israeli surveillance and military control machine. Since its military occupation of Palestinian Territories after the 1967 war, Israel started an active instalment of surveillance networks and techniques to establish control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) (Beinin, 2013). Israeli military and other laws were enacted to control Palestinian development and urbanisation. The Israeli control and surveillance network comprises one part of the larger Israeli occupation machine, which also includes several other cogs: the Jewish settlements project, the destruction of Palestinian villages, the military laws, land confiscation, and so on (Figure 28.1). The surveillance network is a very important element in that it enables Israel to exercise full control over the territory and resources and at the same time manages Palestinians’ activity flows in space and time. It is structured around six interconnected systems of surveillance: the apartheid wall; territorial subdivision and zoning; checkpoints; Israeli-only bypass roads; military bases; and the 345

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Figure 28.1 An abstract map of the physical elements of the Israeli matrix of control in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank), the settlements, the Israeli bypass roads, and the apartheid wall (Urbicide by construction). Source: Author adapted from B’TSELEM (2004b, 2008, 2012, 2014) reports and maps.

special set of military laws that support all other systems. Jewish settlements are presented in this analysis to be deployed partially for surveillance and control purposes, among other functions. The surveillance network produces fragmented Palestinian spatial conditions and multilayered experiences of exception. Such mechanisms of constructing and imposing the 346

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Israeli colonial body upon the occupied material and spatial urbanity and territoriality clearly represent “urbicide by construction”. In 2002, Operation Defensive Shield, a major Israeli military operation, took place as a reaction to a Palestinian suicide bombing inside Israel. The operation targeted the oppression of the Palestinian resistance via targeting: 1 Palestinian symbols of power (e.g., Ramallah city); 2 Palestinian symbols of resistance – (Nablus Old City, Jenin refugee camp, Rafah refugee camp, and Balata refugee camp are well-known examples); 3 Palestinian symbols of identity manifested in historic cities and cultural heritage sites. The old centres of Nablus, Hebron, and Bethlehem were destroyed during these invasions; and 4 Palestinian symbols of the right of return and the mark of the Palestinian Nakba represented in the refugee camps, which had been the targets of several Israeli campaigns since the 1970s (Abujidi, 2014).

The case of Nablus Nablus and its environs have been inhabited for more than 5000 years, as far back as the Canaanite times (UNESCO, 2012). The Old City of Nablus is the historic core of the OPT’s largest city and a commercial hub for the agriculturally wealthy northern area. Founded in 2500–3000 BCE by the Canaanites, it was rebuilt by the conquering Romans in the first century and called Flavia Neapolis, from which the name of Nablus is derived (ICOMOS, 2002). The existing structure of the historic centre of Nablus is characteristic of the typical old Arabic Islamic city that dates back to the Ottoman period from the eighteenth century. This is clearly manifested in the structure and form of its streets, its network of alleys, its domes, vaulted houses, and souqs. Despite the numerous and substantial social and political changes throughout the ages, the pattern of the Roman city built in 72 CE can still be noted in some sections of the city and its buildings. The historic centre of Nablus has substantial international historical and architectural significance. In 2004 UNESCO recommended that the Old City core of Nablus be considered as a candidate for recognition as a cultural heritage site. UNESCO stated that the historic Old City of Nablus was of outstanding universal value according to Article 12 of the World Heritage Convention (UNESCO, 2012). Nablus and its environs have been subject for decades to the Israeli military matrix of control that strangulates the city’s urban developments and at the same time puts the city under constant military control (Figure 28.2). The matrix of control is normally enforced with other temporary networks of military logistics that facilitate military operations in the city, such as checkpoints at entrance to the city. Spanning a period of six years (2002–2007), Nablus has demonstrably borne the heaviest Israeli military attacks in the Palestinian Territories (B’TSELEM, 2002; 2004a; 2006).2

Urbicide by construction and destruction impacts Built environment (heritage) and infrastructure During several main Israeli military invasions, the scale of the military personnel and machinery was massive. My fieldwork mapped the type of destroyed buildings in relation to the weapons used to inflict the destruction, which helped me to formulate a typology of destruction. I found that advanced military technology caused tremendous damage to the city’s urban tissue. 347

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Figure 28.2 Location of the Israeli physical matrix of control points around Nablus area. Source: Author readapted from B’TSELEM (2004b) and UNOCHA (2005) maps.

The ICOMOS (2002) report and my fieldwork demonstrated that all Israeli military invasions to the Old City caused damage to 47.5% of the housing blocks that make up the Old City’s urban fabric (1355 out of 2850) (Table 28.1 and Figure 28.3). A more hidden and high scale damage occurred to the internal structure of the city as a result of military tactics that involved coming through walls (Weizman, 2004), used by the Israeli Army during their military operations. This tactic uses bombs to open holes in interior walls inside houses to move from one building to another to avoid using streets. Creating these routes with bombs through buildings with high historical and architectural significance, which are also structurally vulnerable, can be especially destructive (Figures 28.4 and 28.5). When bulldozers and different types of heavy tanks entered the narrow alleys of the Old City, they caused severe damage to its infrastructure because of the small scale of the city: 80 percent of the infrastructure was severely damaged during the April 2002 invasion (Giacamen & Husseini, 2002; and author’s fieldwork).

Table 28.1  Level and percentage of damage in the housing blocks in Nablus Old City (2002–2007) Area destroyed

Level of damage

30,000 m 2 214 multi-family housing blocks 60,000 m 2 of 428 multi-family housing blocks 100,000 m 2 of 713 multi-family housing blocks

Complete damage

7.5

Severe damage

15

Light damage

25

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Percentage of damage

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Figure 28.3 Location and level of destroyed buildings in Nablus old town, April 2002. Source: Author’s fieldwork data and Nablus municipality tables of destroyed buildings: The author made an effort to define and relocate them on maps.

Figure 28.4 Algharb neighbourhood showing significant buildings, such as Hamman, schools, caravansaries, soap factories, and religious buildings.

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Figure 28.5 Close-up of the northeast section of Algharb neighbourhood showing the location of forced routes of entry through streets, roofs, and buildings, April 2002. Source: Author’s fieldwork data.

Israeli military operations in Nablus Old City resulted in the significant destruction of buildings with historical and architectural significance. For example, five of the nine historic mosques suffered extensive damage. Two churches dating back to the sixteenth century suffered moderate damage, while the only Samaritan synagogue in the Old City was completely destroyed. Four of the 30 operational soap factories were also destroyed; two dating back to the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries and covering an area of 1000 m² were totally demolished by F-16 jet fighters, and another two were totally burned down. In the Old City of Nablus, the scale of military operations, coupled with the scale of military personnel and the high-tech heavy military equipment used, caused extensive damage. If the nature of the military targets and military objectives is taken into account, we find that the Israeli Army systematically damaged large sections and important buildings in a cultural heritage city without any demonstrable and pressing military necessity. The typology of the damaged buildings points to the civic nature of the targeted urban fabric, along with its historical significance. Destruction, in this case, also affects the human psyche and national memory more than material buildings, causing irreversible damage to the Palestinians’ cultural heritage and their national identity. I examined the impacts of this destruction through face-to-face interviews.3 85% of respondents stressed that the Old City of Nablus was destroyed as part of a systematic operation, targeting Palestinian cultural identity as an important part of the Palestinian national identity. They claimed that the historical image of the city was powerfully affected by the 350

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tremendous amount of damage and by the many gaps gouged in the city’s urban fabric. The attack on Nablus Old City can be seen in terms of the destruction of symbolic spatiality, which is especially relevant to the dynamics of colonisation and the transformation of the space of the Indigenous population in an area of targeted settlement. Importantly, the community started rebuilding and renovating their city directly after the invasion. This can be seen as an act of resistance and protest against the destruction of people’s cultural identity. This point was strongly present in the interviews conducted in the Old City. Almost all the respondents stressed the point that the Old City should be renovated exactly as it was before its destruction, using the same architectural style, building material, and finishing elements. The inhabitants’ struggle with both nostalgic and conflicting images of the future was also detected. All manner of nostalgic and sentimentalised recollection was unleashed. So were personal memories of the good old days. Conflicting ideas about how the city should look in the future also surfaced. One of the interview respondents stated: “it is a war of heritage; we should sustain our cultural sites as a tool of struggle against occupation” (Salah, 2005). This type of narrative demonstrates people’s political awareness as well engagement. The rebuilding of the Old City in particular carried an emotional symbolism for the Nabulsi, as for them, it represents the centre of Palestinian resistance. It is also noteworthy that Nablus was the centre of Palestinian national resistance to the British mandate (1917–1948) and also (1967–current) Israeli colonialism.

The destruction of the spatial identity of the city (reconfiguring spatial order of the city) The Israeli Army announced prior to its Operation Defensive Shield that its target was to capture the Palestinian resistance taking refuge in the Old City of Nablus. Consequently, it also claimed that all damage that occurred due to the operation was either collateral damage or damage for security reasons. Looking at the scale of destruction, the typology of destroyed buildings, and machines used for destruction reveals that the destruction was planned and intentional. The destroyed buildings were carefully selected for their military strategic location, for example, being a connection between two neighbourhoods or being on the edge of the Old City fortifying its entrances. This military operation resulted in the complete disappearance of dense building complexes from the urban tissue. The destruction of AlShu’by housh on Ras Al’en Street, for example, ruined the continuity of the building border line that defined the Old City from the southern entrance. This facilitated greater Israeli military control of the city (Figure 28.6).

Impact on collective memory Due to the complicated political situation and degradation reflected by the two national Intifada, people tend to tie the historic centre with national resistance as an “undefeatable” place. This came across as one of the strong sentiments from the interviews I did with diverse age groups in the city. Thus, the main landmarks gain more importance in people’s mental image of the city that in turn reinforces the city’s identity as a symbol of national and cultural identity. People’s perception of the city and its importance is projected in many expressions of attachment, belonging, and sincerity. 80% of those interviewed described Nablus historic centre as “my city, my home”; “the place that makes me relax and relieves stress”; “the inheritance of our grandfathers” (Faleh, 2003). 351

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Figure 28.6 The Northern façade of An Naser Street, showing the link between void and solid before and after destruction, April 2002. Source: Author’s fieldwork data.

The city connects to the glorious past of the Nabulsi community as main commanders of the surrounding villages and cities during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Indeed, as Edwards observes, “the environment can provide a set of symbols that both individuals and groups of people can identify with as well as representing an expression of identities” (1997 p.38). The interviews and the mental maps questions revealed that the Israeli destruction of the Old City of Nablus resulted in the local population’s collective memory of their own city becoming distorted and sometimes erased. In my own experience returning to Nablus in 2003 after only a year’s absence, I found it difficult to remember how some areas had looked prior to the destruction. It was a frustrating experience to be unable to reconstruct an old image of the city prior to its destruction. During my fieldwork and in the mental image reconstruction exercise I conducted, I asked many children from the Al Qaryun quarter to draw mental sketches of the Old City in Nablus before the invasion. The result was shocking. Not only could they not remember what the damaged areas looked like, but they were also unable to express anything other than damage, shootings, explosions, and ruins (Figure 28.7). Moreover, the narratives of many interviewees, especially the children, described the pre-invasion Old City as though it were a dream, a lost world from the past, an imagined metaphorical paradise. The Old City in Nablus leaves the realm of reality and enters the discourse of legends: Nablus zaman [in the past]. “Do you know the heaven? It was a heaven, full of people, parties, zaman it was better, it was like a palace, we could play, be free, family and friends’ visits were very often. Now everything is changing …. Ruins, soldiers, we are scared, in the first invasion we saw the bulldozers destroying our neighbour’s house and the old town, we want to stay here” (Nabulsi, 2002; Ali, 2005). Sarah Meharg (2001) describes the links between places and memory in what she defines as identicide. She argues that “the localisation of memory on the material is what negotiates its survival, and by removing the material we begin to erase memory. Without landscape to trigger memory, there is no link with the past, and it recedes beyond our collective memory” (2001 p.91). The city that is charged with many symbols of identity for the residents started to host new forms of identity connected to the city’s position 352

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Figure 28.7 The mental image of Nablus Old Town drawn by children in Al Qaryun quarter, April 2002. Source: Author’s fieldwork data.

in the collective memory as a site for resistance. This is noted in the emergence of new forms of commemoration. The remembrance of the impact of occupation and destruction is reflected in the Palestinian martyrdom discourse that extends to everyday activities and social rituals. Inhabitants of the Old City celebrate and commemorate the tragic outcomes of the invasion and the killing of Palestinian resisters, converting the city into a huge graveyard, a macro-space of struggle and national identity. Locations of the assassinations of key resistance fighters are symbolically converted into commemorative monuments. Commemoration stones inscribed with the poetry of sorrow and heroism are etched on the façades of buildings; posters depicting martyrs cover almost all the Old City’s walls. The city, which typically celebrates life, becomes the embattled arena for continual commemoration of seemingly ceaseless instances of death. These places in the Old City are converted into symbolic places that are fused with mythical meanings to provide a sense of identity in place and time. Thus, such places are converted into monuments and memorial spaces that belong to the spatial aspect of memory. These places, as Nordeide and Brink (2013) argue, fuse history and landscape and define “sacred history” in terms of symbolic places that are shrouded with the mystique of past events. Many streets have even changed their names to hold new names that reflect either a martyr’s name or a battle’s name; this was strongly presented in one group’s mental map. The interesting point here is how the same built environment/architecture has a dual role in Israeli military oppression as well as Palestinian emancipation. 353

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Conclusion In a colonial context such as Israel–Palestine, the symbolism of the built environment goes beyond the typical symbols of identity and cultural heritage, as the whole built environment becomes a contested space between the colonised and the coloniser. Israel has enforced a strict matrix of control over the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967, which has had a significant impact on fragmenting the Palestinian space and time. This has been achieved by enforcing laws and diverse control matrixes such as surveillance and physical infrastructure, including enforcing its own architecture (e.g., Jewish colonies) and identity on the colonised. Within this context, the colonised perceive their whole built environment as sacred and of high symbolic value for national and collective identity. The analysis of Nablus Old City’s history of destruction via the Israeli colonial apparatus of control and the Israelis’ frequent military invasions confirm this chapter’s central argument that in warfare, and more specifically in colonial contexts, the whole built environment is under assault. Urbicide in Nablus is not only the destruction of buildings but extending from symbols of identity to everyday habitat. It also entails the destruction of shared spaces where several identities meet to compose a place-specific identity and urbanity. The destruction of urbanity is the destruction of a specific way of life, culture, and experience of space. The trauma of place devastation leaves a significant impact on people’s collective memory that brings back to life not only the traumatic event itself but also the object that was lost as a result. Hence, it is not only the fabric’s ruins that constitute urbicide but also the community’s experience of its loss.

Notes 1 This research is based on extensive fieldwork that the author held between 2003 and 2007. The fieldwork included a mapping of the destruction of the physical built environment (buildings and infrastructure), interviews with 120 inhabitants of the Old City that included mental questionnaires, mental maps, and walks in the Old Town. Other interviews included those with policymakers and active institutes in the Old Town (e.g., Nablus Municipality, civil society organisations, and institutes active in heritage restoration and regeneration such as Riwaq). 2 B’TSELEM is an Israeli Human Rights organisation. Their report, Operation Defensive Shield, includes soldiers’ testimonies and Palestinian testimonies. 3 In her fieldwork in Nablus between 2002 and 2007, the author interviewed around 120 persons who live in the old town and experience the Israeli invasion. The interview included 50 women and 12 children, and the rest are men. The age of the interviewees ranged between 85 and 12 years. The interviews were mainly with questions about people’s perceptions/experiences of their city before and after the invasion. It also included questions about the military invasion that helped in reconstructing the Israeli military invasion into the city and people’s experiences and impacts on their collective memory of the city.

References Abujidi, N. (2014). Urbicide in Palestine; Spaces of Oppression and Resilience. London: Routledge. Ali, M. (2005). Interview by Abujidi, old town of Nablus, 10 July. Bilsky, L., and Klagsbrun, R. (2018). The Return of Cultural Genocide? European Journal of International Law 29(2), pp.373–396. Bishop, R., and Clancey, G. (2012). The City as a Target. Abingdon: Routledge. B’TSELEM. (2002). Operation Defensive Shield: Soldiers’ testimonies, Palestinian testimonies. B’TSELEM. Jerusalem: B’TSELEM. Available at: http://www.btselem.org/Download/200207_Defensive_ Shield_Eng.pdf [Accessed: 10 October 2003]. ——— (2004a). Forbidden roads: The discriminatory West Bank regime. Jerusalem: B’TSELEM. Available at: https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files2/publication/200408_forbidden_ roads_eng.pdf [Accessed: 19 February 2004].

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29 WHAT IS HAPPENING TO EGYPTIAN HERITAGE? The Case of Privately Owned Buildings Mohamed Kenawi Introduction Western scholars have argued that looting, vandalism, unplanned development, and colonial approaches to archaeology have long had a negative impact on Egypt’s cultural heritage. They have agreed on several agents, notably armed conflicts, looting, agricultural development, and urban development of infrastructure alongside many other different threats like climate change (Parcak, 2007; Bewley 2016; Cunliffe, 2017). Vandalism and looting have also been discussed by scholars in wide contexts, with examples of damage to different monuments and objects (Müller, 2020). Activist and archaeologist Monica Hanna, for example, has documented many cases of site looting (Hanna, 2013), as well as the theft of artifacts from Malawi Museum in Menyia and Abu Sir al Malaq in Beni Sueif between 2011 and 2013 (Badalucco, 2018). Following the Arab Spring (as referred to by Western voices), countries such as Syria, Libya, and Yemen were engulfed in war, which had serious repercussions on heritage and archaeological sites. These have been bombed, looted, and archaeological materials are now known to have been sold on the black market. In contrast, countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria have managed to remain stable, which has ensured the protection of archaeological sites and museums. As a consequence of the increased threats to cultural heritage, many welcomed Western projects which documented and sought to protect part of what is being lost forever. Projects led by various nominated scholars and with different aims concentrated on fast documentation. Remarkably, the majority of these projects were based in the UK. Similar projects funded by the European Union (EU), like Tempus IV, worked in the region with less effective plans and results. There were also independent, smaller scale projects which contributed to the documentation and conservation processes (see, for example, Athar Lina1). However, in many cases, the bodies receiving the grants were not able to continue the success of the projects after their end dates, and reports ended on desks without launching a real substitutability within the targeted contexts. Those projects demonstrated some common approaches: a focus on documenting and building the capacity of local scholars and employees; interest, primarily, in classical archaeology and material culture owned by the state through different departments of antiquities DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-32

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(see CulMe-WeOnCT, 2013); and those projects interested in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries focused on the illegal acquiring of objects for Western museums. There are two examples of large scale site recording projects: the Manar al-Athar initiative2 launched in 2012 and the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project 3 launched in 2015. The former focuses on the collection of a photographic data, while the latter uses remote sensing and aerial photography, supported by field visits where possible, to document threats to archaeological sites. In addition, the American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) has maintained its support with many different initiatives,4 as well as many EU funded initiatives, e.g., the Using Virtual Reality in Cultural Heritage Education project of Tempus IV programme, funded by the ENPI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme.5 The results of these projects so far have also shown that cultural heritage is at high risk due to urban development, agriculture, lack of maintenance, climate change, lack of interest, and neglect. These threats are less visible than the conflicts that are so widely studied in other countries. However, they are just as great a risk. Understanding this requires comprehending the wider historic context of Egyptian heritage, which is entwined with the attitudes of foreign explorers, missions, and governments who have been interested in Egyptian heritage for centuries. They have significantly influenced the preservation and treatment of heritage today, as it will be shown. However, perhaps the greatest threat to Egyptian heritage is urban development. Within this context, this chapter will examine a particularly understudied aspect of Egyptian heritage – privately owned buildings, with a specific focus on historic secular buildings and churches. This chapter will first establish the historic context and its impacts in the modern day before exploring the current context of the urban development affecting such buildings. This will then be examined in case studies – the historic secular houses of Rosetta, Coptic churches, and Islamic heritage.

The context of Egyptian cultural heritage Egypt’s wealth of archaeological sites, constrained, as so many are, along the banks of the Nile, is both a strength and a weakness. The strength is that the Nile’s fertility-producing floods have allowed human populations to occupy this land intensively for thousands of years resulting in extensive evidence of occupation. The weakness is that each successive occupation has destroyed and replaced its predecessor’s remains. In the twenty-first century, this is something we should be seeking to avoid. However, the intellectual and legal frameworks are not (yet) developed well enough to manage this conundrum. A more holistic approach is required. Archaeologists understand that not everything can be preserved, so they make a case for recording as much as possible before archaeological sites are damaged or even totally destroyed. However, the problems of preservation and recording and the development needs of the current population are exacerbated by three recent approaches involving cultural heritage.

The attitude of excavation directors Approaches to examining and preserving the heritage of Egypt changed through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries for different reasons. In the early twentieth century, with the expansion of the presence of foreign missions excavating in temples and other sites of ancient Egypt, traditional excavations removed later archaeological remains without proper documentation to reach the earlier ancient Egyptian layers. This action led to the clearance of later 358

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occupational remains from all Egyptian temples. The removal included later structures that might have occupied the same space as the earlier temple, such as mudbrick houses, Coptic churches, and Islamic remains. This may be easily noted in excavations at the Luxor temple, Tod temple, Medinet Habu (Hölscher, 1954), and others by comparing historical photographs and the current appearance of the sites. Similarly, an entire monastery at Deir el-Bahari was removed to fully excavate the temple (Godlewski, 1986), and only the name of the monastery remained (van der Vliet, 2013). This attitude continued throughout the twentieth century, and it continues partly into the twenty-first century, evident in recent archaeological investigations which follow the unrealistic division of the heritage industry into different sectors according to time period of interest (Ancient Egypt, Graeco-Roman Egypt, Coptic, and Islamic periods). For example, if a mission is working within an ancient Egyptian or Ptolemaic temple (which are two of the most common periods of interest to foreign missions), experts of the Coptic and Islamic periods are rarely involved. As a result, some Western archaeological missions destroyed dozens of heritage places dated to the Coptic and Islamic periods until fairly recently.

Heritage division – what is more important? Many foreign archaeological missions, as well as some Egyptian ones, still unconsciously exercise the old traditional practices when working within the scope of studying ancient Egypt. Favouring dynastic Egypt, such missions have paid scant attention to the documentation, publication, and conservation of more recent heritage. The colonial period focused research on ancient Egypt solely in an attempt to connect the identity of the inhabitants of modern Egypt with those of ancient Egypt, thus excluding traces of Arab heritage and civilisation (Meskell, 2000). Similar attempts took place in North Africa, where the French prohibited the use of Arabic language to erase an identity and focused on Amazigh rather than Arab roots. The same happened to Berber and many other local or regional languages. This approach by colonial rulers resulted in confusion regarding the identity of the local inhabitants, as well as on what aspects of their heritage should be preserved, prioritised, or sacrificed. Local inhabitants thus identify themselves with Pharaonic Egypt rather than Graeco-Roman and, surprisingly, Coptic or Islamic Egypt, despite them being ideologically, spiritually, and linguistically related to the Islamic Arabic civilisation. Furthermore, colonial political motivations initially fomented the division, which remains embedded within the methodologies of heritage experts even today. Following this practice, early museums in Egypt were divided on the basis of three main historical periods: Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman including Coptic, and Islamic. Later on, the Coptic period was distinguished to be part of the Graeco-Roman period. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo hosted solely ancient Egyptian materials, while the Graeco-Roman museum in Alexandria hosted solely materials from the conquest of Alexander the Great until the Middle Roman period. The Coptic Museum in Cairo focused its collection on Coptic Christian materials, and the Islamic Museum followed the same concept. From the start, these same divisions were the basis of archaeological practices and study within all departments of history and archaeology in Egyptian universities. In addition, study paths at universities still do not include modern courses on archaeological science.6 Courses deal mainly with history, religion, art, and architecture. Graduates hardly study courses related to practical archaeology, analysis of layers, or excavation methods.7 This has impacted the way the rich and diverse heritage across the country is dealt with. 359

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Urban development The second major problem, as the population continues to rise, is the urban development of towns and villages of Egypt. Prior to the construction of roads, houses, infrastructure, and industrial units, comprehensive documentation and preservation of unique heritage places are required. Indeed no one can deny the need for continuous development. However, in Egypt, rescue or preventive archaeology is largely missing. No legal framework exists to allow private companies or independent archaeologists to work in the sector of preventive archaeology. There is no legal principle that the polluter (that is, the developer) pays for excavation if they wish to conduct development (with the exception of the city of Alexandria) in order to help with the protection of the cultural heritage (as is the case in many parts of Europe and the USA). Even ethical responsibilities are directed towards registered archaeological or heritage sites exclusively. The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities is the only authority that deals with any registered site or heritage building. In some cities like Alexandria, Mansoura, and Menyia, several heritage houses and villas are not registered within the Ministry but listed in a special category by the local and provincial administration; these buildings are predominantly privately owned. However, many other buildings all over the country are not listed within the last category. Responsibilities, with very few exceptions, do not extend beyond the limits of archaeological or heritage sites, thus minimising the actual area that is subject to protection. Although there are hundreds of villages and towns that preserve the archaeological remains of ancient Egypt, archaeological supervision for public or private work within any town is not always strongly present. The exceptions are limited to Alexandria, where the French Archaeological Centre (CeAlex) has supervised public work in collaboration with the Ministry of Antiquities office of Alexandria (CeAlex, 2022), and in Aswan, where the Swiss archaeological mission has agreed to supervise and conduct excavations in the town of Aswan prior to any modern construction work.8 Since 2017, the inspectorate of Damanhour (Western Delta) started to supervise any construction works within the central part of Damanhour. Much of the rest of ancient Egypt lies beneath housing constructions that have increased in the last century without any type of supervision. Such construction works frequently uncover new (and so unregistered) heritage, and it is therefore very common to see the piled up remains of ancient Egyptian, Ptolemaic, Roman, and Coptic architecture (large and small) beside different modern buildings. These piles of stones are then taken away by cleaning operations organised by the local administrative authorities of a village or a town. In short, they vanish because of the lack of interest and the lack of regulations that have limited responsibilities to only registered heritage boundaries. Therefore, for future protection to be effective it is necessary to extend the list of heritage sites as a first step. This, at least, would provide the legal backing for protecting cultural heritage from unplanned buildings and developments.

Privately owned heritage buildings Some attempts to extend the list of registered heritage sites through documentation were successful, as seen in the case of the Ottoman district of Alexandria (Annaloro & Guirémi, 2011). However, currently, privately owned heritage houses in Rosetta (Western Delta) as well as other Egyptian towns, such as Esna, Qus, and Shutub (Upper Egypt) are regularly being replaced by modern houses (Regulski, 2017). The owners prefer high-interest income from demolishing their old houses and replacing them with larger and taller buildings hosting more flats for rent/sale. As they are in private ownership and not protected, there is no barrier 360

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to prevent them being demolished and new houses built. The Takween Community development in Esna (a town 55 km south of Luxor) was launched in order to restore and try to document such heritage. Despite this attempt, inappropriate materials, such as concrete, have been used to restore the houses (Takween, 2020). The lack of resources and legislative framework to manage the more recently built heritage, especially Ottoman buildings, has contributed to the destruction and disappearance of too many important houses. Privately owned houses and villas that represent certain characteristic artistic styles are spread all over the country. They are being replaced as there is no clear regulation to protect nor to document them. The fast development in small towns in the Delta and Upper Egypt is indeed erasing any existence of heritage buildings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Similarly, Sufi tombs that belong mainly to small local communities and are part of local religious traditions are sadly neglected. Many have collapsed because of a lack of maintenance and restoration (Figure 29.1). At the end of the twentieth century, the reduction of Sufi Muleds and their followers is observable. Followers have always been a necessary element for the continues maintenance of Sufi tombs throughout Egypt. Since the Mamluk period, opposition from radical groups has increased against the practices of the Sufi. This convinced some to abandon their historical and cultural heritage. Consequently, many of the tombs that once marked the landscape of the Delta and the rest of Egypt have been abandoned – so much so that it is necessary to document what remains before they all totally disappear (Tetsuya, 2006). I argue that privately owned heritage, with continuous usage throughout previous centuries should be a part of any future documentation project. This information can help to preserve this type of heritage (domestic houses), that may not have the heritage value comparable to the ancient Egyptian tombs and pyramids but still represent an important type of architecture that represent the more recent history of Egypt. Such heritage places, once lost can never be reproduced.

Figure 29.1 Esna, Sufi tomb, near Deir al-Shouhada. Photograph by Mohamed Kenawi (2019).

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Figure 29.2 Qus, traditional multi-storey house. Photograph by Mohamed Kenawi (2012).

The houses in Qus, for example (Figures 29.2 and 29.3), might at first glance look like simple houses. However, there are a number of features that are noteworthy: two arches, one for the entrance and one on the first floor; the two wooden balconies; and the wooden beams holding up the three floors of the house. These simple elements cannot be constructed in the present day because of the lack of expertise in the modern workforce. There is a gap in recording because of the simplicity of the architecture, so houses of this type have been rarely documented or preserved in Alexandria, Rosetta, or Cairo, let alone in provincial cities and villages. In order to explore this further, it is instructive to consider Rosetta.

Case study: Rosetta Although Rosetta was once considered one of the most important coastal Egyptian towns in the mediaeval period, it declined gradually after the foundation of the new port in Alexandria and the British occupation in 1882. The significance of the town from a historical point of view is well known, but its importance as a town with significant historical and archaeological heritage has been underestimated and undervalued. However, some archives have preserved a good record of Rosetta in the early twentieth century.9 The town contains a large number of wellbuilt nineteenth-century (Ottoman) houses of three or four floors, many mosques, and monumental tombs (Figures 29.4 and 29.5). A Committee for the Conservation of the Monuments of Arab Art was created in 1880, working for the Egyptian government. It was composed of different (mostly, if not entirely, non-Egyptian) Islamic archaeology specialists, and lasted until 1961. They acted as a department which listed, documented, restored, and supervised the majority of the Islamic heritage of Egypt (Islamic Art Network, 2022). The Committee visited Rosetta several times when many houses and structures were being replaced by modern ones. In 1916, the number of partly documented houses with particular heritage value was 64, but by 1926 some had already been demolished and replaced by modern structures (Comité Bulletin, 1934). The town was never under strict municipal control and lost most of its unique features because of local developments and neglect. Today, the town has only the remains of 22 historical houses, one public bath, and a few mosques and monumental tombs (Kenawi et al., 2020). The case of 362

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Figure 29.3 Qus, traditional multi-storey house with wooden inscription at its entrance (abandoned). Photograph by Mohamed Kenawi (2022).

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Figure 29.4 Rosetta, traditional Ottoman period house in the early twentieth century (vanished). Source: Breccia Archive, Pisa University.

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Figure 29.5 Rosetta, traditional Ottoman period house in 2018. Photograph by Nunzia LarosaRosetta Project (2019).

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Rosetta is remarkable therefore in the history of heritage damage. During last decades, original wood windows and doors of houses disappeared during different restoration projects. Today, even in those houses still standing, all the wood used in the houses and the painted ceilings are modern, albeit as replicas of the originals. These issues surrounding restoration can be further understood by consideration of another building type – churches and monasteries.

Problematic conservation/restoration/modernisation After August 2013, several deplorable attacks occurred on many churches in Egypt (Cunliffe, 2017). The Egyptian government provided the Coptic Orthodox Church with the green light and funds to repair many of the damaged buildings and also restore the ancient ones (El Gergawi, 2016). This decision impacted some of the well-known and many less-known churches and monasteries all over Egypt. The employed restoration methods insisted on creating large gates and walls to surround much of the spaces around the heritage buildings; this can be seen clearly in the well-known monastery al-Muharaq. In many other cases, the changes applied to the churches not only restored but also severely modified the buildings’ appearances to the point that they seem new. In Qena, one engineer and his company took the responsibility of restoring/renovating six heritage churches at Naqada (Gamal, 2020). In some cases, this work resulted in the total removal of the ancient church and the construction of a new one following the same style. In other cases, such as that of Deir al-Maymoun (Beni Sueif ), the entire context around the church was removed, which included heritage houses and buildings. The mudbrick walls of the church were plastered, both outside and inside, with yellow plaster (Figures 29.6 and 29.7). The intention behind these changes is the need for the local churches to attract visitors by providing a

Figure 29.6 Beni Sueif, the churches of Deir al-Maymoun before and after renovations. Photograph by Norbert Schiller.

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Figure 29.7 Beni Sueif, the churches of Deir al-Maymoun before and after renovations. Photograph by and Giorgia Marchiori.

glorious and clean atmosphere (Figures 29.8, 29.9, and 29.10). However, due to such intensive interventions, these beautiful buildings have thus lost much of their archaeological/heritage value and the traditional landscape has changed. Although experts officially supervised these so-called restorations, they do not meet appropriate conditions. In 2015, at Deir al-Shouahda, in Sohag, ceramic tiles were applied to the walls of the sacred room containing the mummified bodies of martyrs and on the church walls. In addition, soft lighting equipment was installed with the aim of providing a glorious and magical atmosphere for the pilgrims. Once again, sadly, no code defines the difference between restoration, conservation, and renovation, and ultimately the replacement of a heritage building. These so-called restorations are ongoing at many heritage buildings, and they are unfortunately causing high changes to these structures. The intensive usage of materials such as cement and yellow-coloured plaster, and the application of this method at various sites, impacts the heritage value of the building. Based on the methods and approaches chosen for the restoration of these churches, it appears that they are not fully considered in terms of their historical or heritage contexts but rather viewed as functional modern buildings. The methods adopted for their restoration appear to aim towards rendering the churches open to the public and operational in a short amount of time; unfortunately, this approach does not seem to consider the archaeological value of the buildings, whose unique characteristics are either removed or covered and often lost forever. Deir Dranka in Asyut is an example of such a large project that renovates the entire heritage context (El Sayed, 2021). The unintended consequence of the restoration is the homologation of these buildings as they are stripped of their historical value and turned into modern and functional venues. As such, there is no conservation of heritage values. 367

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Figure 29.8 Deir al-Maymoun on Maxar satellite images (04 November 2004). Data Source: Google Earth.

Figure 29.9 Deir al-Maymoun on Maxar satellite images (21 June 2010). Data Source: Google Earth.

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Figure 29.10 Deir al-Maymoun on Maxar satellite images (08 April 2014). Data Source: Google Earth.

An example of a more agreeable compromise could be the Monastery of Archangel Gabriel in Deir el-Naqlun (Fayum governorate), where a modern-day church and buildings have been erected in the premises while the ancient church, particularly its interior architecture and wall paintings, has been overall preserved. The Red Monastery in Sohag is also one of the best examples of restoring and keeping the structure in function.10

Conclusion In this short contribution, I have highlighted some of the factors that severely affect the privately owned surviving heritage of Egypt. To find clear and smooth solutions and to not repeat the same faults of the above-mentioned cases, it is essential to reconsider the definition of heritage and its protection, and who is going to apply those solutions. Defining a code to deal with the heritage building’s landscape and the materials used in any renovation or restoration works is a must to avoid any further changes. Over the last 100 years, more damage to heritage has taken place all over the world than ever before. Some countries were able to promote their heritage at whatever scale and importance, but others are still struggling to provide a clear strategy in order to maximise the maintenance of different sites and buildings. Therefore, it is necessary to involve the private sector, architects, and scholars at large and small scales to manage and promote some of the neglected heritage. Furthermore, it is necessary to re-evaluate the basic education system regarding archaeology and heritage, the voice of the public media, public awareness, and above all the economic effect on the people living within an archaeological site or a heritage place. The employment of local workers for a few months over the year in excavations within a foreign mission is not a significant income for the inhabitants of a village anymore. A sustainable solution must provide continued benefits 369

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from protecting or the rehabilitation of a heritage site and must provide a direct change on the living society. Otherwise, whatever attempts at preserving or protecting a heritage place will not be very successful. In Egypt, some successful examples are noted, and hopefully, a larger scale heritage evaluation can take place in order to transform hundreds of heritage places into a benefit for both the state and the surrounding communities.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Giorgia Marchiori, Marcus Müller, Andy Reyes, and Robert Bewley for reading drafts of this paper and for their valuable advice. I would like to thank Emma Cunliffe for her interest in the subject and her invitation to include the Egyptian heritage case in this volume.

Notes 1 https://atharlina.com/ 2 http://www.manar-al-athar.ox.ac.uk/ 3 https://eamena.org/ 4 https://www.arce.org/ 5 http://www.enicbcmed.eu/home 6 A recent exception is present at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology (Aswan) and Helwan University (Cairo). 7 These observations are based on my experiences as a lecturer in archaeology at three different universities in Egypt. 8 Annual reports can be consulted here https://swissinst.ch/ 9 Breccia Archive – University of Pisa. 10 See more about the project on the ARCE website: https://www.arce.org/project/red-monasteryarchitectural-conservation, and in the ARCE archives: https://archives.arce.org/?f%5Bcollection_ facet%5D%5B%5D=Red+Monastery+Architectural+Conservation

References Annaloro, M., and Guirémi, L. (2011). Alexandrie – Une Architecture Ottomane. Marseille: Editions Parenthèses. Badalucco, B. (2018). Traffico e Sottrazione Illecita dei Beni Archeologici. Il Caso del Mallawi National Museum. Master’s thesis. Centro per gli studi Criminologici, giuridici e sociologici. Bewley, R. (2016). Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa: Introducing the EAMENA Project. In: Campana, S. Scopigno, R. Carpentiero, G. and Cirillo, M. (eds). CAA2015 Keep the Revolution Going, Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp.919–932. CeAlex. (2022). Alexandrian Studies Centre. CeAlex website. Available at: https://www.cealex.org/ [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Comité Bulletin. (1934). Comité De Conservation des Monuments de l’art Arabe, exercices 1927–1929. Cairo: Imprimerie F.B Noury and Fils. CulMe-WeOnCT. (2013). Culture in the Mediterranean and Europe – Weaving on Common Threads. Keep.EU website. Available at: https://keep.eu/projects/4006/Culture-in-the-Mediterranean-EN/ [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Cunliffe, E. (2017). Heritage Destruction: Lessons from the Middle East and North Africa for PostConflict Countries. In: Scheider, P. (ed). Catastrophe And Challenge: Cultural Heritage In Post-Conflict Recovery. Proceedings. Fourth International Conference on Heritage Conservation and Site Management. December 5–7 2016. BTU Cottbus, Germany: IKMZ-Universitätsbibliothek, pp.113–126. El Gergawi, S. (2016). Egypt military restoring churches destroyed following Morsi’s ouster. Ahram Online, 7 February. Available at: https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/185985/ Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-military-restoring-churches-destroyed-follow.aspx [Accessed: 11 March 2022].

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What is happening to Egyptian heritage? El Sayed, A. (2021). Controversy after the opening of the Dranka grotto, the last station of the Holy Family /? in Egypt. Babmsr, 4 August. Available at: https://www.babmsr.com/fbclid=IwAR3dRCjkFn6hCQOgibo5uiXzoLY8AQMMwrTi5MpvipJdEOtGeSWTeVYTakc [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Gamal, S.F.A. (2020). Three Coptic monasteries renovated and reopened. Watani, 24 August. Available at: https://en.wataninet.com/coptic-affairs-coptic-affairs/coptic-affairs/three-coptic-monasteries-renovatedand-reopened/33438/ [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Godlewski, W. (1986). Le monastère de St Phoibammon. Warsaw: PWN, Editions scientifique de Pologne. Hanna, M. (2013). What has happened to Egyptian Heritage after the 2011 Unfinished Revolution? Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 1(4), pp.371–375. Hölscher, U. (1954). The Excavation of Medinet Habu Volume V, Post-Ramessid Remains. Hauser, E.B. (ed and trans). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Islamic Art Network. (2022). Comité Bulletin. Islamic Art Network website. Available at: http://www. islamic-art.org/comitte/comite.asp [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Kenawi, M., Mondin, C., Asolati, S., Calò, L., Carvalho, M., Trevisan, N., and Larosa (2020). Conservazione e valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale di Rosetta: il caso del Museo Casa Amasili. Richerche Italiane e Scavi in Egitto 8, pp.1–32. Meskell, L. (2000). The Practice and Politics of Archaeology in Egypt. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 925(1), pp.146–169. Müller, M. (2020). Heritage Erasure and Vandalism in Modern and Ancient Egypt. In: Blum, S., Efe, T., Kienlin. T., and Pernicka. E. (eds). From Past to Present. Studies in Memory of Manfred O. Korfmann. Bonn: Verlag Dr. Rudolf Habelt, pp.569–584. Parcak, S. (2007). Satellite Remote Sensing Methods for Monitoring Archaeological Tells in the Middle East. Journal of Field Archaeology 32, pp.65–81. Regulski, I. (2017). Connecting local communities with 4,000 years of heritage in Egypt. The British Museum, 21 December. Available at: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/connecting-local-communitieswith-4000-years-of-heritage-in-egypt/ [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Takween. (2020). Takween Integrated Community Development. Takween website. Available at: https:// www.takween-eg.com/ [Accessed: 11 March 2022]. Tetsuya, O. (2006). Cairene Cemeteries as Public Loci in Mamluk Egypt. Mamluk Studies Review 10(1), pp.83–116. van der Vliet, J. (2013). Ancient Egyptian Christianity. In: Salzman, M. (ed). The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.211–234.

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30 DESTRUCTION, DEVELOPMENT AND HERITAGE IN MELBOURNE SX Towers, Southern Cross Hotel, Eastern Market James Lesh and David Nichols Introduction The western corner of the Bourke and Exhibition Street intersection of Melbourne has been occupied by three major buildings since 1877. Its prominence and context give it significance in the Melbourne and Australian contexts. The history of “Block X” in colonial surveyor Robert Hoddle’s 1836 plan, the eastern section of which contains our site, is central Melbourne’s history writ large. Melbourne, or Naarm in the Indigenous Kulin language, was founded not as a penal settlement like Sydney but as a city of free enterprise. Colonisation claimed and abstracted Indigenous Wurundjeri land into property titles exchangeable on international financial markets. In the central city, land’s value and profit could be gained by finding evermore economically productive uses, typically by constructing, re-purposing, or re-building structures for shifting economic and social objectives. On Bourke Street, a major shopping strip replete with department stores, arcades, and boutiques, our site intersects with evolutions in retailing, hospitality, tourism, and commerce. Development is a fundamental aspect of Australian urbanism (Labadi & Logan, 2016; Rogers, 2020). It has also been central to settler-colonialism; continuously re-shaping physical properties and cultural meanings to assert the colonisers’ ownership over Indigenous lands ( Jackson et al., 2017). Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage is entangled with our site. Economic and social forces have driven decisions about property retention and redevelopment, impacting attitudes, approaches, and conceptions of cultural value – or, typically, lack thereof (Lesh & Logan, 2020). On the relationship between cities, heritage, and development, Rebecca Madgin (2020 p.236) observes: “Recognising the value of heritage has traditionally been provoked by the threat of change and in particular the pace and scale of urban change”. This account emphasises transitions in the site’s life: the 1880s’ Eastern Market, the 1960s’ Southern Cross Hotel and Shopping Centre, the 2000s’ SX Towers. Each of these decades witnessed major change and redevelopment. Following Melbourne’s 1830s colonisation, the site hosted a jail and a makeshift market. It then became a prosaic service centre, the Eastern Market (1847–1960), befitting the affluence of the post-gold rush boom era. Shifting usage and fashions saw it perceived as tawdry until post-war prosperity brought a frisson of new money and modern elegance – the Southern Cross Hotel (1961–2003) – giving way once again to pragmatism and the SX Towers (2005–). 372

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As this chapter demonstrates, the three diverse purposes of the key structures accommodated provide insight into the city’s changing face and its understanding of its global standing. Although conservation has not been a substantial aspect of the site’s history, various urban heritage practices are observed in the site’s evolution: noted architecture, prominent events, community building, on-site interpretation, heritage-inspired design, and civic memory (Smith, 2006; Pendlebury, 2009; Harrison, 2013). The study helps us to understand citizens’ expectations and understandings of urban destruction, the value of inherited historic environments, and broader forces shaping redevelopment decisions. The rich archival research animating this study – government and municipal records, architectural and planning drawings, periodicals, popular culture, and ephemera – demonstrates the dynamic character of these pervasive urban, heritage, and destructive forces (Mason, 2009).

“A real and colourful past”: The Eastern Market On 9 May 1878, standing before prominent citizens and councillors, Lord Mayor John Pigdon witnessed a time capsule’s creation. A vellum document, the day’s metropolitan newspapers and coins of the realm, inside a stoppered glass bottle, were placed in lead casing and soldered tight. This then went into a cavity within a foundation stone, lowered and laid with a light slathering of mortar. Heritage and memories were being stored in the physical fabric of the city (Sleight, 2018). Just as the Marvellous Melbourne boom era began, this event opened a new chapter in the history of the city and our site. The establishment of the original Eastern Market had been declared simultaneously with the Western Market in 1841 by distant Sydney colonial authorities. The new building aspired to erase the raucous atmosphere of the makeshift wooden sheds of what had become known as Paddy’s Market and the adjoining women’s prison. An 1888 Album of Melbourne Views features 24 figures; the anonymous artist takes liberties, such as depicting Victorian Parliament with its planned but unrealised dome. The Melbourne represented is magnificent, its buildings solid testaments to affluence and civilisation, to apparent colonial and empire achievement in a half-a-century-old city (Broome et al., 2016). The drawings depict specific grand buildings in photorealist etchings: municipal town halls, the state library, law courts, banks, and churches. All but two buildings, a grand bank and the Eastern Market, remained standing at the end of the twentieth century. The prolific architects Reed and Barnes’ Eastern Market building (Figure 30.1) is depicted from the vantage of its north-eastern corner on Stephen Street. Stephen became Exhibition Street in 1898 to celebrate and memorialise the 1880 and 1888 events held in the northward Royal Exhibition Building (designated as World Heritage in 2004). The inclusion of the impressive, four-decade-old Eastern Market, however, already masked its decline. Municipal authorities re-built Melbourne’s markets to intensify the circulation of goods and improve hygiene, while discouraging street vendors and hawkers, “to clean up public space” (Brown-May, 1998 p.65). By 1888, Melbourne could boast eight markets, including both the new Eastern and the Queen Victoria Markets adjoining the old cemetery at the city grid’s north-west corner (Davison, 2006). The Eastern Market’s peak as the city’s source of fresh produce seems to have come prior to the erection of its imposing new building. The City of Melbourne’s decision to rehouse the Eastern in more respectable premises altered its nature altogether while actually bolstering Victoria’s fortunes. The Eastern had been intended to sell to the public, and the Victoria to be primarily a wholesale service, however, the latter came to serve both roles. Many stallholders decamped to the newer market while accommodations were being made for the older, yet they never returned. 373

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Figure 30.1 The Eastern Market. Source: Album of Melbourne views, 1888, Melbourne: Schutze, Steffens & Co.

This was not because the Eastern itself was wanting. By all accounts, the monumental architecture of the Eastern was superior to the Victoria with its makeshift 1869 Meat Market building and its timber and iron sheds. The Eastern had a central city location and frontages to all streets it faced. On Stephen Street, it was two storeys high with a row of 14 shops and residences above; Bourke Street had 15 shops. The Little Collins Street-side meat and fish markets were separate. The external buildings had slate roofing. The interior was covered in galvanised iron and glass on cast iron pillars. There were two markets within, accessed from either side, utilising the difference in height between Stephen and Bourke Streets. The access route was asphalted to improve vehicular access. Yet the Eastern Market became an unusual hybrid, at once seemingly a blot on the city and yet holding a prominent spot in its social life. In the twentieth century’s first decade, when a journalist for the Age (1902 p.5) visited the market, he found what seemed to be a lowbrow hellscape, “three or four thousand” people not purchasing produce, but instead: They were trying their strength, trying their weight, trying their lungs, taking electric shocks, drinking sarsaparilla and lemonade, eating ice cream and hot peas. They were called upon in raucous tones to patronise peep shows, in which for a single penny they could see ‘gay life in Paris’, or ‘continental dancing girls’, or ‘The Devil’s Opera and Beauty Show’ … every stall was a shooting gallery, or was devoted to Aunt Sally or football … This was the lower market floor. Retreating to the upper market, the journalist was also disturbed by what he saw; for it was “devoted to birds, scrap metal, saddlery, photography, wreaths, lollies, dolls, phrenology and ‘love, courtship and marriage’ lotteries”. The writer 374

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concluded the market was “out of date, but it cost £77,223 and might be put to better uses” (Age, 1902 p.5), or at least could be better managed by its municipal owners. The Eastern Market’s reputation worsened following a murder which took place close to its southern boundary in December 1921. The proprietor of the Australian Wine Saloon, located in the Eastern Arcade adjoining the market, was charged with the crime and executed in 1922 (and exonerated in 2008). The Eastern Arcade, a building of 36 shops and two hotels dating from 1871, tainted the Eastern Market (Lewis, 1976 p.50). Indeed, Julia Collier (1983 pp.8–9) in her pamphlet-length memoir of Bourke Street in the early twentieth century, A Walk Down Memory Lane, conflated them: “a very important and interesting part of old Melbourne, the Eastern Arcade (The Market). This place took up nearly all of the block”. Writing of the First World War period in the present tense, Collier continues: [T]here is something to interest almost everyone, of all ages and types … New and secondhand jewellery, clothing shops, bits and pieces of furniture, gardening requirements, seeds, plants, paper flowers, millinery, buttons and beads, several florists… we find everything from a needle to an anchor here. The Eastern Market became a familiar Melbourne feature. During the 1930s, after a minor fire, plans were announced to modernise the space as a shopping centre and then to completely remake it as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s headquarters. Certainly, journalist Basil Burdett (1933 p.37) perceived the building as “looking as though it might yield to the wrecker’s persuasive hand”. Many Melbournians would have agreed with journalist and author Clive Turnbull (1938 p.6), who wrote of the 60-year-old building as “an ugly, space-wasting structure, unworthy of the City of Melbourne … its value to the community is almost negligible”. By this time, the lower market had been given over in large part to a car park, a re-purposing fitting the arrival of the automotive age. Elsewhere, Turnbull indulged in a similar tendency towards titillation as the writer from 1902, quoted above, detailing various titles on sale (My Best Nude Study, Stocking Parade), but also herbalist businesses, a bird shop, and “a collection of old iron bits of machinery”. Turnbull (1938) noted “some good shops” but remarked “the general air is of seedy provincialism and decay, a backwater into which the commercial flotsam of the city has drifted”. He saw “a survival of the worst period of Victorian architecture in all its ornate pretentiousness”. His weariness is palpable: “It may well be that another 60 years of decrepitude is ahead of it”. Little was to change for the Eastern during the Second World War or the building material shortage following. Plans emerged but never proceeded for a convention centre. The 1950s were a different matter. A post-war economic boom generated widespread redevelopment and renewal to an extent not experienced since the 1880s when the early colonial city was destroyed and re-built. When fourth-year architecture student Howard Hodgens (1951 p.1) visited the market looking for an appropriate topic for his thesis, he found a “public building with a real and colourful past … possessing that atmosphere that time alone can impart, even if this is inseparable from the gloom, dust and smell of ageing timber”. Hodgens (1951 p.3) recorded that the majority of the building was now a car park and taxi depot with some topfloor shops. Like many before him, Hodgens (1951 p.4) hoped to see the building demolished but believed “until the fabric shows much more deterioration there will be no hope of that”. The 1955 Sands & McDougall Directory lists 49 tenants in the Eastern Market. Few of them present as disreputable. Rather, the informal and working-class character of the site ultimately shaped its reputation and its future. A notable second-hand emporium known as Hanley’s Book Exchange and Alexander & Paterson, wine and spirit merchants, were the most prominent among 375

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leather goods retailers, an advertising agency, two florists, two pharmacies, and the parking station Parking De Luxe. Six of the addresses listed were external businesses’ storerooms. The Eastern’s patronage by bohemian literary group the Bread and Cheese Club suggests that despite its physical centrality, the Eastern possessed an unconventionality rendering it on the edge of respectability and thus the city’s social life (Lesh & Nichols, 2018). The group also saw the passing of the Eastern as inevitable. Indeed, until the 1960s–1970s, conservationists, authorities, and the wider public only recognised the most architecturally and historically exceptional sites and precincts for their potential for conservation (Lesh, 2023). Victorian architecture, perceived as ostentatious and valueless, was ripe for destruction. The imminent demolition of the Eastern Market may have triggered nostalgia and sadness for some, but no widespread protest regarding its demise occurred.

“Virtually a City within itself”: The Southern Cross Hotel On 14 June 1964, Beatlemania arrived at the Southern Cross Hotel, the most modern and fashionable place to stay in post-war Melbourne (Moore, 2005). Arriving at Essendon Airport, John, Paul, George, and Ringo, followed by the media, made their way by car into the central city. As many as 20,000 fans awaited their scheduled appearance on the street-facing balcony of the Southern Cross. Chaos ensued; the Age (1964a) reported, “One slightly built girl … hitting a man over the head with her stiletto shoe when he blocked her view”. The Beatles’ companion, compere Alan Field, called Melbourne’s teenagers “the worst ever” (Age, 1964b). 300 policemen, 25 police cars, and mounted horse units were unable to control the crowd. An officer called it “The second battle of Flanders” (Age, 1964a). 50 fans were taken to hospital, and another 200 people were treated in a makeshift clinic established by the Red Cross in the hotel’s lobby. The hotel was locked down for the four-day visit. Nevertheless, on day two, 100 people broke a garage door and were only prevented from accessing the hotel after employees directed a firehose at them. Around 100 people remained camped outside the hotel for the remainder of the visit. These feverish attempts to meet the Beatles were later dramatised in the 1992 film Secrets, set (though not filmed) largely in the hotel’s basement. The Block X site, perhaps surprisingly given its complete makeover, continued to be the locus of disorder and mayhem, though whether Melbournians were now proud or ashamed of the “worst ever” status was subjective. The Southern Cross Hotel (Figure 30.2) was not yet two years old but already an iconic part of Melbourne, setting a new gold standard for Australian international hotels. For Melburnians, the real surprise in the 1959 announcement of this construction project was that it had taken so long to eventuate. The sweeping away of this centrally located, unappealing nineteenth-century eyesore at once re-inscribed and re-oriented Melbourne’s historic environment from the colonial era towards a more modern, compelling, and optimistic future. Although Queen Victoria Market had also been portrayed as obsolete since the 1930s, delays in relocating its wholesale fruit and vegetable market meant, by the late 1960s, a groundswell of popular support for its conservation, particularly from new middle-class residents in surrounding suburbs. As the last surviving nineteenth-century market in the city centre, Victoria was conserved, while time was called on the Eastern. Amid a flurry of hotel development, the Southern Cross took its place among other local high-end enterprises including renovations to the Menzies Hotel (1867, originally by Reed and Barnes) and Oriental Hotel (1878, demolished for I.M. Pei’s Collins Place twin towers in 1977). Following years of public media reports and private negotiations, the £5 million hotel was a joint enterprise between Pan American Airways’ Intercontinental brand and local 376

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Figure 30.2 The Southern Cross Hotel. Photograph by Harold Freedman 1962, courtesy of State Library of Victoria, Harold Freedman collection.

investors. The municipality approved the development on 23 December 1959. Lord Mayor Bernard Evans proclaimed the initiative the “greatest Christmas present we could have” (Age, 1959). American architects Welton Becket and Associates designed the new complex in partnership with prolific local architects Leslie M Perrott & Partners. Perrott was later involved with an aborted redevelopment proposal for the Victoria Market and also designed the modernist brown-brick Princes Gate (1966), otherwise known as the Gas and Fuel Towers, which was demolished in 1997 for a public square (Lesh, 2021). Welton Becket introduced Americanstyle drive-in shopping malls to Australia in suburban Melbourne at Chadstone Shopping Centre in 1960 (Hutson, 1999). The Southern Cross hotel was 11 storeys and contained 435 rooms. The top and bottom concrete panels’ serrated edges inspired local wits to dub it “The Concertina”. The exterior walls had rich blue mosaic tile, a standardised feature of Intercontinental hotels, which for well-known writer Keith Dunstan (1962) evoked Surfers Paradise or Florida. A two-level, illuminated sign on the roof screened the building services and advertised the complex across the city skyline. A prominent international development like the Southern Cross depended on the support of municipal and state authorities. Conservative Premier Henry Bolte sought international investment for Victoria. He travelled regularly, particularly to the US, where he claimed to be selling Victoria by meeting with businessmen, industrialists, and investors (Age, 1966; 1990). Typified by historian David Dunstan (2006, p.283) as a “little-educated backwoodsman whose main attributes were plain speaking and political cunning”, Bolte was not alone in admiring 377

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the US and seeking to import its ideas, wealth, and cachet. In the late 1950s, Melbourne architect and critic Robin Boyd (1958) had coined the portmanteau “Austerica” – Australia beholden to the United States – to portray an apparent national propensity to vandalise the historic and natural environment for the lure of a glossy yet superficial sense of novelty and newness (Boyd, 2012). Increased admiration for the US operated alongside continued devotion to Britain. Melbourne, like all Australian capital cities, hosted the Royal Visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1954. The Melbourne Olympic Games occurred in 1956. Awareness of the city was growing abroad (Davison, 1997). As the state clawed back prosperity in the mid-1950s and sought international investors, there was a necessity not merely for new visitor accommodation but also for new urban icons – and the elimination of eyesores. Alongside his ringmaster duties welcoming the world to flourishing post-war Melbourne, Bolte presided over a relaxation of alcohol laws which allowed, for instance, drinks with public dining: a measure that assisted in the success of luxury hotels. The Eastern Market hosted some businesses up to May 1960. 20 shops in the new nearby Hicks Arcade on Bourke Street were set aside at reduced rents for their continuation. In October, demolition by the prominent local firm Whelan the Wrecker reached the foundation stone, which was ceremonially opened in the presence of Lord Mayor Evans. Its sealed contents “were in excellent condition”. Sir Arthur Smithers, chairman of Southern Cross Properties, expressed the wish to feature the vellum parchment, coins, and newspapers “in a place of honour in the new hotel building” (Age, 1960 p.5). New and old came together at this modern hotel, not merely in the collection and display of memorabilia but also in the adoption of traditional materials for ornamental purposes. The foundation stone was re-presented within the hotel; some re-used bricks formed arches in the wine cellar. Other heritage features in the brand-new complex included freshly cast wrought iron work in the main restaurant, like that found on nearby terrace houses in inner nineteenth-century Melbourne suburbs. Victoriana was coming into vogue, albeit too late for the Eastern Market building. Reflecting a growing yet superficial interest in Indigenous culture, the coffee shop was decorated in an “aboriginal style with native murals” (Dunstan, 1962). Pan American’s Charles Trippe, the son of the company’s President, called the Southern Cross Hotel “virtually a city within itself ” (Age, 1959 p.1). While exclusivity was key, the hotel complex also welcomed the public with four restaurants, bars, a bowling alley, an ice cream parlour, a shopping centre, and a large public plaza at its centre, planted with shrubs and flowers and incorporating a sculpture and water feature. 84 businesses were joined by 300 car parking spaces: shoppers could avoid the inconvenience and discomfort of setting foot on a city street. The internal concourses and courtyard with waterfall sculpture offered informal social spaces. Sands and McDougall (1965) illustrates the realisation of Trippe’s vision: the Southern Cross Centre was, like its predecessor, split-level. The one common occupant was Thomas’ music store, which had leased storage space in the Eastern. The high-end nature of the new businesses is evident: Boutique Forty One, a frock salon, Mercers’ City Girl and Clothes Horse, Exclusive Limousines, plus hairdressers, travel agents, and cosmeticians. The Southern Cross opened in 1961 with a GTV9-televised extravaganza featuring conservative Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Over subsequent decades, Liberal Party election night parties were held in the 500-seat ballroom, which also operated as a convention centre. Other prominent occasions on the annual calendar included the television industry’s Logie Awards, Australian football’s Brownlow Medal, and horseracing’s Melbourne Cup Day. Following the Beatles, celebrity guests included Muhammad Ali, Sammy Davis Jr, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne. Photographs of 378

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famous visitors appeared on walls of the lobby bar and slowly faded over time. In 1974, direct competition came from an 18-storey Hilton Hotel in East Melbourne, the building of which required the demolition of the historic 1887 Cliveden Mansions. To provide local texture, the Hilton adopted a gold-rush theme in its rooms and incorporated the Cliveden Room, salvaged from the demolished Mansions and decorated with oak panels, library shelving, fireplaces, and stained-glass windows (Hills, 1975). Further competition came in 1981 from Collins Place, which accommodated the luxury Wentworth Hotel. In 1978, Sydney-based Southern Cross Properties, owned by the Jack Fink family, acquired full ownership of the Southern Cross. 1980s renovations sought to keep up with the latest trends in hospitality and retailing. Kosher catering meant the ballroom was frequented by the Jewish community. It also hosted a glamorous event in honour of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, a highlight of the 1985 Royal Visit. In 1987, the hotel rooms along with the swimming pool and tennis court were upgraded for 25th birthday celebrations. Hotel guests that year went into the draw to win a Saab (Age, 1987). However, the shifting contours of the hospitality and retailing sectors, along with evolving stylistic tastes, saw the Southern Cross’ original extravagance replaced by a more subdued experience.

“Bombsite”: SX Towers The most recent chapter in the story of “Block X” opens in the early 1990s. Despite its continuing prominence, and many renovations, the Southern Cross had lost its lustre. It held an ambiguous place amid the Capital City Initiative and Postcode 3000 post-industrial rejuvenation strategies. Travellers were attracted to trendier hotels in new multi-storey towers such as the Hilton and Wentworth and in conserved heritage properties such as the Windsor and the Rialto. The 1978 pedestrianisation of Bourke Street had not extended to the Southern Cross. Its retail offerings appeared out-of-date compared to, for instance, the Japanesebacked Melbourne Central, a shopping centre over an underground railway station. Here, an atrium boasted industrial heritage, the Shot Tower of the former bullet-making firm Coop’s (conserved in-situ), as well as a large animatronic clock that broadcast “Waltzing Matilda” every hour: Australiana heritage. In 1994, the Republic of Nauru acquired the Southern Cross. With proceeds generated from phosphate mining, Nauru was growing its property portfolio globally. Its first major development had been in Melbourne in 1977: the 52-storey Nauru House, designed by Perrott Lyon Timlock & Kesa (a later Perrott firm). In 1994, the Southern Cross closed for renovations – and never reopened. A number of proposals emerged for the site. Many involved modernising the original hotel, removing vestiges of its jet-age glamour, while constructing a parallel apartment or office tower. This provoked mixed community responses. Among architectural critics, the Southern Cross was perceived as kitsch, crass, and insipid. In the long shadow of Boyd, they adopted an overly literal reading of Austerica, along with Boyd’s notion of featurism, a term he used to degenerate post-war Australians’ popular aesthetic sensibilities (Boyd, 2012). Embedded within this debate was the National Trust, with its resident historians Rohan Storey and Elizabeth Kumm (1994) writing in the Trust News: “With a little imagination the refurbishment of the hotel complex could highlight the boldly featurist elements, renew life into existing spaces and herald the revitalisation of 60s kitsch as 90s chic!” The National Trust classified the Southern Cross in its non-statutory heritage register; noting both the “Eastern Market which had been a Melbourne landmark” as well as the Southern Cross Hotel and Shops “as the largest and perhaps the best known example of the decorative Modernist architectural style” (National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Archive, 1994). Neither state nor 379

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municipal authorities followed the Trust’s lead in recognising this popular instance of midcentury-modern heritage. From the 1970s, a new heritage regulatory system protected a growing number of nineteenth-century sites and areas (Lesh, 2023). In the 1990s, modern heritage such as ICI House, completed in 1955 and Melbourne’s first International-style curtain-wall skyscraper, was slowly attracting authorities’, conservationists’ and the public’s attention. Yet the Southern Cross was not broadly recognised as a heritage place. It emerges as an indicative example of the challenges around identifying, retaining, and interpreting modern heritage (Goad, 2013). Reflecting evolving attitudes, two decades later, in 2014, the 1964–1965 Total House Carpark, a brutalist parking, office, and nightclub complex, was state heritage listed. At the turn of the millennium, some places around central Melbourne were labelled “bombsites” due to stalling of their redevelopment (Munro & Finlay, 2000). Examples were the historic Queen Victoria Hospital, the industrial Carlton and United Breweries Complex – and the Southern Cross. All had belonged to the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust: mismanagement led it to receivership (Age, 2004). Meanwhile, in 2002, the Victorian Labor Government set its sights on the Southern Cross to amalgamate state government office space. Premier Steve Bracks declared: “For too many years the Southern Cross has been one of Melbourne’s most infamous derelict sites … Now it will become a showcase for innovation and sustainable development in Victoria” (Age, 2002 online). Amid a frenzy of development activity, with the certainty offered by fast-tracked planning approval and long-term government tenancies, developers Multiplex, Baron Corporation, and Bacock and Brown partnered with architects Woods Bagot to construct the $600-million SX Towers. In what was reportedly its fifth redevelopment scheme in a decade, the Southern Cross was demolished for two office towers, of 40 and 21 storeys, completed in 2005 and 2009, respectively, and adopting cutting-edge sustainability features (Figure 30.3). The SX Towers complex at 121 Exhibition Street again incorporated the 1878 Eastern Market foundation stone, embedded into the heritage-inspired bluestone retaining wall of the Bourke Street entrance ramp. Between the tower podiums, an internal covered walkway, containing shops and boutiques, was named Southern Cross Lane. Some original chandeliers from the hotel apparently ended up in a large family home in Ivanhoe (Age, 2000). Satirist Barry Humphries (2005) reflected on the site: It was hard to imagine [once] that the Southern Cross would ever be torn down or that the Gas and Fuel buildings opposite St Paul’s Cathedral … would ever be replaced by something worse [the postmodern, public Federation Square]. Once, the Eastern Market and other nineteenth-century masonry buildings had projected permanence for colonists seeking to anchor themselves in Indigenous lands. In 1878, Governor George Bowen suggested: “There can be no doubt but that handsome public buildings exercise a refining and elevating influence on the public mind and taste” (Age, 1878 p.3). Nineteenth-century architecture became dwarfed by complexes like the Gas and Fuel towers and the Southern Cross, which were also assumed to have an indefinite lifespan before them. Humphries (2005) recognised that the essence of his city could be characterised by “changes both good and bad [and yet] the spirit of Melbourne somehow survives and prospers”. The site was also impacted by misrecognition of heritage. The original Eastern Arcade still existed on the site’s western boundary, yet lacked heritage protection because an inaccurate 1985 heritage study identified it as a 1926 building (the date of its façade) rather than an 1880s structure. Last-minute efforts to secure heritage protections failed, even when original intact 380

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Figure 30.3 SX Towers, 121 Exhibition Street, Melbourne. Photograph by David Nichols 2022.

interiors were uncovered during demolition (National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Archive, 2008). The only prominent gestures at the heritage of the SX Towers site came with the re-utilisation of the original foundation plaque and the name of the complex and its laneway. Archival material – particularly rich media such as photography, television, and film – have provided a way for the community to engage with this twice lost place in the print and digital 381

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realm (in addition to informing this chapter). One day, the SX Towers might be recognised as significant in the ongoing development of Melbourne. Earlier generations of this city’s skyscrapers have already received heritage protections, such as the Manchester Unity Building (1932), ICI House (1955), and Shell House (1989). In the future, urban heritage regimes may well build the capacity to conserve the evolving developmental and socio-historical values of such places. Many histories seek to tally the wins and losses of the conservation movement. Against such measures, the Eastern Market and the Southern Cross were examples of important community places failing to achieve sufficient cultural recognition before demolition. Yet, there is an alternative story reflecting the city’s inclination not towards retention but rather towards destruction. Redevelopment becomes fundamental to the city and its heritage, with destruction being the norm and conservation the exception. Indeed, the US National Trust for Historic Preservation has proposed reformulating the relationship between heritage and development by mandating that property owners apply for approval to destroy existing sites – prior to seeking planning consent – to make conservation the norm rather than the exception (Mayes, 2016). Ultimately, the reputation and prominence of places such as the Eastern Markets and Southern Cross could not withstand the shifting forces of retailing, entertainment, hospitality, hotels, real estate, finance, and development. This place – for now, the SX Towers – becomes emblematic of the destruction of heritage that typifies cities and urban life.

References Age. (1878). Laying the Foundation Stone of the New Eastern Market. Age, 10 May, p.3. ——— (1902). The Eastern Market. Age, 20 May, p.5. ——— (1959). £5 Million Hotel Approved by City Council. Age, 24 December, p.1. ——— (1960). 82 years of history. Age, 8 October, p.5. ——— (1964a). 50 Teenagers Hurt in Wild City Crush. Age, 15 June, pp.1–3. ——— (1964b). Beatles to Appear at Town Hall Today. Age, 16 June, p.3. ——— (1966). Selling Victoria in the U.S. Age, 12 July, p.7. ——— (1987). Birthday celebrations. Age, 23 February, p.20. ——— (1990). Sir Henry Bolte, 1908–1990 (Obituary). Age, 5 January, p.6. ——— (2000). Our Choice: Ivanhoe: 23 Redesdale Road. Age, 11 March, p.149. ——— (2002). Bracks deal on Southern Cross site. Age, 2 November. Available at: https://www.theage. com.au/national/bracks-deal-on-southern-cross-site-20021102-gdur1o.html [Accessed: 9 March 2022]. ——— (2004). Pacific nation Nauru on brink of collapse. Age, 18 April. Available at: https://www. theage.com.au/world/pacif ic-nation-nauru-on-brink-of-collapse-20040418-gdxp7p.html [Accessed: 9 March 2022]. Boyd, R. (1958). The culture of Austerica or the rape of “Ellerslie”. Quadrant 2(2), pp.39–43. ——— (2012). The Australian ugliness. Melbourne: Text Publishing. Broome, R., Barnden, R., Gibb, D., Garden, D., Jackson, E., and Smart, J. (2016). Remembering Melbourne 1850–1960. Melbourne: Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Brown-May, A. (1998). Melbourne street life: the itinerary of our days. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing. Burdett, B. (1933). The Ambulator in Bourke Street. The Home, 1 April, pp.36, 37, 72, 74. Collier, J. (1983). Reminiscences of Bourke Street 1914 to 1919: a walk down memory lane. Melbourne: J.V. Collier. Davison, G. (1997). Welcoming the world: The 1956 Olympic games and the re-presentation of Melbourne. Australian Historical Studies 27(109), pp.64–76. ——— (2006). From the market to the mall. In: Background Report to the Victorian Government’s department of Planning and Community Development, Retail Policy Review. Victoria State Government. Dunstan, K. (1962). Paddy’s Market to Luxury Hotel. The Bulletin, July, pp.12–15.

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Destruction, development and heritage in Melbourne Dunstan, D. (2006). Henry Bolte: The lucky developer. In: Strangio, P., and Costar, B.J. (eds). The Victorian premiers 1856–2006. Sydney: Federation Press, pp.275–293. Goad, P. (2013). Unloved, over-loved or just mis-understood? Modern architecture: The problem child of heritage. Historic Environment 25(1), pp.12–30. Harrison, R. (2013). Heritage: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge. Hills, B. (1975). It’s priceless for the ladies. The Age, 11 November, p.29. Hodgens, H.S. (1951). Eastern Market. Undergraduate thesis. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Humphries, B. (2005). Return of a passionate pilgrim. The Age, 7 October. Available at: https://www.theage. com.au/national/return-of-a-passionate-pilgrim-20051007-ge107s.html [Accessed: 5 April 2022]. Hutson, A. (1999). “I Dream of Jeannie”? The American Origins of the Chadstone Shopping Centre. Fabrications 9(1), pp.17–33. Jackson, S., Porter, L., and Johnson, L.C. (eds). (2017). Planning in indigenous Australia: from imperial foundations to postcolonial futures. New York: Routledge. Labadi, S., and Logan, W. (eds). (2016). Urban heritage, development and sustainability: international frameworks, national and local governance. London: Routledge. Lesh, J. (2021). Melbourne’s Federation Square and its Heritage Discontents, 1994–2002. Fabrications 31(1), pp.109–138. Lesh, J. (2023). Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth Century Australia. New York: Routledge. Lesh, J., and Logan, C. (2020). Heritage Cities. In: Rogers, D., Keane, A., Alizadeh, T., Nelson, J. (eds). Understanding Urbanism. Singapore: Springer, pp.87–101. Lesh, J.P., and Nichols, D. (2018). ‘The Ruins Caused a Catch in the Throat as Memories Came Flooding In’: Melbourne’s Bread and Cheese Club and Postwar Literary Urban Conservationism. Proceedings of the 14th Australasian Urban History Planning History Conference 2018. Melbourne: RMIT University, pp.275–283. Lewis, N. (1976). Historic and architectural survey of the central city of Melbourne: Bourke Street, East, Area 8 of the survey commissioned by the Historic Buildings Preservation Council. Melbourne: The Author. Madgin, R. (2020). Urban Heritage and Urban Development. In: Haumann, S., Knoll, M., and Mares, D. (eds). Concepts of Urban-Environmental History. Bielefeld: transcript-Verlag, pp.235–282. Mason, R. (2009). The once and future New York: historic preservation and the modern city. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Mayes, T. (2016). Changing the Paradigm from Demolition to Reuse – Building Reuse Ordinances. In: Page, M., and Miller, M. (eds). Bending the future: fifty ideas for the next fifty years of historic preservation in the United States. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, pp.162–165. Moore, K. (2005). Beatlemania: The Beatles in Melbourne, 1964. In: Luckins, T., and O’Hanlon, S. (eds). Go! Melbourne in the sixties. Melbourne: Melbourne Publishing Group, pp.58–71. Munro, I., and Finlay, S. (2000). The sorry tales of a city’s bombsites, Age, 1 July, p.18. National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Archive. (1994). B6574 Southern Cross Hotel. ——— (2008). B6962 Eastern Arcade. Pendlebury, J. (2009). Conservation in the age of consensus. London: Routledge. Rogers, D. (2020). Understanding Urbanism. In: Rogers, D., Keane, A., Alizadeh, T., Nelson, J. (eds). Understanding Urbanism. Singapore: Springer, pp.1–13. Sands & McDougall. (1955). New map of Melbourne and suburbs. Melbourne: Sands & McDougall Limited. ——— (1965). New map of Melbourne and suburbs. Melbourne: Sands & McDougall Limited. Sleight, S. (2018). Memory and the city. In: Maerker, A., Sleight, S., and Sutcliffe, A. (eds). History, memory and public life: the past in the present. Oxon: Routledge, pp.126–158. Smith, L. (2006). Uses of heritage. New York: Routledge. Storey, R., and Kumm, E. (1994). Southern Cross Hotel: Bad taste is important too. Trust News, August, p.8. Turnbull, C. (1938). The Eastern Market Blot. Melbourne Herald, 13 July, p.6.

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31 CASE STUDY The Destruction of Australian Aboriginal Heritage and Its Implications for Indigenous Peoples Globally Jillian Huntley and Lynley A. Wallis Introduction The United Nations (2021) estimates there are more than 476 million  Indigenous1 people living in more than 90 countries worldwide, with more than 5000 cultural groups who each practice unique traditions, retaining social and cultural characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they now live. Australia is a continent of distinct cultural groups with more than 200 languages spoken at the time of colonial invasion by the British and more than 300 different Aboriginal groups recognised (Horton, 1994; Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008; Dixon, 2010). Here, Indigenous/Aboriginal refers to original or native peoples. In accordance with the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, these terms are used to identify rather than define cultural groups of people. This is based on the fundamental tenet of selfidentification for Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples in numerous human rights documents. The Aboriginal groups across the Pilbara region whose heritage will be drawn on herein selfidentify as Indigenous/Aboriginal evidenced by their statuary recognition in Native Title law as claimants and/or holders of legal recognition associated with their Country (Aboriginal peoples’ term for their homeland territories). Both self-identification and statuary recognition for Aboriginal peoples are tied to their responsibilities as custodians of their cultural heritage. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that “custodianship” is a Western term that sits awkwardly in this space and does not adequately capture the complexity of Aboriginal peoples’ connections to their Country (Kingsley et al., 2013). Cultural heritage is inextricably linked to the values ascribed to it by groups of people (Brown, 2008; Boer & Gruber, 2012; Sutton et al., 2013). It is obvious, though often unstated, that cultural heritage is defined by its value to a cultural group or groups. Heritage values are complex, dynamic, and resilient. These attributes are magnified in colonial contexts where Indigenous peoples are often engaged in ongoing battles to maintain their own cultural practices alongside imposed, often incompatible, external governance structures (Albrecht, 2005; Saldin & Forbes, 2018; González Zarandona, 2020; Huntley et al., 2021a). Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People makes clear that “Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural 384

DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-34

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heritage”. Despite clearly requiring primacy in decision-making about their heritage as a human right, for decades, Indigenous peoples around the globe have grappled with the effective preservation of their physical and intangible heritage against increasing developmental pressures (Byrne, 2003; Boer & Gruber, 2012; Gibson & Klinck, 2005; Bebbington, 2011; Coumans, 2011; King & Eoin, 2014). In shared landscapes, such as colonial Australia, land use conflicts have been constant and Aboriginal peoples’ attachments to place and their Country have long been recognised within this context (McNiven & Russell, 2002, 2005). Australian heritage legislation is a patchwork of local, state, and federal governance, designed ostensibly to “protect” discrete “sites” rather than the landscapes that surround and connect them to other related sites and landscape features, trade routes, and/or knowledge tracks (songlines). Those seeking to protect Aboriginal heritage have long wrestled with the need to define a spatially restricted site area and to manage Aboriginal heritage based upon such boundaries (McBryde, 1997). Even where additional protections can be enacted, such as the declarations of Aboriginal Places under state legislation, the physical fabric of the site and its immediate surrounds are encompassed in the listing but generally not other aspects of heritage significance (Buckley & Sullivan, 2014; Huntley, 2019). Over the past two decades, every jurisdiction in Australia has, or has attempted to, update their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage protection schemes. This has met with limited success, chiefly because definitions of cultural heritage and the statutes that protect them are not concepts drawn from Indigenous traditional law and custom. Further, there is a significant gap between “what the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples see as part of their law and custom and their heritage, compared to what governments are prepared to protect” (Wensing, 2020 p.244). The destruction of heritage is both psychologically and physiologically distressing for the peoples to whom it holds significance. Such distress arguably affects Aboriginal people on a deeper level owing to their strong connection to their land (Albrecht, 2005; Connor et al., 2008). When interviewed about the impacts of “development” on their Country, a Wonnarua person 2 articulated Indigenous attachment to the environment as an intimate spiritual connection, stating that impacts from mining therefore not only destroyed the landscape but also irrevocably damaged their connections to Country (Connor et al., 2008 pp.84–86; Sutton et al., 2013; Huntley, 2019). In some regions where resource extraction occurs this distress has been accumulating unabated for decades (Langton et al., 2012; Albrecht, 2019). It is also evident where climate change is exacerbating both the destruction of discrete heritage places (Huntley et al., 2021b) as well as inducing landscape-scale devastation (Altman & Jordan, 2008; Boer & Gruber, 2012; Bird et al., 2013; Nursery-Bray et al., 2019). One area where Aboriginal peoples have been experiencing distress from heritage destruction for decades, at both an individual site level, and also landscape scale, is the Pilbara region of northwest Western Australia. This region, geographically remote yet central to the Western Australian economy, affords a constant litany of state-sanctioned heritage destruction but, occasionally, a glimmer of hope demonstrating destruction is not inevitable.

The Hamersley Range of Pilbara region, Western Australia: A case study The Pilbara region is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the west through to the Great Sandy Desert on the Northern Territory border in the east. Within the Pilbara, the extensive Hamersley Plateau is the most elevated upland area in the western third of Australia and contains the Hamersley Range, which runs for 460 km from the Fortescue River in the northeast to the south. Situated in a tropical semi-arid zone characterised by hot summers and 385

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mild winters, the Hamersley Range is relatively well watered, covered in typical semi-arid vegetation of open woodlands over low shrubs, and hard spinifex dramatically set against red soils. Characterised by distinctive Banded Iron Formation (BIF) geology, the region contains numerous iron ore mines and associated infrastructure, with large-scale resource extraction having commenced in the 1960s (Langton & Mazel, 2012). Aboriginal peoples continue to care for their cultural heritage against this industrial backdrop, supporting attempts to synthesise the oftentimes diffuse assessment and mitigation works conducted as part of commercial resource management contracts (Huntley et al., 2021a). Recently, a notable incident of destruction brought the protection of Aboriginal heritage in the Pilbara region, specifically of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples (hereafter PKKP peoples), to global attention. On 24 May 2020, on the eve of Australia’s National Reconciliation Week, the second largest metals and mining corporation in the world, multinational company Rio Tinto, proceeded with the destruction of two rockshelter sites in Juukan Gorge in order to extend the Brockman 4 iron ore mine. These rockshelters contained evidence for Aboriginal occupation providing insights into Aboriginal lifeways stretching back 46,000 years and were of great cultural, ethnographic, and archaeological significance. This destruction proceeded with Ministerial consent granted to Rio Tinto in 2013 that allowed the sites to be destroyed under section 18 of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 and in accordance with an Indigenous Land Use Agreement that was reached between Rio Tinto and the PKKP in 2012. Importantly, this and other ministerial consents give legal permission for proponents to engage in actions that would otherwise be regarded as criminal, though they do not abrogate other legal responsibilities or ethical behaviour (Wensing, 2020). Public outcry over the destruction by Rio Tinto of the Juukan Gorge sites led to a Federal Parliamentary Inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia (hereafter JSCNA), which described the incident as a shocking and disturbing event for all Australians. The breadth of the Inquiry, and the submissions it generated, resulted in publication of an interim report in December 2020, Never Again ( JSCNA, 2020), and a final report, A Way Forward in October 2021 ( JSCNA, 2021). The findings of these reports were also shocking and disturbing. Of particular concern is that although there were alternatives to site destruction, as per the final report from the inquiry, Rio Tinto only presented the PKKP peoples with a single pathway for the management of the Juukan rockshelters: salvage excavation as a form of “mitigation” before they would be destroyed ( JSCNA, 2021). In a meeting with the PKKP in March 2013, Rio Tinto failed to share four mine pit design options available with the Traditional Owners, at least some of which could have averted the site destruction “had the opportunity for communication been taken up” ( JSCNA, 2021 p.18). The inquiry also found that the PKKP had raised its concerns about the status of the Juukan rockshelters on 15 May 2020, five days before the blasts destroyed them ( JSCNA, 2021 p.14). The JSCNA final report was damning, finding the corporate culture at Rio Tinto was driven by “expedient rather than thorough processes for the protection and management of cultural heritage” and was “site-focused as opposed to landscape or regional approach to cultural heritage protection” ( JSCNA, 2021 p.14). Yet the same resource company, Rio Tinto, has, elsewhere in the Pilbara region, redesigned mine pits to ensure the ongoing protection of significant Aboriginal sites. In 2008–2009, despite also having ministerial consent to destroy Aboriginal sites associated with the Hope South 1 mine in Banjima Country (around 120 km east of PKKP lands), Rio Tinto altered its infrastructure plans to avoid impacts to Aboriginal heritage of a similar antiquity to the Juukan rockshelters. The main retaining wall for the Hope South 1 mine pit was explicitly 386

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planned for construction approximately 30 m west of the Djadjiling rockshelter (occupied by Aboriginal people as early as 41,000 years ago; Law et al., 2010) in order to help preserve the site (Law & Cropper, 2018). The results of the salvage excavation of sites,3 originally scheduled to be impacted, introduced new information about their antiquity and scientific significance, which informed Rio Tinto’s decision to take measures to subsequently preserve them, although they could have legally proceeded with their state-sanctioned destruction (Law & Cropper, 2018). This decision to preserve Aboriginal heritage over which ministerial consent to impact it had already been granted to Rio Tinto was not isolated. In 2002 the same type of ministerial consent was granted to Rio Tinto (and their joint venture partner) to impact rockshelters preserving evidence of Aboriginal heritage in Nyiyaparli Country, the neighbouring clan estate to the Banjima, also in the east of the Hamersley Range. The authors were engaged by Rio Tinto in 2017 to undertake highly specialised scientific studies on the ochre seams, grindstones, and walls of the aforementioned rockshelters (Huntley & Wallis, 2020; Huntley et al., 2021a). Our brief was to gather detailed information about the sites for the Nyiyaparli Traditional Owners in order to learn what we could about the people who had lived in these places before they were destroyed under the terms of the ministerial consent. In the process of our investigation, we recorded rare panels of painted and drawn rock art on a low ceiling at the back of the BBH15-01 rockshelter. Detailed scientific work by our team paired geochemical and residue analyses with traditional knowledge to gain insights into what we termed “the rock art of the everyday”. The pigments on the art panels were compared with ochre seams and grinding stones used to prepare paints. We concluded the rock art was made using local ochre sources, and the grinding stones in the site showed paints were processed alongside plants and animals. Coupled with the art’s “hidden” location in a low ceiling, the archaeological evidence matched Nyiyaparli Traditional Owners’ interpretation: that the rockshelter was a good camping place for family groups in the seasonally cyclonic weather and was revisited by the people over hundreds if not thousands of years. Prior to our chance discovery, no one knew the art was there, despite multiple heritage studies having been undertaken at the site, that had informed the section 18 permission being issued. On the basis of this new information, Rio Tinto (and their joint venture partner) redesigned their mine plan to preserve the artworks and other traces of Aboriginal culture (Huntley & Wallis, 2020; Huntley et al., 2021a). These three examples, drawn from different Aboriginal groups across the Pilbara within whose homeland’s resource extraction operations occur, show the potential for different outcomes despite similar competing interests and dealing with the same proponent. Heritage destruction is clearly not a foregone conclusion. So why is it that, in these case studies, the same mining company made different decisions under very similar circumstances? We may never have an answer: however, there is a complex context here that the Parliamentary Inquiry into the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rockshelters has clearly exposed. In the instance of the Nyiyaparli rockshelter containing art in which we were involved, at least, we suggest the answer to its preservation is through a combination of Indigenous, scientific, and corporate advocacy (Huntley & Wallis, 2020).

Discussion The JSCNA (2021 p.1) concluded that “The Juukan Gorge disaster is just one example of countless instances where cultural heritage has been the victim of the drive for development and commercial gain” in Australia: 387

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Throughout the course of the inquiry, it became apparent that there are serious deficiencies across Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage legislative framework … It became apparent to the Committee that legislation designed to protect cultural heritage has, in many cases, directly contributed to damage and destruction. ( JSCNA, 2021 pp.xi–xii) The final Inquiry Report demonstrated through information gathered from submissions by individuals, peak body organisations, developers, case studies, and public hearings that time and time again, States have prioritised development over the protection of cultural heritage – including through the enactment of site-specific development legislation intended to further dispossess Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ( JSCNA, 2021 p.186). In the specific case of the Pilbara region, under the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972, assessments of significance are done prematurely, prior to detailed information (such as that collected in all three of the examples in the case study) being gathered or presented to those responsible for making a decision about whether to grant consent for a site to be destroyed. Further, there is no mechanism for significance assessments to be updated as more information comes to light or for ministerial consents to be rescinded. In some instances, ministerial consents are granted decades in advance of any proposed impact, and by the time impact occurs, considerable new knowledge has come to light that would demonstrably alter the initial assessment of significance (Huntley & Wallis, 2020). Heritage significance by its very nature is inherently mutable (Brown, 2008; Boer & Gruber, 2012). In the case of Juukan Gorge, new information resulted from further ethnographic and archaeological work undertaken in 2014, after the granting of section 18 consent for the destruction of the Juukan sites was granted in December 2013, was not retrospectively taken into consideration ( JSCNA, 2021 p.21). Rio Tinto could, and should, have designed mitigation and management strategies taking into consideration all information it had to hand, especially from the detailed archaeological and anthropological reports that the company had itself commissioned as part of its heritage processes. As outlined above, there was precedence for this within Rio Tinto’s resource extraction operations in both Banjima and Nyiyaparli Country (Law & Cropper, 2018; Huntley et al., 2021a). Another key concern in the Australian context is that legal permissions granted by the Minister to impact Aboriginal heritage do not require any consideration of cumulative impacts, instead assessing applications on an individual basis, without considering the longterm loss of regionally/nationally/internationally significant Aboriginal heritage (Huntley & Wallis, 2020; see also Forum paper by Godwin [2011] and associated responses published in Australian Archaeology 73(1)). Discussion of the cumulative impacts of landscape-scale industrial development, particularly relating to the resources sector, have been ongoing for close to 50 years (Tollefson & Wipond, 1998; Bebbington et al., 2018), yet the long-term social consequences of environmental impacts from large-scale industrial development, and resultant landscape-scale transformation, have only recently begun to be formally considered as a part of planning and approvals processes in Australia (Lockie et al., 2009; Morrice & Colagiuri, 2013; Kennedy, 2016). Consideration of cumulative impacts is inherently piecemeal at present, owing to varying legislative and regulatory requirements. Cumulative impact assessments in the Australian mining sector have been overwhelmingly driven by project-specific terms of reference. Rather than considering heritage, directives to consider compound and indirect multiscalar impacts have focused predominantly on ecology (air, noise, groundwater, vegetation 388

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clearance, and species habitat) (Kaveney et al., 2015) and more rarely applied economic analyses of the environmental, cultural, and social impacts (Gillespie & Bennett, 2012). A worrying long-term trend has emerged whereby State and Federal governments privilege the economic imperatives of development, especially extractive resource industries, ahead of heritage and community well-being (Huntley, 2019). Impacts to heritage from extractive industries and other development pressures not only restrict physical access of Aboriginal peoples to their heritage (even where preserved), but also the obliteration of cultural landscapes associated with the sites destroys people’s attachments to place (Sutton et al., 2013; Huntley & Wallis, 2020). What happened at Juukan Gorge is not an isolated event ( JSCNA, 2021). Landscape-scale destruction of heritage is routinely sanctioned by governments in the pursuit of industrial developments the world over (e.g., Bryce, 2008; King & Eoin, 2014; Nicholas & Smith, 2020). Indeed, it has been persuasively argued that, particularly in colonial contexts, this routine destruction of heritage constitutes landscape iconoclasm (González Zarandona, 2015; 2020). Tokenistic stakeholder engagement, exemplified by the rescinding and subsequent mining of the conservation offset areas upon which previous heritage impact approvals have been issued, has caused increasing distress for Indigenous people, including feelings of powerlessness and cynicism as a result of being continually marginalised in the approvals process (Sutton et al., 2013; Huntley, 2019). There are inherent power imbalances in heritage acts that were developed without the input of (or with only minimal input of ) Indigenous peoples that hark back to a time where conservation provisions were designed to protect Aboriginal heritage (offensively) alongside flora and fauna (Brown, 2008; Sutton et al., 2013; JSCNA, 2021 p.2). Loss of heritage sites and their integrity is an irreversible process: unlike some ecological features (flora and fauna), cultural heritage does not have any capacity for recovery on its own, managers need to intervene and execute site stabilisation and site restoration and conservation (Cole & Wallis, 2019). Structural power imbalances are multidimensional. The PKKP peoples have drawn attention to the “grossly unequal negotiating position of the parties” ( JSCNA, 2020 p.30), exemplified by “non-objection” clauses which prevented the PKKP people from voicing opposition to Rio Tinto projects and clauses which prevented the PKKP from seeking State or Federal heritage protection declarations without Rio Tinto’s consent ( JSCNA, 2020 p.29). Aboriginal peoples are often overwhelmed during the negotiation of such land use agreements. In the case of Juukan Gorge, the PKKP peoples were dealing with a “740-page document. At the same time, they signed a regional framework deed of 330 pages” ( JSCNA, 2020 p.3). Finally, as Langton and Mazel (2012) pointed out, these power imbalances are not always so overt. In Australia, resource extraction may offer the only significant potential for employment, contracting opportunities, and income beyond welfare entitlements in many remote Aboriginal communities. The negotiating parties are hardly operating from the same power basis or equal footing.

Lessons: Preventing the destruction of Aboriginal heritage In the case of Djadjiling in Banjima Country, during heritage investigations preceding statesanctioned scheduled destruction new information came to light that the site preserved 41,000 years of Aboriginal use (Law & Cropper, 2018). At the time, this made Djadjiling 10,000 years older than any previously identified Aboriginal site in the eastern Pilbara, making it amongst the oldest known of any Aboriginal sites in the Pilbara or the entire Australian arid zone. In the case of the Nyiyaparli BBH15-01 rockshelter, we knew from a major synthesis we had conducted of more than 50 pigment rock art sites in the broader region for another 389

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major resource company that the “hidden” placement of art in sites was rare. Many of the other examples of painted rock art in the Central Pilbara are positioned in highly visible locations, including in some instances high up on the literal sides of gorges that can be seen from a great distance, leading into larger site complexes where people appear to have gathered in big groups (Wallis et al., 2015). The BBH15-01 site was clearly different (Huntley & Wallis, 2020; Huntley et al., 2021a). “Scientific data” and site rarity have been long observed as being privileged in decisionmaking around heritage conservation (Brown, 2008). The time depth of Aboriginal culture is something we are rightly proud of in Australia and is a characteristic of Indigenous cultural heritage that is highly valued internationally (Cole & Wallis, 2019). In the case of Juukan Gorge, it seems the opportunity to reflect on such attributes, or their cultural significance to local custodians, and to then act to preserve them, was not taken. The JSCNA has recommended that a new national legislative framework for cultural heritage protection be co-designed with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that this should reflect the principles of free, prior, and informed consent as set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ( JSCNA, 2021). They recommended that the Minister for Indigenous Australians should be the responsible Minister under the new legislation ( JSCNA, 2021). On 29 November 2021, an important step towards this goal was achieved with the announcement of a historic partnership with the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance, representing more than 30 Indigenous stakeholder groups to strengthen safeguards for Indigenous heritage (2021). A watching brief is now required to measure how effectively the other recommendations of the final Inquiry report ( JSCNA, 2021) are adopted and/or implemented in coming years. Rio Tinto was not alone in exploiting inadequate state and Commonwealth legislation to pursue resources at the cost of cultural heritage. Case studies throughout the report demonstrate that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have suffered the loss of their cultural heritage sites at the hands of development−by many industries−for generations. Despite the national current awareness, and condemnation, of these destructive acts, they are ongoing. ( JSCNA, 2021 p.185) The themes we have outlined, of governments prioritising development over cultural heritage and community well-being, not considering cumulative impacts, the power imbalances inherent in negotiations for heritage protection, and a lack of co-design with Indigenous peoples of the frameworks protecting their heritage are not confined to Australia (Gibson & Klinck, 2005; Bebbington, 2011; Coumans, 2011; King & Eoin, 2014; Saldin & Forbes, 2018). What is conspicuous in the Australian case at present is a seemingly watershed event, where heritage destruction has been brought to the fore leading to a collective will to change the status quo. While a country’s internal legal frameworks have primacy in conservation outcomes, there are a plethora of multilateral agreements dedicated to, or incorporating, the protection of cultural heritage (Gerstenblith, 2016; Boer, 2019). Such agreements, conventions, treaties, and statutes are binding where ratified by signatories and provide a measure of external oversight from the international community. It is worth noting here that Australia has a history of governance with developmentalist philosophies that have seen it at times give less-thanwholehearted support for the international agreements to which it is a signatory – such as in the example of Federal and State government support for further uranium mining that would have jeopardised the key cultural values for which the Kakadu National Park was inscribed 390

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on the World Heritage List (Aplin, 2004). What was different in the recent Juukan Gorge case is that it was not international human rights or environmental governance that held the corporation to account for heritage destruction, it was their investors. As a result of shareholder backlash, the Juukan Gorge fiasco received sustained coverage in corporate media such as the BBC’s Business News (BBC, 2021) and The Australian Financial Review who reported that the company had “blown up” its own corporate reputation along with the PKKP’s heritage (Ker, 2020). These outlets reported on the extensive executive staff turnover in Rio Tinto’s business as a consequence of the destruction of Aboriginal heritage. Rio Tinto is a multinational company with operations on continents including the Americas and Africa,4 where Indigenous peoples’ heritage has, and is, being impacted by their works. How companies in resource extractive industries, and other large-scale developers, may apply lessons from the Australian case studies we discuss here remains to be seen. What seems clear is that, moving forward, global corporations will face a higher level of scrutiny from not only the international community but also their shareholders (BBC, 2021). Best-practice heritage management dictates that multinational companies should consistently adopt the highest levels of consultation, conservation, and mitigation across all of their operations rather than complying piecemeal only with the “bare minimum” required under local jurisdictions. Consistency in heritage management processes and procedures would deliver some assurances to Indigenous peoples outside of the Pilbara region of Australia that Rio Tinto would not be party to another Juukan Gorge incident wherever they are operating. Widespread condemnation of the destruction of the Juukan Gorge rockshelters shows that the Australian and international communities find the destruction of Indigenous peoples’ heritage deplorable. As the foreword to the JSCNA (2021 p.xi) Inquiry Report stated, “Loss of cultural heritage diminishes the heritage of our Nation and deeply wounds the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for whom this heritage is sacred”. International law reflects our shared agreement that the loss of Indigenous peoples’ heritage, anywhere in the world, diminishes us as a global community by impoverishing our understanding of the world and limiting our adaptabilities to adapt to future challenges (such as climate change) (Gerstenblith, 2016; Boer, 2019). Heritage protection regimes must therefore accomplish the protection they set out to achieve rather than merely being a cloaking device that legitimises heritage destruction for economic benefit.

Acknowledgements and declaration of interest As settler Australians, we acknowledge that we occupy the unceded lands of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of the Pilbara region, particularly the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura, Banjima, and Nyiyaparli peoples. We thank José Antonio González Zarandona for the invitation to contribute to this important handbook. Finally, in addition to having been commercially engaged by various mining companies as consultants to work on Banjima and Nyiyaparli heritage, we are currently retained by the Western Australian regulatory authority for Aboriginal heritage, the Department of Water and Environment Regulation, as expert peer reviewers overseeing the design and implementation of the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program.

Notes 1 It is a convention in Australia to capitalise the terms Indigenous, Aboriginal, and Country. 2 Whose homeland is the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, the region in southeast Australia that has had the longest history of resource extraction.

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Jillian Huntley and Lynley A. Wallis 3 Djadjiling as well as two other rockshelters containing evidence for human occupation, HD07-1A-03 and HD07-1A-03, were preserved. 4 The location of Rio Tinto’s global operations is shown on their website: https://www.riotinto.com/ en [Accessed: 28 January 2022].

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Jillian Huntley and Lynley A. Wallis Nicholas, G., and Smith, C. (2020). Considering the denigration and destruction of Indigenous heritage as violence. In: Apaydin, V. (ed). Critical Perspectives on Cultural Memory and Heritage: Construction, Transformation and Destruction, London: University College London Press, pp.131–154. Nursery-Bray, M., Palmer, R., Smith, T.F., and Rist, P. (2019). Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change. Local Environment 24(5), pp.473–486. Saldin, M., and Forbes, C. (2018). The role of cultural heritage in building peace and reconciliation: conflict, disaster and the future of heritage. Historic Environment 30(3), pp.76–83. Sutton, M.J., Huntley, J., and Anderson, B. (2013). ‘All our sites are of high significance’: reflections from recent work in the Hunter Valley. Archaeological and Indigenous perspectives. Journal of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists 1, pp.1–15. Tollefson, C., and Wipond, K. (1998). Cumulative environmental impacts and Aboriginal rights. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 18(4), pp.371–390. United Nations. (2021). Indigenous Peoples: Respect not dehumanization. United Nations: Fight Racism website. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/fight-racism/vulnerable-groups/indigenous-peoples [Accessed: 2 November 2021]. Wallis, L.A., Huntley, J., Watchman, A., and Ralph, J. (2015). Painting the Pilbara: An Overview of the Painted Rock Art of the Hamersley Plateau. Unpublished paper presented at the Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference, Fremantle, December 2015. Wensing, E. (2020). The destruction of Juukan Gorge: lessons for planners and local governments. Australian Planner 56(4), pp.241–248.

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32 DESTRUCTION OF HERITAGE IN LATIN AMERICA María Isabel Hernández Llosas

Introduction The notion of heritage varies in accordance with different cultural, ideological, and political backgrounds, and it is also closely connected with power positions. On the one hand, essentialist notions of heritage conceive it as an intrinsic universal value. These notions are linked with Western views, values, and ideas, which usually are related with political and religious powers in the hands of ruling elites. In the political realm, these essentialist notions, as stated by Högberg (2016), have been historically linked to the task of providing nation-states with myths of origin, resulting in the imposition of symbols of nationhood in material form (buildings, flags, statues glorifying specific historical characters, etc.) or immaterial elements such as stories about battles and heroes who created those nation-states, closely related with the ruling elites. In the religious realm, these essentialist notions have been historically related to Christianity and the imposition of this particular belief system to groups of people from Europe and elsewhere, resulting in the normative consideration that churches, images, pictures, and objects related with this religion are heritage. These essentialist notions have imposed these things as heritage to diverse social groups which do not necessarily agree with this and/or define heritage differently and have dissimilar cultural values. On the other hand, the constructivist approach conceives heritage as a process of social construction, considering the establishment of cultural significance, that is, heritage based in social values, as the foundation of the heritage process, as seen in the internationally accepted Burra Charter, first adopted in 1979 and which reflected the changing understanding of heritage and its preservation. The heritage process is the basis for the constructivist approach, which is fundamental to the social construction of heritage (García Canclini, 1999). Through this process, different cultural values are assigned to specific things, events, or practices by particular groups of people within a society (Pearson & Sullivan, 1999). For example, the spiritual value of natural places such as Uluru-Kata Tjuta given by Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara aboriginal group in Central Australia (Uluru–Kata Tjuta Board of Management, 2010), the material and spiritual practices sustain in the Andes regarding the Pachamama Cult (Cavalcanti-Schiel, 2015) by Indigenous people of the Altiplano (such as Aimara, Quechua, among many others), clearly showing that heritage is based in cultural values that varied according to diverse social and cultural groups, and therefore is a cultural construct. DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-35

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The process of defining cultural significance sometimes includes some confrontation and/ or negotiation between different social sectors involved, and it is conditioned by differences in power positions (Schramm, 2015). In this regard, heritage is a powerful tool in the struggle for those seeking power positions because it is a critical symbolic resource to establish, reinforce, or diminish the power held by specific social groups (Benavides, 2001; López Aguilar, 2002; Mehrotra, 2004). In fact, the validation of heritage significance is an effective way to gain control of social memory, giving advantages to the groups who prevail (Prats, 2005). As a colonial/neo-colonial region of the globe, the issue of heritage destruction in Latin America is closely related to the imposition of the heritage values of ruling hegemonic powers over the subdued Latin American population, that are a product of the last 500 years of European domination. In this chapter, I argue that heritage destruction is a process directly related to the imposition of Western world views over the colonised people’s beliefs and ways of life under colonial and neo-colonial regimes. This process has escalated in intensity, resulting in the destruction of many socio-environmental and socio-cultural elements. These views of what is destroyed and what should be protected confront Indigenous and local people´s world views and values, which consider their socio-environmental identity and cultural memory as an indivisible unit rather than distinct elements of physical, natural, tangible, and intangible heritage. Having established the context, this chapter examines heritage destruction within the history and geopolitics of Latin America, looking specifically at the three waves of colonisation and their impacts. From this, it identifies a paradox in world views and the international UNESCO valuation and construction of heritage, which it explores, before returning to Latin America to look at examples of the consequences for Indigenous and local people seen today.

Heritage and the historical geopolitical place of Latin America Western colonial expansion occurred in three waves. The first wave occurred between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, when various expansionist European kingdoms annexed so-called overseas territories located far away from the central powers, imposing political, economic, and cultural rules on them. The second wave took place between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to ongoing direct political domination, a number of indirect methods were also used to dominate the people. These included interfering with the underlying economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of formerly owned colonies, now politically independent, and ex-colonies of competing colonial powers, such as, for example, manipulation of and pressure on political bodies and loans with unfair conditions. The third wave began in the middle of the twentieth century and is ongoing, escalating the latter strategy with new ways of neo-colonial domination. The seminal text, Las venas abiertas de America Latina (Open Veins of Latin America) (Galeano, 1985), provides conclusive arguments and many examples of this situation that vividly illustrate such cases from different parts of Latin America. Notably, while such processes included control at the governmental level, it was perpetuated by social and industrial concerns. During these three waves, and as an essential component of Western expansion, a world economic system was developed, reconfiguring the social geography and geopolitics on a global scale. This expansion generated what has been described as a core area (in this case, the homelands of the Western colonial powers), who engaged with periphery, semi-periphery, and external areas, with different access to natural resources and cultural independence 396

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producing and maintaining inequalities within and between nations and societies on a global scale (Wallerstein, 1974). Within this stratagem of Western colonial expansion, Latin America has always occupied a peripheral position. The region has suffered significant consequences of that expansion since the very beginning during the first wave, when the colonial invasion occurred, and regimes were established (de Las Casas [1552], 2006). In each wave, different aspects of the lives of native and local people were disrupted, and heritage is one crucial issue that reflects the whole process. Although Spain played a key role, it was by no means the only colonising power, but it is often used as an illustrative example here.

The first wave The first wave in Latin America started in 1492, with the so-called discovery of the New World. Western strategies focused on military Conquest and colonisation by means of political, social, economic, and ideological control. This first wave targeted regions inhabited by Indigenous nations with pre-existing organisational structures that could serve colonial economic interests, such as lands previously dominated by the Aztecs in Mesoamerica and the Incas in the Andes. Once colonised, its people served as a labour force on top of being dispossessed of all the complex infrastructure and rich goods that they produced and possessed. The distribution of these lands, goods, and Indigenous labour force under a servant-slavery system favoured private citizens (mainly former warriors) who were given lands as royal favours, with the sole obligation to keep these territories for the crown and to pay taxes under the encomienda system implemented by the Spanish conquerors during the colonisation in America, to take advantage of Indigenous labour. The Encomienda consisted of the delivery of a group of Indians to a Spaniard who in theory would protect, educate, and evangelise them. The Indians had to pay a tribute as an obligation of vassals of the crown, thus repaying the services rendered by the encomendero, generally paid with work and/or goods (Hidalgo Nuchera & Muradás García, 2001; Aram & Andrade, 2017). Religious orders also had a main role within colonial strategies as they were in charge not only of acculturating the conquered people into Christianity as a means of ideological control but also through managing Indigenous people who were less immediately capable of serving as labour force due to their previous way of life, such as hunter-gatherers. The territories of some Indigenous people with hunter-gatherer ways of life had geopolitical value, and the former residents were confined in places under strict supervision (under the Missions or Reductions systems). In doing so, Spanish colonisers, for example, established chains of Missions in North America in areas such as Baja and Alta California (now Mexico and the United States), securing the Pacific Coast corridor. In South America, this took place in areas such as the Paraná-Paraguay River basin, a natural corridor (now the border between Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay), securing not only that area but also giving access to the Spanish colonizadores to different patches of Spanish colonial settlements. During that first wave, the concept of heritage as we view it today had not yet been created. The aim of the Western powers at this time was to subdue the colonies, not only by means of military force but also to control and destroy the cultural and spiritual basis of the social identity of the colonised people. Their main strategy was the control of the precolonial belief systems, starting with the destruction of pre-colonial temples and shrines, followed by building Catholic churches on top of them. The zócalo (main square) in Mexico City is a paradigmatic example, as all the Spanish colonial institutions were built on top of the Aztec’s main capital and ceremonial centre, the city of Tenochtitlán, with parallels in the Inca 397

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Capital, Cusco. I argue that these procedures were also highly symbolic because, by making the materiality of the defeated invisible, they were put out of sight. Another physical and symbolic way of destroying spiritual aspects of the conquered people was the horrific practice called at the time of the Conquest as extirpación de idolatrías (literally, extirpation of idolatries), Arriaga (1968 [1621]) referring to the action taken to erase Indigenous religions and beliefs. Indigenous religious and cultural practices were destroyed through the methods of the medieval European Inquisition, such as killing people or burning them alive (Toribio Medina, 1952; 1956). These practices leave little space to keep some cultural practices alive. Other practices related to production activities, such as rituals around agriculture and farming were kept alive and through time they changed. They continue to be performed as part of the Catholic traditions that have existed since the early days of colonisation.

The second wave The second wave started in Latin America at the beginning of the 1810s; concurrently, a new scenario was emerging in Europe, where the preeminent positions of Spain and Portugal were giving way to the emerging powers of England and France. Colonial strategies shifted. The new emerging powers started to implement new ways of indirect control through continued interference in economic, political, and social matters, mainly in regions that were former colonies of other colonial powers such as Spain and Portugal. This process ultimately favoured the independence movements, resulting in the establishment of nation-states in almost all of Latin America. The aim was to control the economy of these new nation-states, targeting the natural resources available in the lands unoccupied during the first wave because the Indigenous people living there could not easily be used as labour forces due to their mobile way of life. Now, with the shift in economic interest and the increase in trade in African slaves, Western powers started to covet and need those territories. Under these circumstances, their aim (in all major territories, not just Latin America) was to subjugate those lands and – if necessary – empty them through mass killings, such as the Conquest of the West in North America and the military assault on Pampa and Patagonia in South America (called the Conquest of the Desert), subsequently denying the existence of Indigenous presence in those areas. These military incursions were immediately followed by the development of networks based on new technologies: trains and telegraphs, which, in Latin America at least, were mainly under English control. Such rapid expansion occurred at almost the same time globally: the first train stations with telegraphs were set in very far apart places, such as Alice Springs in Central Australia, and in remote towns in the Argentinean Pampas during the 1890s. These allowed rapid ways of communication and transportation of raw materials towards Europe during the expansion of the enterprises that followed the industrial revolution. It was during the second wave that the concept of heritage started to emerge in Europe, based on the essentialist notion (universally valid heritage based on apparently universal but actually Western values). This proved to be a useful tool to symbolically justify the massacre of Indigenous people that was taking place in the colonies. The Euro-centric heritage discourse deliberately denied the very existence of pre-colonial Indigenous culture(s) (for example, see Lenton & Nagy, 2019), establishing what today is known as segregated past (following the definition stated by Byrne, 1996) by erasing their cultural heritage. In doing so, the official past and the social history were related to colonial and republican times, becoming the cultural heritage of the newly emerged nation-states, while the pre-colonial Indigenous past and present were perceived and associated with natural history, together with plants, animals, and geology, or relegated to the realm of Western studies of archaeological 398

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or ethnographic heritage (Byrne, 1991; 1996). As will be discussed in more detail shortly, this dichotomy was based on the Western ideology and its world views. This was the norm in many newly independent, emergent nation-states formed from former colonial territories, whose territories included pre-colonial, small-scale Indigenous societies. In a few places, where more complex pre-colonial societies built empires, such as Mexico, a nationalistic heritage discourse was created which looked back to a glorious Indigenous past, appealing to the achievements of the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilisations and co-opting Western notions about the supremacy of civilised societies over savage ones. This process is studied by Bueno (2016) who stresses that while notions of the Indigenous past as a glorious one were used in nation building and identity formation during the twentieth century, many sectors of society referred to (and still sometimes today refer to) present Indigenous people as a degraded reflection of their glorious ancestors.

The third wave The third wave started around the end of the Second World War and is ongoing. It was and still is characterised by an exponential increase of political, economic, and social pressures from Western countries, placed at the centre, over many other nation-states placed as periphery, not only in Latin America but also on a global scale. The aim of Western powers is to be in control of the natural resources and local economies using different means. This includes not only governmental control but also extended land appropriation by transnational companies, with an exponential increase of land exhaustion (destruction of native forests, megamining operations, etc.). These have resulted in tremendous damage to the environment, and further resulted in the displacement of the remaining Indigenous people living within the political borders of nation-states, whose claims for rights – which are often based on heritage – are often criminalised. During the third wave, a number of groups began to contest the concept of heritage, using constructivist notions of heritage, where heritage is not universal but socially constructed. Among them, several social movements claim to consider their way of relating with their ancestral territories as heritage to be protected, to confront the threats that the mega enterprises were posing against them, as extensively described in the Velázquez García report for Latin America and the Caribbean (Velázquez García, 2003) and specifically relating to Indigenous People by Del Popolo (2017). As will be discussed in more detail shortly, the controversy between essentialist and constructivist notions appeared in varied contexts within social, academic, and political arenas. In the particular context of Latin America, the constructivist approach is used in attempts to legitimise the claims of marginalised and Indigenous communities, who demand that their cultural legacy should also be considered heritage, recognised at national and international levels. In particular, this occurs in times of great social and political upheaval which involve fierce disputes over natural resources in Latin America, within the context of major socio-environmental crisis at global scale, caused by different factors, such as the expansion of agricultural and farming frontier in Amazonia destroying native forest (CLACSO-CEDLA, 2021) and mega mining enterprises in the Andes (Sacher, 2017), activities that not only create ecological instability but that are also a threat to the socio-environment and the heritage of Indigenous and local people affecting their possibility of survival. Indigenous and local people’s resistance to these renewed violent attempts to destroy their cultures, their socio-environments, and their lives now incorporated actions towards environmental activism in different regions, specific examples of which are discussed in the 399

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final section. However, the consequences are often tragic because such activists are regularly and silently killed, individually or in small groups, in different Latin American regions and countries (Durán, 2020; France24, 2020). With the world economic system now operating globally, environments and people are significantly impacted, and the pressure on local resources, particularly in places like Latin America, have become critical points of conflict (see for example Pérez Corredor, 2018 for the case of Colombia and Front Line Defenders the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, 2018 for Latin America as a whole). The entire Earth ecosystem is being threatened by humankind, now globally distributed and acting as a super-predator, producing hugely negative effects, such as climate change (global warming), catastrophic land use (extracting and exhausting resources), and accelerated loss of biodiversity. These collectively point to the Earth’s sixth major extinction event in geological history (RESCUE, 2011). All these processes are part of the geological era widely referred to as the Anthropocene, a new geological era that is markedly different from the previous Holocene. The era is characterised by the pre-eminence of one species over the rest within earth’s system, provoking considerable imbalances with discouraging prospects for all planet life (Moore, 2016; Zalasiewicz et al., 2019). The impact on socio-economical-political aspects differentially affect core and peripheral zones, due to their asymmetrical power positions. These zones are defined, not only by geographical terms (North-South dichotomy), but also by the fact that they co-exist in the same locations since the World-System, as clearly pointed out by Wallerstein (1974), produces and maintains inequalities within and between nations and societies at a global scale.

World views and the UNESCO paradox These effects of Western expansion have produced not only major impacts on the planetary environment and biodiversity, but also to the fabric of the socio-cultural diversity of the world, pushing towards a major global cultural homogenisation. In many places, the sociocultural practices and belief systems developed and founded in long term independent ways of interaction, between people and particular geographical settings all around the world, are endangered. This reduces local social memory, and confronts the traditional socioenvironmental connections, situations that lead to struggles for local and regional cultural identity. In fact, many non-Western societies have their cultural identity attached to their traditional connections with particular environments, considering that people, land, and every living thing are linked to each other, stating, as Chihuailaf (2005) explains, that the land owns us and not the opposite. These conceptions are widespread among hunter-gatherers and other small-scale societies, but also appear in more complex ones. In the Andes, for example, local people perceived themselves as part of, and connected to, a greater entity conceived as a self-sufficient and creative power, who sustains all life on earth (Pachamama or Mother Earth) (Mamani-Bernabé, 2015). Accordingly, these societies perceive culture and nature as inseparable things and believe in a cyclical order of the cosmos, following the natural cycles, which humans are an inseparable part of (Gunn, 1994). These views and values are the result of long-term relations with particular lands which shaped the local/Indigenous knowledge systems, and on which social memory and cultural identity settle (Uluru–Kata Tjuta Board of Management, 2010). Conversely, the hegemonic Western world view of notions of culture and nature have completely different conceptions to those from non-Western societies. One distinctive idea of the West is that culture and nature are separate things, considering humans on top of 400

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the evolutionary ladder, thus giving them the prerogative to use all other living things and products of the land (and indeed land itself ) for their benefit. This idea comes from a linear evolutionary theory, conceived during the Enlightenment, and developed subsequently and very clear stated in the works and proposals of Morgan (1987 [1887]) and Childe (1973 [1951];1996 [1936]). This conception of an evolutionary ladder, which ultimately was triggered by the revolutionary Darwin’s work in relation with the origin and development of natural species (Darwin, 1959 [1859]) hold the idea of progressive development, applied to biology but also to cultures and societies, that considered the European modern man to be biologically and culturally superior when compared to other cultures, often viewed as less civilised. Under this vision, and related to the importance given to development, technological advancements were the main traits on which the degree of evolution of societies or cultures were evaluated. Following this, on one hand small-scale societies with mobile hunter-gatherer ways of life and less elaborate material culture were considered inferior and savages, as demonstrated in the example of the second wave. An important example of the consequences of this vision is Sarmiento’s famous book (Sarmiento, 2018 [1845]) were he explicitly express the necessity of terminate the barbarie in favour of civilización, justifying the massive killing of Indigenous people in the Argentinean pampas. On the other hand, larger-scale, complex, stratified societies, with sedentary and intensive farming and more sophisticated material culture, including technologies such as monumental architecture, were seen as more civilised. Savages were perceived to be closer to nature, and the civilised were believed to be the possessors of culture. Two interesting works which explore this, specifically in Latin America and with focus in Argentina and Mexico, are Chávez Chávez (2016) and Delfín Guillaumin (2017). These concepts are so rooted in these views that Western science, in general, still relies on these principles. These opposing world views are crucial when approaching the dilemmas and conflicts surrounding the concept of heritage. Beginning in Europe during the nineteenth century, based on essentialist foundations, its use increased after the Second World War with the creation of the United Nations, and its cultural agency UNESCO. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, for example, a major piece of post war legislation, recognised and protected only tangible cultural property (as defined in Article 1), a fundamentally essentialist understanding. Trying to be more protective and inclusive, but always within an essentialist notion, in 1972 the World Heritage Convention, World Heritage List, and the World Heritage Centre were established, seeking to provide a regime of protection for the most important heritage in the world, considered to be of “outstanding universal value” (World Heritage Convention Preamble). The Convention sought to move away from earlier narrower views of heritage and move towards more inclusive views recognising, for example, natural heritage and sites that had both cultural and natural elements, but always within a Western point of view. Although the Convention defines cultural and natural heritage separately in Articles 1 and 2, article 1 includes “the combined works of nature and man” under its definition of cultural sites, and the registration process allowed for mixed cultural and natural sites (with the first ones registered at the third meeting of the World Heritage Committee). However, such heritage remained – crucially – tangible. Furthermore, in order to provide adequate protection to such important heritage, a number of criteria to enlist sites were listed in the Convention (supported by the Operation Guidelines). These criteria returned to a Western essentialist view – requiring states to identify and register the heritage, effectively ranking it in terms of importance (usually at the state level, and at the expense of Indigenous communities’ heritage), and in doing so, fixing its definition, importance, and community of 401

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relevance. It further established heritage resource management practices, following the perception that heritage was a resource in marketable terms (see, for example, Bednarik, 2013). Museum displays, site interpretation, and publications were consistently produced considering the values recognised under these hegemonic views. In many cases, when Indigenous people had to be involved in these processes, those managing the processes appeared to believe that Indigenous people had to be taught about the importance of heritage, leaving them invisible or undervalued (González Zarandona, 2020). Despite updated documents reflecting constructivist notions of heritage, such as the previously mentioned Burra Charter of 1979 (which was further updated in 1981, 1988, and 2013), the World Heritage List remained dominated by sites that upheld Western ideals of heritage, and in addition, far more sites were registered in Western countries than in former colonial countries. This situation lasted until the 1990s, when a paradigm shift occurred in academia and in society: strong claims were made for the necessity of including a multiplicity of voices and the need to consider different world views. Within the social sciences, these ideas are represented in approaches such as post-processualism, post-modernism, and post-colonialism (Vargas Arenas, 1995; Mignolo, 2000). Following this trend, UNESCO started to recognise this situation in different documents, which reflected the growing spirit towards changing the narrow vision of heritage. For example, in 1992, during the sixteenth session of the World Heritage Committee, guidelines were adopted to protect cultural landscapes which represented the “combined works of nature and of man” (UNESCO, 2022). Conversely, at the 18th session of the World Heritage Committee in 1994, a major change in the criteria was approved, stating clearly that the list needed to reflect the diversity of Humankind, encouraging the listing of heritage from diverse (non-European) cultures, religions, and regions of the world. This promoted the necessity of balancing the List, with much greater inclusion of properties from all over the world, and from different belief systems, not just the (at that time), predominantly European elite cultures and Christian sites (UNESCO, 1994). Another landmark decision was the recognition of sources of knowledge other than Western Science during the World Conference on Science (UNESCO, 1999a) and during the same year, the General Conference 30th Session, 30 C/15 in Paris (UNESCO 1999b), followed by the creation of the LINKS Project: Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (UNESCO, 2002). Further efforts to be more inclusive followed, including the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). In particular, realising that the previous narrow concept of heritage excludes many cultural manifestations, the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was an attempt to include different types of heritage. It defined the heritage it protected as “traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge, and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts” (Article X, 2003). However, although this Convention was a huge step forward in international understanding, it retains the division of tangible and intangible heritage. At this point it becomes clear that the concept of heritage, held by UNESCO, intrinsically entails a huge paradox. The creation of the World Heritage Centre was a reaction to the rapidly changing situation: a globalised World System started to produce impacts on environments and societies that had never previously been reached, even in Europe. The opening Preamble of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention, 1972), (which contextualises it) begins by “Noting 402

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that the cultural heritage and the natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage or destruction” and goes on to reference “the magnitude and gravity of the new dangers” (Preamble). Clearly, these endangered natural settings and cultural aspects, from historical places to ways of life, influenced the perception of the UN and UNESCO that they should be somehow preserved. Since 1972, several efforts have been carried out by UNESCO and other bodies to protect socio-environments. However, these endeavours continue to try to preserve things with a Western world view, dissociating culture from nature and dividing material culture from intangible heritage, all things that in other world views are, by definition, indivisible because they are a unity. The paradox becomes obvious when the concept cannot be differentiated from one thing to the other, because when all the documents and Conventions discussed are viewed collectively, heritage is everything: artefacts, buildings, beliefs, social practices, places with less human impact, etc. Considering that many Indigenous and non-Western societies do not distinguish between natural and cultural realms, because their territories are human landscapes shaped with their cognition and encoded with their world views, disconnected notions between tangible and intangible are non-existent. Heritage is a Western concept, not shared in other people’s world views because the material manifestations of their culture are tightly linked with the cultural practices they are related to. Their social territories, beliefs, ancestors, knowledge, social relations, and practices are intertwined and embedded in their daily life, as part of their cultural identity. Likewise, the realisation of the necessity to preserve all things, endangered by the expansion of the World-System, started in the same core where the destructive forces emerged. The means to protect them was the creation of an institution, which created procedures to protect under Western world views, thus enlisting things as heritage, a Western concept.

Destruction and construction of heritage in Latin America Heritage collides with views from different societies who do not have such a concept of heritage, but who consider that all aspects of their culture are integrated in a unity. Considering this, the topic of heritage destruction in Latin America is closely related to the destruction of the Indigenous people’s ways of life, belief systems, world views, and their own physical survival. It is clear that the destruction started with the first wave of European expansion, and continues up to the present, including all the attempts to impose Western world views over local and Indigenous people’s world views under colonial and neo-colonial regimes. The strategy to impose Western world views regarding heritage with an essentialist notion was, and still is, an attempt to legitimise the destruction of the material and the spiritual manifestations of Indigenous people’s cultures, and their own physical integrity. Indigenous people’s response to the multifaceted ways of destroying them and their legacy (heritage in Western terms), have manifested itself as diverse strategies of cultural resistance. During the first wave, the only possibility was to keep ancestral knowledge within traditional practices and disseminate them via oral traditions. During the second wave, the territories already under colonial control kept the same strategy of cultural resistance. The lands under attack (Pampa and Patagonia for example), fought for their territories until the people were finally confined in reservations – maintaining fragments of their knowledge through elders and spiritual leaders. During the third wave, those ways of cultural resistance stayed in place, but now, the addition of the concept of heritage under a constructivist notion was included in an effort to regain cultural and social visibility, and as a tool to fight within the symbolic arena. 403

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Heritage, until then applied as an essentialist notion favouring hegemonic groups and establishing what Laurajane Smith defines as the authorised heritage discourse (Smith, 2006), is now used as a tool to contest the heritage status quo. For example, many recent movements, such as Consejo Indígena de Centro América (2022) and Mapuche International Link (2022), two important international Indigenous organisations, have used constructivist notions of heritage to claim their rights. Constructivist notions give Indigenous people the possibility of fighting within a symbolic battleground. Whoever has the capacity to contest what is heritage and what is not, has symbolic advantages in controlling social memory and the legitimisation of different kinds of power positions. There are some examples but not many so far, and each with different degrees of success. Most of the time, these efforts to contest the heritage status quo require Indigenous people to work in tandem with archaeologists, anthropologists, and/or other social groups who support their legitimate claims. Some of them have taken such action, with varying results. In Argentina, for example, this is evident in the restitution of the remains of Indigenous leaders killed during the Desert Conquest. These remains, which were previously taken and displayed in museums (Curtoni & Chaparro, 2007–2008; Verdesio, 2010; Lazzari, 2011), were returned through research and action programs developed by anthropologists in diverse academic, political, and social levels (Rodríguez, 2013; 2016; Nagy, 2014; Lazzari & Lenton, 2019). This has not been an easy path: they had to face, and still do face, many political and social confrontations. However, these are Indigenous people whose ancestors were subdued during the second wave. The memory of the battles is still fresh in their social memory, and the bodies of their leaders are still displayed in museums, with their names and all the historical references attached. The situation of those who were conquered in the first wave is different: their Indigenous past, prior to the disruption by Western colonisers, lies further back in time. The bodies of their deceased do not have specific names or historical references (with very few exceptions, such as the rulers like Cuauhtémoc from the Aztecs, and Huáscar and Atahualpa from the Incas). There is no continuous or direct knowledge about the material culture of the pre-colonial era, so they are trying to re-appropriate a past that was denied to them long ago. In these cases, the struggle to recover the vestiges of that past, related with materiality, relies heavily on archaeological sites, which very often leads to conflicts of interest between different social actors, for example, administrative authorities, archaeologists, museums, and owners of the property where the sites are located. In Mexico, for example, all archaeological sites are owned by the central administration, and managed by professionals. There is little participation by local/ Indigenous people, even though the sites are recognised as an important part of national cultural heritage as a whole. It is only recently that small groups started to question this situation (Navarrete, 2010). In Argentina, there is no central administration that manages archaeological sites, so cases differ according to local circumstances. One tragic case is the sacred city of Quilmes, a famous archaeological site. A local Indigenous community has tried for many years to recover control and ownership of the lands they occupy today, a small part of the extensive territory that their ancestors used to live in, and from which they were removed. The community seeks to recover the management of archaeological remains in joint management plans with the authorities, including participation in the interpretation of their heritage displayed in museums and textbooks. Provincial authorities gave the site to empowered local elites for touristic exploitation – a situation that has led to violent confrontations and terrible repressions, with several members of the Indigenous community being killed in the process (Hernández Llosas, 2016). Another example, with better results, is a joint project between archaeologists and the local community of Laguna Blanca, which produced a museum, quite unique in its conception, which integrates different visions about the past and where local 404

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communities have had a voice and active participation (Delfino et al., 2013). In this case, the local community had a voice in designing the museum and therefore, the voice of the local community is part of the heritage interpretation. The cases mentioned here are only a few examples of the various situations that the Indigenous people are facing all over Latin America, in the attempt to recover some of their past heritage that has been stolen by the implementation of the hegemonic view, because the essentialist notion is still very strong in various spheres of society and is taught at schools in Latin America. In academia, there are still few social scientists embracing post- or de-colonial positions in their scientific work to point out the situation and help to create awareness (Gnecco, 2008, 2015; Ayala Rocabado, 2014). However, the situation has changed very little, and the hegemonic heritage discourse is still present in museums and displays throughout Latin America (and in some cases elsewhere), even though it is starting to change towards a more constructivist appreciation of heritage, thanks to the actions of different social movements and Indigenous organisations (Valko, 2019). Still, it is not formalised in any heritage institution. The construction of heritage in Latin America, with the inclusion of Indigenous people and other marginalised social groups, is still hard to achieve. It needs to be the result of a cultural process which involves negotiation, construction, and reconstruction of cultural meanings, memories, and narratives among different groups, where power positions play important roles. Constructing a collective social memory is difficult for these disempowered subaltern groups (Guha, 2002; Quijano, 2003; Racero et al., 2004). Beyond heritage, either defined with essentialist or constructivist approaches under Western conceptions, the destruction that is rapidly occurring in the present is socio-environmental on a planetary scale is the result of an advanced stage of the Anthropocene. In that regard, the Indigenous people’s world views that encompass humans and nature as a unity are more adequate to conceptualise the crisis, and the risk implied in this situation. The threat is so imminent that the survival of humankind, as a whole is at stake. Western conceptions are unable to comprehend the extent of this crisis, since it is difficult to conceive humans as not only a great part of the problem, but also part of the unity that is endangered, the Earth System to which we all belong. Western science, in addition, still has a great division between Natural Sciences and Humanities in their visions and approaches to research topics, which causes trouble in the search of joint solutions to shared problems (Zierhofer & Burger, 2007). To face a crisis of this magnitude, it will be necessary to combine all available knowledge to understand and address local and regional socio-environmental problems, and their relationship with those of the Earth system as a whole. This knowledge must include not only that produced by Western science, but also the invaluable understandings of the many local/ Indigenous knowledge systems cooperating together in pursuit of a viable and sustainable future for humankind (Crumley, 2003; 2006; RESCUE, 2011).

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PART IV

Epilogue

33 RECONSIDERING HERITAGE DESTRUCTION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN A LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE Cornelius Holtorf and Troels Myrup Kristensen Introduction According to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 11, strengthening efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage will contribute to more sustainable cities and communities. In the underlying thinking behind this goal, the value of heritage is considered inseparable from the value of culture: Culture promotes social cohesion and intercultural dialogue, creates a collective identity and sense of belonging, encourages participation in political and cultural life and empowers marginalized groups. It also contributes to placemaking, understanding of the city’s history and the valorization of urban spaces. Sustainable tourism, the cultural and creative industries, and heritage-based urban revitalization have proven to generate green employment, stimulate local development and foster creativity. (UN-Habitat, 2018 p.63) Destruction of culture and cultural heritage is accordingly equated with the loss of all these benefits. By the same token, it is not surprising to read in the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention that “[t]he protection and conservation of the natural and cultural heritage constitute a significant contribution to sustainable development” (UNESCO, 2019 n.6). However, the logic of this reasoning ignores the fact that the rich variety of natural and historic processes of change, including destruction, is the origin of heritage on Earth, not its enemy (Holtorf, 2020a p.279). From a long-term perspective, destruction is a medium and manifestation of dynamic transformation that allows for something new – and possibly more sustainable – to emerge in its place (Holtorf & Kristensen, 2015). We will argue in this chapter that episodes of heritage loss and destruction may very well contribute to making development more sustainable, especially when seen in the context of long-term change over several centuries or even millennia. Sustainable development is a development that can be sustained over long time periods. In line with sustainability thinking, we are here taking a functional view and discuss how DOI: 10.4324/9781003131069-37

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cultural heritage contributes to sustainable development. In this, we are following Tolina Loulanski (2006), who describes a widely perceived shift in perceptions and priorities for the management of tangible cultural heritage: “1) from monuments to people, 2) from objects to functions, and thus 3) from preservation per se to purposeful preservation, sustainable use, and development” (p.208). In other words, what matters most is not whether heritage has been genuinely transmitted from the past or whether it is valued in distinct ways among people but how it is purposefully used and what heritage, its management, and its interpretation actually do, both in and to society (see also Smith, 2006; Holtorf, 2020b). In the present context, that means we are concerned with the benefits and uses of cultural heritage insofar as it may contribute to making development more sustainable. Giving examples, we will try to show that this can even include destroyed heritage. Recognising that, in specific cases, judgments of what is most beneficial or contribute most to sustainable development may vary, our point is a principal one and aims at making the discussion of sustainable development in relation to cultural heritage more adequate to the complexities involved.

Can the conservation of cultural heritage harm sustainable development? The perception of the benefits of heritage conservation and, by implication, of the perils of heritage destruction is without a doubt justified in many cases. For example, there is evidence that historic preservation can save energy, reduce CO2 emissions, and thus contribute to environmental sustainability (Avrami, 2016). It has also been argued that cultural heritage may be used to advance social integration, promote lifelong learning, create employment, enhance wellbeing, and contribute in other ways to sustainable development (Albert, 2015; Avrami, 2016; Larsen & Logan, 2018). As conservator Jane Henderson (2020) argues, such contemporary use benefits may outweigh potential future benefits deriving from the conservation of heritage and thus justify a certain amount of use wear and decay. But in which cases may heritage conservation not be a driver but rather a preventer of sustainable development in society? Can the loss of heritage contribute to sustainable development too? As political activism and the associated debates since the mid-2010s about the fate of confederate and colonial statues across the globe have shown so powerfully, the act of conserving cultural heritage is not automatically beneficial to all members of communities and can in fact actively work to prevent access to and equal engagement with heritage (Frank & Ristic, 2020; Lim, 2020). Conservation in these contexts should be defined not only as active efforts to physically maintain monuments but even simply as passive retention in a public space. In light of these debates, it should not be taken for granted that the conservation and promotion of all cultural heritage (as currently advanced throughout the cultural heritage sector) is necessarily an asset generating benefits for pursuing sustainable development goals or mitigating climate change and its impact. In particular, harm to social sustainability may be caused by the tendency of cultural heritage: • • •

to divide citizens and residents into distinctive cultural groups rather than to unite all people co-existing in each society; to emphasise national, regional, or local distinctions rather than widespread similarities and interconnections, including universal human rights; and to look backward (where each of us comes from) by promoting conservation and continuity from the past rather than forward (where we are heading together) by advocating desirable changes and adaptations for the future. 414

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Heritage may be (and has been for a very long time) used to justify and advance illegitimate discrimination, social exclusion, racism, and divisive political ideologies (e.g., Galaty & Watkinson, 2004; Dezhamkhooy & Papoli-Yazdi, 2018; Lixinski, 2019). Some uses of the past drawing on cultural heritage are problematic insofar as they challenge values and identities of marginal or subaltern groups in society whose standpoints may subsequently be expressed through vandalism (Chatzigiannis, 2015 p.125). Examples are provided by the emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2020 and its involvement in acts of iconoclasm in the name of social justice and human rights of monuments associated with advocates and beneficiaries of slavery and colonialism (Bauer, 2021). Perhaps less radical than BLM but equally committed to changing the heritage landscape of American cities, the Philadelphiabased Monument Lab aims to “cultivate and facilitate critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments” (Monument Lab, n.d.). It sets out to create an equal and ultimately more sustainable balance among the voices that are part of the heritage discourse, specifically by seeking alternatives to preservation as a stand-alone, uncontested practice. Cultural heritage may inadvertently propagate political suppression, social marginalisation, perceived  cultural or political appropriation, or  even armed conflict invoking the cultural heritage (Meskell, 1998; Sørensen & Viejo-Rose, 2015). Both recent and historical examples show that cultural heritage can play a significant role in inflaming conflicts and promoting war. The idealisation and appropriation of ancient Sparta was notably a key component in the self-fashioning of the elite military schools that trained German officers in the lead-up to both the First and Second World Wars, explicitly using this heritage as an educational model for the creation of a warrior caste (Roche, 2013; Chapoutot, 2016). Similarly, the mob that entered the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 drew on an eclectic range of heritages, including national and historic flags as well as Viking helmets, to promote both radical and racist agendas and to justify their violent attack on one of the most important political institutions of American democracy (Washington Post Staff, 2021). Lessons from the study of the human past also show that focussing too much or exclusively on the preservation of cultural heritage and the cultural traits of one’s ancestors may make innovation and development in the desirable mode of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals more difficult and even impossible. Arguably, too much conservation “undermines the ability of our generation to create and shape the environment according to our needs” (Boccardi, 2015 p.91). Backward-looking and conservative tendencies in both ancient and modern societies have contributed to the failure to embrace social, economic, or environmental change, thereby potentially contributing to unsustainable developments and ultimately to the collapse of a political system. Acceptance of this logic is routinely factored into discussions of the European Reformation and the French Revolution, which at certain points both displayed a destructive urge that is not dissimilar to current discussions of the value of monuments that celebrate particular pasts (Gamboni, 1997; Graves, 2008). In this light, under certain circumstances, the narrow focus on preservation may be a direct hindrance to sustainable development in the long term.

Can destroyed cultural heritage contribute to sustainable development? Heritage destruction should not necessarily be seen as always detrimental to human societies and their development. Given the harm cultural heritage may do, the risks associated with heritage destruction and loss have indeed often been overstated. Moreover, many of the benefits of cultural heritage are less reliant on conservation than is often assumed. Compromised preservation of cultural heritage is not always a large problem for preserving many of the benefits 415

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of cultural heritage in present and future societies. We both argued elsewhere in detail that less preservation can indeed mean more meaningful engagement with the past and thus be beneficial for both the present and future needs of communities (Holtorf, 2013, 2015; Holtorf & Kristensen, 2015; Kristensen, 2015a). Here, we would like to add to this work and point to a few additional aspects in the context of long-term sustainability. Significant benefits and uses of specific cultural heritage objects may not be lost even if it is no longer physically existent in the same way as previously. As the cultural heritage associated with the origins of the human species aptly demonstrates, the potency of cultural heritage in society is not directly linked to its quantity, size, or cogency of associated evidence. Few things can fascinate people, mobilise engagement and generate interest in the past with real impact in society (for better or worse) as much as a single tooth fragment from the oldest Palaeolithic, a tiny DNA sample of distant genetic ancestry, or a vague trait of human behaviour inconclusively connecting modern humans with remote ancestors. Past or present destruction of a tourist attraction or heritage site does not have to mean the end of its lifespan or of its capacity to draw visitors. For example, the long-term history of pilgrimage sanctuaries – from the Holy Sepulchre to St Catherine’s Monastery – is frequently tied to the power of place through absent heritage that is yet able to draw in thousands of visitors. As David Weaver and Laura Lawton (2007) argue, there are various strategies available to contemporary managers for maintaining public interest after the demise of the original attraction. They include capitalisation of residual attraction that may involve redefinition, reconstruction (in situ or ex situ), or memorialisation (mechanical or social). There may even be a distinctive appeal of loss that attracts tourists, with lost heritage remaining accessible through guiding, storytelling, and other performative acts of placemaking (Hodges, 2016; Ross & Saxena, 2019). One could argue that the archaeological site of Palmyra is now more widely known around the world than it has ever been exactly because of the enormous attention paid by international news media and heritage organisations to its recent damage in the Syrian civil war (Tugendhaft, 2020) (Figure 33.1). In relation to some audiences, the heritage of loss can in that sense be stronger than the appeal of physical, preserved ruins that are found in many other cases in quantities frequently perceived as tedious or irrelevant by the public. In the case of the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (modern Bodrum, Turkey), one of the wonders of the ancient world that originally stood almost 45 m tall but that is now little more than a hole in the ground, the sense of lost monumentality inspires a range of creative interventions in response to its absence (Kristensen et al., 2021). Arguably, the absence of the original monument – in the narrow, archaeological sense – has become part of its fame as a site of the imagination. If acts of vandalism go back a long time, they are not particularly sad but even can be exciting and life-affirming to modern-day visitors. Roman graffiti defacing walls of houses in Pompeii tend to be “spontaneously accepted with admiration” by contemporary tourists (Chatzigiannis, 2015 p.128). Across the world, inscriptions and drawings carved by pilgrims or other travellers in the past into the walls of churches and other sacred sites are similarly not seen as vandalism but as human traces that confirm the long-term and universal significance of a place. Historical examples of destructive behaviour and loss and indeed the broader lessons they illustrate about change over time, strategies of coping with adversity, and accomplishments of human adaptability can also benefit cultural resilience in the light of adaptations people may have to make themselves in the present (Holtorf, 2018; 2020c). Ruined buildings and damaged heritage can be a very powerful force in contemporary society (Woodward, 2001). Indeed, destroyed heritage may be able to make particular contributions to sustainable development. Not all destroyed heritage needs to be restored 416

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Figure 33.1 The archaeological site of Palmyra, Syria, before damage sustained during the Syrian civil war. Photograph by Troels Myrup Kristensen in 2008.

to retain significant values and benefits. Distinct values and meanings may emerge from ruins, too, as shown, for example, by the derelict remains of colonial-era architecture in the Argentine Andes, locally understood as manifestations of violence and dislocation but also as places of pilgrimage and festivity (Gordillo, 2014). Another example is the late-nineteenthcentury Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, Germany, that was damaged in the Second World War. Over decades, this partly destroyed cultural heritage site contributed significantly and positively to future-making in Western Germany in ways that would probably have been impossible had the original church survived intact or been fully restored (Holtorf, 2020d). As these examples show, management approaches to cultural heritage looking beyond traditional regimes of preservation and reconstruction, sometimes embracing destruction, may ultimately create rather than reduce value and enhance rather than inhibit desirable development, with benefits resulting from it. The destruction of individual layers of heritage may, in some cases, facilitate access to other, previously inaccessible layers, as well as the application of new methods of scientific investigation and documentation that would otherwise be extremely laborious or impossible. This was recently observed in the aftermath of the fire in Paris’ famous Notre-Dame Cathedral in April 2019. Heritage professionals engaged in the subsequent restoration noted how the damage caused by the fire had made it easier to carry out scientific analysis of previously inaccessible areas and materials of the church’s construction as well as to install new, more fire-proof materials and monitoring systems, thus contributing to the long-term preservation of the church as a whole (L’Héritier, 2021). Sometimes acts of destruction have contributed to the discovery of archaeological monuments beneath later buildings, such as the Roman sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste (modern Palestrina, Italy) that was first identified after Allied bombing in the Second World War and that is now a major tourist destination. 417

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By the same token, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is known for artwork destroying or vandalising ancient Chinese vases (Newland, 2010). He put them in pulverised form in a modern jar (Dust to Dust, 2009), dipped them into buckets of industrial paint (Colored Vases, 2006), painted commercial logos on top of them (Coca Cola Vase, 1997), and took photographs of him casually dropping them to smash on the ground (Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995) (see the cover of this handbook). But in fact, Ai Weiwei did not fatally destroy the vases. He only replaced one historic system of signification with another artistic one that provided commentaries about contemporary Chinese society and politics (see also González Zarandona, in this volume). The ancient vase depicted in the triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995) lives on in culture, despite the fact that – and indeed because – it did not survive undamaged. Arguably, the drop represents the moment of transformation of one among many collection items from the past into a one-of-a-kind artwork of great value in the present. Ironically, the vases which Ai Weiwei deliberately destroyed in his art reaffirmed the very significance of cultural heritage in the contemporary world while relativising conservation (Holtorf, 2015 pp.413–415). These artworks may contribute to making cultural, social, and economic development more sustainable as a result of benefits that could derive from their distinct meanings and values, not least those relating to Chinese society. To mention yet another example, the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan that were destroyed by the Taliban have never been more iconic around the world than in their current metamorphic state, i.e., with their niches being empty voids (Holtorf, 2020d). As with the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, the blown-up Buddha statues could have a positive impact on the future development of the Bamiyan Valley even when they remain absent from their former positions. Based on recent research about tourist interest attracted by sites that have lost their materiality (Ross & Saxena, 2019), the very absence of the monuments in the Bamiyan Valley, if interpreted and presented for global visitors in the right way, could become (or indeed remain) a widely recognised symbol for the history and resilience of an entire landscape and its people.

Benefits of destroyed cultural heritage in history Benefits derived from the destruction of cultural heritage are not new. Indeed, perspectives from the deeper past reveal in striking ways that the preservation of heritage is far from always sustainable and may in fact have considerable downsides when seen in the context of longterm developments. First of all, wars and revolutions – moments of rapid social and political change – have throughout history tended to break things before following a path to (sometimes) more sustainable ways of life (Kroeber, 1996). The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century caused major religious and political upheaval including the closure of monasteries and the removal or destruction of devotional sculptures in churches but was famously described by the sociologist Max Weber as a key contributor to the development of new social and economic ethics over the following centuries (Weber, 1920). More recently, the ancient historian Ian Morris has argued that warfare, when situated within the long-term trajectory of history, has benefitted substantially to the progress and the development of more sustainable lifeways, in spite of the immediate loss of life and destruction of cities and political institutions that it obviously causes in the short-term (Morris, 2014). Other periods defined by later historians as revolutions have also taken place in the aftermath of destruction or other forms of radical upheaval. One of the most significant examples is the case of Athens in the classical period 418

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that, at least partly in response to the trauma afforded by the destruction of the Persian army across the city’s religious and political landscape, ushered in a cultural and artistic revolution with a remarkably long life as a foundation myth in modern European history (Goldhill & Osborne, 2006). More subtle or slow-moving forms of cultural change, including the decline of entire civilisations, frequently include elements of destruction but prove to contribute to more sustainable developments over the long term. In his recent book, Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity, historian Walter Scheidel argues that the fall of the Roman Empire and the fact that no single power on the European continent subsequently took its place ultimately contributed to a “great divergence” (2019 pp.219–258) that allowed NorthWestern Europe to pull ahead in economic terms in comparison to other areas of the world that continued to live under imperial systems. Scheidel’s analysis concludes that the break with the heritage of the Roman Empire contributed positively to social, economic, educational, and health progress when placed in the context of long-term change. The fall rather than the conservation of this imperial heritage – with all of its material manifestations – ultimately had significant benefits. At an entirely different scale, the destruction or mutilation of individual monuments or works of art in the past is often discussed as something to be lamented. For example, in a recent book entitled The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey (2019) argues that the late antique Christian destruction of Greek and Roman sculpture exemplified the beginning of an era of fanaticism. Yet, in another light, these destructive engagements with the past have added significant historical layers and meanings to the monuments in question that can be studied as individual acts of meaning-making that respond to religious, political, and social change and as such provide insights into different pasts and the relationships between them (Kristensen, 2015b; Kristensen & Stirling, 2016). The mutilated state of many of the sculptures that survive from classical antiquity has furthermore profoundly shaped modern aesthetics and the appreciation of fragments or incomplete works of art from the Renaissance onwards (Tronzo, 2009; Platt, 2018). Moreover, it is sometimes polemically claimed that if heritage conservation had been taken seriously in the medieval period, much of the most acclaimed and inspiring European cultural heritage would never have been built (e.g., Boccardi, 2015 p.91). These selected historical cases show how episodes of loss and destruction may contribute to sustainable, even creative developments over the longue durée. Certainly, and at least since the time of the historian Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), the ruins of Rome and the ancient world at large have inspired art, literature, and science for several centuries and continue to do so, in the process allowing humanity to reflect on the long-term sustainability of both heritage and culture. A recent example of critical thinking inspired by creatively modified, damaged, and defaced cultural heritage are the illustrations by Ali Roustaeeyanfard, which are ironicising and subverting ancient Persian reliefs (in Dezhamkhooy & Papoli-Yazdi, 2018 pp.29, 61, 65, 67, 71, 90, 92, 103–104). We agree with the argument by DeSilvey and her co-authors that: the language of ‘decline’ does not invite reflection on the potentially positive aspects of change. Taken together — decline, decay, loss, risk, threat, damage — the bundle of available vocabulary can act … as a barrier to productive conversations about change and make it difficult to focus attention on the (cultural and natural) processes that unfold after a decision has been made to ‘let go’. (DeSilvey et al., 2021 p.420) 419

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Implications for cultural heritage policy and management Where does all this historical evidence and current discussion leave us in evaluating heritage loss and destruction today? For one, the assumptions commonly made by heritage organisations and others about the benefits of heritage conservation should be critically interrogated. Those making policy decisions should ask themselves just as much about the risks and possible harm and negative impacts of conserved cultural heritage in society, not least when it divides communities, advances hate, violence, and prejudice, discourages innovation, and prevents desirable development. We agree with Giovanni Boccardi’s (2015 p.93) conclusion that, to some extent, the current approach to management and conservation of cultural heritage is inherently unsustainable. Considering the best interests of future generations, might cultural heritage, on occasion, be a liability for sustainable development and rather add to human vulnerability? Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe, a recent landmark study promoting cultural heritage in Europe, is rightly concerned with a bias in advocacy work for cultural heritage by many cultural organisations, which are driven by their own interests: They tend to take the idea that heritage produces benefits for granted and use this as the starting point of the research, instead of primarily inquiring whether heritage has any impact and if this impact is beneficial or detrimental. (CHCFE, 2015 p.108) It is a sign of maturity in the current discussion on cultural heritage and sustainable development that the 2021 Policy Guidance for Heritage and Development Actors (ICOMOS, 2021 p.119) recognises that “some heritage and heritage practices may be at odds with sustainable development objectives” and calls for more research on this topic. In particular, the document points directly (ICOMOS, 2021 pp.44, 71, 106) to aspects of heritage that are: • • •

discriminating among genders (working against SDG 5 for gender equality); contributing to culture-based discrimination more generally (working against SDG 10 for reduced inequalities); and worsening power imbalances, persecution, and escalation of conflicts and war (working against SDG 16 for peace, justice, and strong institutions).

Cultural heritage management needs to be mindful also of other possible harm, for example, as a result of the diversion of resources from other worthy goals, such as welfare and safety. By implication, spending resources on the conservation and accessibility of cultural heritage is not by default contributing to sustainable development. Sometimes, spending less on cultural heritage may create more benefits for present and future societies.

Conclusion In light of both the current and historical examples discussed here, we invite a more openminded discussion and call for more research about the interrelations between cultural heritage and the SDGs (see also Avrami, 2016). Developing heritage policy ought to mean minimising risks as much as maximising benefits. Instead of only capitalising on opportunities, emphasis should be to a much larger extent also on dealing appropriately with the threats that championing cultural heritage creates for achieving the SDGs, not just now but 420

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over the long term. To this end, there should be an extended and critical discussion of the existing and potential effects of using cultural heritage in society, including its impact in relation to all stakeholders’ interests. The need for thorough and unbiased assessments of social and cultural impacts on present and future society applies also to specific management challenges, e.g., concerning risk preparedness and post-disaster reconstruction (Holtorf, 2020a; 2020b; 2020d). Current debates about the retention, removal, or even destruction of colonial monuments add particular urgency to these discussions. As political scientist Leslie Thiele emphasised in his introduction to the concept, sustainability is not about preventing change and achieving a culture of permanence (Thiele, 2016 p.4). Instead, he states that disturbance “is not an enemy to be avoided or combated within living systems … [but] a partner in the dance of sustainability” (Thiele, 2016 p.36). The emerging discussion in Heritage Studies on heritage futures and the implications of concepts such as curated decay and managing and embracing change are of great importance in this context (Araoz, 2008; DeSilvey, 2017; Holtorf, 2018; Harrison et al., 2020; DeSilvey et al., 2021, Holtorf & Högberg 2021). Based on what we have argued here, the development of a new code in heritage conservation of destruction, change, decline, decay, loss, and vandalism may even, in the long run, contribute to a more sustainable development and thus hopefully to a better future – for better futures may require different pasts.

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INDEX

Note: Page numbers in italic indicate figures; page numbers in bold indicate tables. Abdulkarim, Maamoun 211, 212 Abkhazia 58, 335, 339 Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (Western Australia) 6, 386, 388; see also Australian Aboriginal heritage accidental damage see collateral damage Acropolis, Athens 60, 78, 418–419 Action Plan for the Rehabilitation of Cultural Heritage and the Safeguarding of Ancient Manuscripts (2013) 233 aerial warfare see war affect and heritage, post-conflict 196–204 Afghanistan 37; Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley 42–43, 68, 91, 223–224; Taliban regime 223–224, 226–227; see also Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan, destruction African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 90 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) 90, 96 African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights 93–94, 96 African Union 225 agriculture 20, 113, 135, 143 Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu, Mali 226 Ai Weiwei 158, 174–182; Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995) 165, 176, 418; political activism 178, 179, 180, 182, 418; Resetting Memories exhibition 8–9, 14, 178–181 Akomphrah, John 163 Akrotiri, Greece 131 al-Asa’ad, Khaled 212, 221–222, 305; see also Palmyra; Syria al-Askari Mosque, Samarra, Iraq 190, 191

Al-Assad, Bashar 22, 45–46, 208, 211, 212, 213, 219; see also Syria Al-Assad, Hafez 45–46, 208; see also Syria Al Mahdi, Ahmad Al Faqi 8, 49, 85, 97, 106, 225–226, 233, 236–237; see also International Criminal Court (ICC); Timbuktu, Mali, heritage destruction Al-Qaeda 188, 190, 192, 305 Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) 230, 232 Alaska 138, 139 Albanians 338–339; Azerbaijani misappropriation of Armenian heritage to Caucasian Albanian culture 334, 339; Kosovan Albanians 284–285 Aleppo (Ancient City of Aleppo), Syria 212, 301, 303–304, 309 Alexandria, Egypt 91, 359, 360, 362 Altausee, Austria: stolen art, Nazi refuge 265 altruism 78; see also preservation discourse America (Latin America) see Latin America America (North America) see Canada; Caribbean area; Mexico; United States American news media: Palmyra destruction narrative 22, 210, 213, 221–222; see also media narratives American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) 358 American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) Cultural Heritage Initiative for Syria and Iraq 9, 116, 222 Anatsui, El 161 Ancient Villages of Northern Syria 301 Angkor Wat, Cambodia 289–294, 296–298 Angkorian art and architecture 289–298 Annan, Kofi 223

424

Index Ansar-Dine 224–226, 227, 230, 232–233, 234, 237–238; see also Timbuktu, Mali, heritage destruction Anthropocene 400, 405 antiquities: fragments used in artworks 165–166, 169–170; heritage objects taken to overseas museums 77–78, 153; relocation of monuments 150, 151, 152–153; sales of see illicit trafficking; trade in cultural objects; see also archaeological sites; cultural heritage; cultural property; museums Antiquities Coalition 85 Apamea, Syria 21 AQIM see Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Arab Spring movement 301, 302, 357 ARCE see American Research Centre in Egypt (ARCE) Arch of Ctesiphon (Taq Kesra or Ayvan-i Kesra), Iraq 315 archaeological sites: climate change impacts 138–144; dam construction impacts 147–154; damage drivers and threats framework 116–117, 119, 122; excavation practices in Egypt 358–359; excavation provisions of Second Protocol 82; illegal excavations in Syria 307; importance 129; Israeli excavations on Golan Heights 307–308; looting see looting and plundering; narratives of damage see heritage destruction discourses; peacetime damage effects 113–114, 120–122; protection of 4, 81; “ruins” claims 61; site recording projects in Egypt 357–358, 360, 362; volcanic eruption damage 132; vulnerability 18; war damage 23, 269, 275, 302–303, 305–307, 315; zones of preservation and destruction 115; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); cultural landscapes; heritage protection; Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention; World Heritage sites archaeology: colonial archaeology 59, 314–315, 317, 319, 358–359; cultural property protection in conflict 42; damage as feature of 60; photographic data 140, 141–142, 296, 358, 359; practices in Egypt 357–359; remote sensing techniques 11, 113, 116, 222, 358; see also collectors ARCHES (heritage inventory package) 116 architecture: protection of 4, 81; as target for heritage destruction 42, 46–47; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); heritage protection Archive of Destruction 159–160

archives: destruction of, as cultural genocide 39; International Council on Archives (ICA) 24; Iraqi archives 316, 317, 319; protection of 4, 81; Second World War destruction 80; vulnerability 18; see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972); Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) Arctic area 138–139; war damage 273–274 Argentina: archaeological site management 404–405; new meanings from ruins 417; restitution of the remains of Indigenous leaders 404; see also Latin America Armenia 16, 334, 335; Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict 333–334, 337–339; Armenian Churches 335; Armenian heritage and Caucasian Albanian culture 334, 339; carpet weaving in national identity 337; genocide 338; heritage destruction 336–339; national identity 335, 337; see also Caucasus armies see military occupation; war Arnal, V. 41 Arnold, Bettina 186 art: confiscations during war 80, 265; destruction see art destruction; galleries see art galleries; market see art market; protection of 4, 78–79, 80, 81; restitution of 24, 77, 78, 80, 265, 296, 297, 298; rock art 7, 47, 140, 336, 387, 389–390; trafficking see art market; illicit trafficking; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); cultural property; heritage protection Art Bin (performance, 2010) 165 art destruction 14, 18, 22, 38, 158–160, 175; destruction in art practice (contemporary practice) 164–170, 176–179, 181–182, 418; destruction in art practice (origins and forms) 160–161; representations of destruction in art 161–164, 170, 182; see also looting and plundering The Art (film, 2015) 165 art galleries: collection-building from war booty 77–78; damaged in Croatia 281; desecration by Islamic State 322; destruction of, as cultural genocide 39; see also museums art market: Cambodian artefacts 16, 289–298; demands of 16, 21, 293, 294, 297, 316; Iraqi artefacts 316; see also illicit trafficking; looting and plundering; trade in cultural objects artefacts see antiquities; cultural heritage; cultural property

425

Index ASOR see American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) Cultural Heritage Initiative for Syria and Iraq Assur, Iraq: endangered by dam 319 Aswan, Egypt 360 Aswan High Dam project, Egypt 148, 149, 150–151 Athens, Greece 60, 78, 418–419 atmospheric processes impact on heritage structures 138–144 Attia, Kader 166 Aurelian (Roman emperor) 57–58, 208 Australia: “Austerica” 378, 379; building developments, Melbourne 17, 372–382; Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia ( JSCNA) 386, 387–388, 389, 390; jurisdiction heritage protection systems 384, 385, 386–391; Kakadu National Park 141, 390; Kosciuszko National Park bushfire damage 140; UluruKata Tjuta National Park 395, 400; and UNDRIP 103 Australian Aboriginal heritage 17, 384–391; climate change impacts 141, 385; cultural groups and languages (number) 384; destruction in Western Australia 6, 7, 17, 18, 47, 385–391; graves of Aboriginal people 47; Juukan Gorge 18, 21, 386–391; Kakadu 141, 390; Murujuga rock art 7; protection 6, 384, 385, 386–391; rockshelters, Western Australia 18, 21, 386–391; saltwater encroachment on traditional sites 141; vulnerability to development 6, 17, 384–391 Australian Aboriginal people: children forced to assimilate 103–104; decision-making power imbalances 17, 389; graves in Northern Territory unrecorded 47; see also Indigenous people authenticity 25, 68, 69, 141, 174, 177, 181 Authority for the Protection and Safeguarding of Angkor and the Region of Angkor (APSARA), Cambodia 297 Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Lemkin) 38–39, 102 Ayodhya, India: Babri Masjid 38, 190; heritage complex 190, 191, 192 Ayotzinapa, Mexico: student murders 179–180 Ayutthaya, Thailand 142 Azerbaijan 16, 58, 334, 335; ArmenianAzerbaijani conflict 333–334, 337–339; Caucasian Albanian culture 334, 339; heritage destruction 336–339; national identity 335, 337; see also Caucasus Ba, O. 8 Babri Masjid, Ayodhya, India 38, 190 Babylon, Iraq 317; heritage predation 189–190; Ishtar Gate 317; management of 188; military occupation and damage 315, 317

‘Baedeker Raids’ by Germany, Second World War 260 Bagan, Myanmar 133 Baghdad, Iraq: assassinations and institutional damage 316; community 324; demolition and development 319 Bagrati Cathedral, Georgia 25, 68 Baldessari, John 165 Balkan Wars of 1990s see Wars of Yugoslav Succession Baltic states: cultural property damage during Second World War 268–277; ethnic composition change 274, 276; removal of Communist monuments 46; Soviet occupation 269, 274–275 Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan, destruction 43, 91, 223–224, 418; digital reconstruction of Buddhas 49; fragments sold by Taliban 224; fragments used in artworks 166, 169–170; international knowledge of Buddhas prior to destruction 9, 418; international response 42, 65, 68–69, 83, 100, 218–219, 223–224, 226–227; media coverage 18, 19, 42, 223–224; Taliban motivation for 56–57, 223–224, 226–227, 232; violation of customary international law 83 Bamiyan Valley World Heritage cultural landscape, Afghanistan 42–43, 68, 69, 91, 223–224, 418; see also Bamiyan Buddhas Banda Aceh, Indonesia: tsunami 134 Bandelier National Monument, USA 143 Bangladesh: rainfall damage 142; Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre 250, 252 Banjima people’s heritage, Western Australia 386–387, 388, 389–390 Barrio, Artur 163, 169 Bashiqa, Iraq: community cleanup and reconstruction 328–329; effect of destruction on community 324 Beatlemania in Australia 376 Becket, Welton 377 Belgium 261, 263; Louvain (Leuven) University Library 79, 260 Benevento Cathedral, Italy 264, 265 Berliner, D. 233 Bethlehem, Palestine 347 Bevan, Robert 42, 230 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Italy 142 biodiversity 143, 150, 400 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests 28, 44, 415 blue shield distinctive emblem marking of cultural property 81 Blue Shield International 2, 20, 39, 82, 85, 112, 248; see also Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention Boccardi, Giovanni 420; see also UNESCO

426

Index Bokova, Irina 8, 212, 220, 230, 233–238, 301, 303; see also UNESCO Bolte, Henry 377–378 bombing see war Bonaparte, Napoleon 77–78 books and manuscripts: protection of 4, 81; see also archives; Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); libraries Bortolotto, C. 233 Boscoreale, Italy 131 Boscotrecase, Italy 131 Bosnia and Herzegovina 37; Commission to Preserve National Monuments 283, 284; cultural heritage destruction during war 58, 279, 280, 282–287; ethnic cleansing in 49, 105–106, 279–280, 282, 284; genocide 84–85, 105–106; heritage restoration and reconstruction 49, 197–198; National and University Library 2, 283, 286; peace agreement 197–198; Stari Most Bridge, Mostar 47–48, 48, 84, 90, 283, 286; war crimes in 84, 106, 280, 282; see also Croatia; General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Peace Agreement, 1995); International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Serbia; Wars of Yugoslav Succession Bosra (Ancient City of Bosra), Syria 301 Boumama, Sanda Ould 233 Bowen, George 380 Boyd, Robin 378, 379 Boyle, Mark 161 Bracks, Steve 380 Break Down (performance, 2001) 165 Bremer, Paul 316 A Brief History of Collapses (Ghani) 164, 169 Bristol, United Kingdom 28 Britain (nation) see United Kingdom British Library, London 265 British Museum, London 77–78, 317 British news media: Palmyra destruction narrative 22, 210, 213, 221, 222; see also media narratives Brosché, J. 42, 232 Bruce, Thomas (Lord Elgin) 60 Bryson, Bill 7 Buddhas, destruction of see Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan, destruction Burdett, Basil 375 Burra Charter (1979) 395, 402 bushfires (wildfires) 135, 140, 143 Cambodia 16, 20, 58, 82, 89, 289–298; Angkor Wat 289–294, 296–298; Angkorian artefacts 289–296; civil war 292–294; French

Protectorate 289–292; heritage protection initiatives 292–294, 296–298; military conflict with Thailand 295–296; Prasat Preah Vihear 295–296; Prasat Ta Moan Thom temple, Cambodia/Thailand 295–296; signatory to international conventions 292–293, 296, 297; University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh 292 Camden, William 1 Cameroon 135 Canada: archaeological sites threatened by erosion 139; body preserved in cryosphere 139; cultural genocide 104, 107; Indigenous children forced to assimilate 103–104; tornado damage 142, 143; and UNDRIP 103 Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) 110–111, 114, 116, 119, 148 Carchemish, Syria 21 Caribbean area: earthquake damage (Haiti) 242; hurricane damage 142; volcanic eruptions 132; see also Latin America carpet weaving in national identity 337 Castelmola, Italy 135 cathedrals see churches Caucasus 334; Armenian heritage 334, 339; geography, demography and nation-states 334–335; heritage destruction or erasure 16, 333–334, 336–339; types of heritage 335–336; World Heritage sites 336 CCI see Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Chapman, Jake and Dinos 166 Chea Thay Seng 293 Chechen wars 336, 337 children, forcible removal of 41, 101, 102, 103–104 China: artistic commentary on government actions and Chinese heritage destruction 176–182, 418; earthquakes 134; invasion of Tibet 103; landslides 134; nation-building 8–9; relocation of heritage monuments 153; submerged archaeological sites 147, 153, 154; World Heritage sites (number) 180 Chinguetti Mosque, Mauritania 140 Christchurch, New Zealand 133–134 Christian heritage see churches; religious iconoclasm; Serbian Orthodox heritage Christopoulos, D. 232 churches: Armenian Churches 335; Bagrati Cathedral, Georgia 25, 68; Benevento Cathedral, Italy 264, 265; Cathedral of St Mark (San Marco), Venice, Italy 77, 264; damage during Wars of Yugoslav Succession 279–283, 285; damage during world wars 261, 263; destruction by Islamic State 219; destruction by Khmer Rouge 58; Durham Cathedral, United Kingdom 25, 26; earthquake damage 133; looted in Middle Ages 77; Notre-Dame Cathedral, France 417;

427

Index Reims Cathedral, France 79, 261, 262, 263; renovation/reconstruction in Egypt 16, 366–369, 366–367 Cicero 76 CiDOC Conceptual Reference Model 116 Circassian genocide 337 cities see urban development; urbicide Clastres, Pierre 103 Clay, Richard 11 Cleve, Nils 272 climate change impacts on heritage sites 1, 20, 135, 138–144, 385, 400; atmospheric changes 143, 144; coastal processes 140–142; desertification 140; flooding 141, 142; impacts on traditional lifestyles 141, 144; melting cryosphere 138–139; pest species range and distribution 143; sea ice decline and erosion 139; sea level rise and erosion 141–142; see also extreme weather events collateral damage 6, 50, 64, 115–116, 259, 315; adverse effects of heritage protection initiatives 218–227; urban destruction 344; during world wars 261–264; see also military necessity collectors: colonial archaeology 59, 314–315; justifications for collecting 60–61, 62, 77–78, 317; see also archaeology; looting and plundering; museums; trade in cultural objects Collier, Julia 375 colonial archaeology 59, 314–315, 317, 319, 358–359; see also archaeological sites colonialism 73; critiques in art 163, 170; cultural destruction 102–104, 318; French, in Cambodia 289–292; in Latin America 396–400; settler colonialism in Australia 372, 385; see also erasure of heritage; Indigenous people Committee against Torture 96 Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict: advisory body (Blue Shield International) 82; established 82; see also Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention communications see global communications; media narratives; social media community engagement: excluded from Declaration (2003) provisions 70, 71, 73; in heritage management 25, 66, 68, 73–74, 111, 154, 390, 404–405; in humanitarian aid decisions 245–246; in reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites 327–329; in risk management 111 community response to heritage destruction in Iraq and Syria 323–329 conflict see Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention;

heritage destruction during conflict; law of armed conflict; Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention; war; war crimes Congo see Democratic Republic of the Congo Congress of Vienna (1815) 78 Conner, Bruce 162 Consejo Indígena de Centro América 404 conservation: benefits/harm 25, 414–416; church restoration/renovation in Egypt 366–369; damage stabilisation 49; international law 65–74; in Melbourne, Australia 379–382; preservation discourse 59–61, 63–64, 414–415; see also reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites conservation paradigm 13, 66–68, 73–74, 113; reconsideration of 28, 413–421 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972) 39, 66, 113, 231, 401–403; cultural heritage definition (“outstanding universal value”) 67, 113, 189, 220, 347, 401; “destruction” reference (Article 11) 67–68; Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 68; Operational Guidelines for implementation 68, 401, 413; Preamble 67–68, 401, 402–403; ratification (participation) 67, 280; see also World Heritage Centre; World Heritage Committee; World Heritage in Danger List; World Heritage Site List; World Heritage sites; World Heritage Tentative List Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) 39–40, 58, 80–83, 84, 100, 231, 267, 401; blue shield distinctive emblem (Article 6) 81 (see also Blue Shield International); breaches (Article 28) 81–82; Cambodia as signatory 292–293, 296, 297; conduct of occupying power (Article 5) 81, 82, 308; conduct of parties during hostilities (Article 4) 81; conflicts not of an international character (Article 19) 81; conservation paradigm yardstick 67; criminal provisions 82, 83; cultural property definition (Article 1) 4, 81, 113, 245, 401; cultural property protection system (Article 1, 8) 81–82, 113, 245–246, 293, 298; Israel as signatory 308; military necessity waiver (Article 4) 81, 117 (see also law of armed conflict); military training (Article 25) 296; non-state actors and non-international armed conflicts (Article 19) 81; Preamble 4, 67, 81, 100; prohibition of theft, pillage, misappropriation, vandalism (Article 4) 81; prosecution (Article 28) 81–82; ratification (participation) 39; respect (Article 4, 7, 19) 81, 296; safeguarding (Article 3) 81;

428

Index special protection and International Register of Cultural Property Under Special Protection (Article 8) 293, 298; state party responsibilities (Article 2) 81–82; Syria as signatory 303; Thailand as signatory 296, 298; Yugoslavia as signatory 280; see also First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention; Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) 93, 402; intangible cultural heritage definition (Article 2) 4, 93, 402; Intangible Cultural Heritage list 4 Convention (II) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague Convention 1899) 39, 79, 80, 85, 257 Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague Convention 1907) 39, 79, 80, 85, 257–258, 261, 264, 266; breaches of 258, 263, 265 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970) 39, 292; see also illicit trafficking Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948) 41, 84, 100–101, 102–104, 107; genocide definition (Article 2) 100–101 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005) 402 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2011) 70 Coptic Christian heritage 16, 359, 360, 366–369 Coronation Park (sculptures, 2015) 168–169, 168 corporations 70, 391; see also Rio Tinto Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly: Combating Terrorism through Culture statement 41–42 Cousins, Mark 162 Crac des Chevaliers, Syria 301, 303 Crimea 37, 46; see also Ukraine crimes against communities and persons 89–92 crimes against humanity 40, 58, 68, 80, 84, 85, 91, 106, 117; see also human rights; war crimes crimes of persecution 84 criminal intent (mens rea) 90–91, 101 criminal responsibility 71, 72–73, 82, 83, 96, 97 crises see humanitarian emergencies; natural disasters crisis thinking 25, 67–68, 74, 318 Croatia: cultural heritage destruction during war 279, 280, 281, 285–286; Dubrovnik bombardment 84, 281, 285–286; Vukovar 281, 286; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina; International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Wars of Yugoslav Succession

Croatian forces destruction of heritage sites 48, 84, 279, 281, 283; see also Stari Most Bridge, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina cryosphere 138–139 Ctesiphon, Iraq 315 Cui, Cancan 178, 181 cultural acceptability versus legality 117 cultural change: benefits of cultural heritage destruction 418–419 cultural cleansing 6, 8, 15, 305, 333, 344–345; definitions 230, 301; UNESCO framing as terrorist strategy 8, 15, 230–238, 301; urbicide 343–354; see also ethnic cleansing; people displacement cultural destruction see heritage destruction cultural diplomacy 191 cultural genocide 6, 38–39, 344; ICTY case law 84–85, 104–106; in international law 84, 100–108; by Islamic State 9, 100, 220, 301, 318, 322, 323–324, 329; see also Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948); genocide; heritage protection; urbicide cultural heritage 8–9, 395; conservation see conservation; and cultural identity 42, 46–47, 49, 90–94; damage see damage; heritage destruction; definitions 3–5, 245, 258–259; erasure of see erasure of heritage; humanitarian sector and 242–252; importance 129, 135, 245–246, 248–252; international law see international law; law of armed conflict; linked to well-being 248–252; looting see looting and plundering; loss of see loss of heritage; management see heritage management; political use of see heritage predation; protection of see heritage protection; and social sustainability 414–421; threats to 41–42; types 129; value see value of cultural heritage; Western and Eurocentric discourses 174–175; see also cultural genocide; cultural property; heritage; intangible heritage Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe 420 cultural heritage destruction see erasure of heritage; heritage destruction; heritage destruction during conflict; heritage destruction during peacetime; loss of heritage cultural heritage preservation see conservation; Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972); heritage management; preservation discourse cultural identity 42, 49, 90–94, 250, 259; in Caucasus region 335, 337; loss of 323–329; nonWestern versus Western notions 400–403; in Palestine 350–352, 354; see also national identity Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan 42–43,

429

Index 68, 69, 91, 223–224, 418; see also Bamiyan Buddhas cultural landscapes 112, 114–115, 129, 245, 369, 402; Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan 42, 68, 418; climate change impacts 140, 143; dam construction impacts 150; landscape iconoclasm 389; protection and destruction in Australia 385–389; reconfiguration of 290–291, 313, 315, 352–353; WHC protection criterion 68, 69; see also archaeological sites cultural looting see looting and plundering cultural objects: re-used in artworks 165–166, 168–170; trade see illicit trafficking; trade in cultural objects; see also antiquities cultural policy see state policies cultural property 39, 42, 78–81; damage see damage; heritage destruction; heritage destruction during conflict; heritage destruction during peacetime; definitions 4, 81, 245, 258–259; inventories 258–259, 265; looting see looting and plundering; marking of cultural property 81 (see also Blue Shield International); movable cultural objects 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 95, 245, 258, 259, 265; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); cultural heritage; First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention; heritage protection; Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention Cultural Property Protection Estimate 112 cultural rights 25, 93; see also intangible heritage Cunliffe, Emma 21, 50 Curtis, John 317 customary international law 69–70, 74, 83–84, 105, 107; definition 83 Cyprus: Ledra Palace Hotel, Nicosia, and Cyprus conflict 198–201, 200, 204; Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage 199 Cyrenaica, Libya 141 Dada (art movement) 160, 166 Da’esh see Islamic State dam construction 14; dams vs heritage 147–148, 319; drivers for construction 148–149; Mak’houl Dam, Iraq 319; mitigating impact on cultural heritage 153–154; Nile River (Egypt) 147, 148, 149, 150–151, 153; safeguard or relocation of monuments 150, 151, 152–153; surveys of doomed sites 150, 151; Tigris and Euphrates rivers 148, 149–150, 149, 153; in Turkey 148, 149–150, 149, 152, 153; types of damage to heritage 150, 151–153 damage: agents of deterioration 116; collateral see collateral damage; contexts 110–115; from development see development activities; drivers

and threats frameworks 14, 115–119, 120–121, 122, 148; factors 118–122; geographical aspects 115; from geological disasters 129–135; HEAT typology 116–117; legality versus cultural acceptability 117; ploughing damage 20, 113; and sustainable development 416–417; typologies 116–117; understanding of 19–21 (see also heritage destruction discourses); in world wars 19, 257–266; see also climate change impacts on heritage sites; dam construction; heritage destruction; heritage destruction during conflict; natural disasters; reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites; risk management Damascus (Ancient City of Damascus), Syria 301 dance see intangible heritage Danevirke, Denmark 275–276 Danti, Michael 315 Daraa, Syria 302 Davis, Kate 169; Disgrace 166, 167 Davis, Tess 294 Dawkins, James 61 Dayton Peace Agreement, 1995 see General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina Declarations see UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003); United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) deforestation 135 Democratic Republic of the Congo: war crimes in 85 denigration of heritage see neglect of heritage Denmark: archaeological site damage during war 269, 275–276; coastal erosion in Jutland 141; Danevirke 275–276; German occupation 275–276 desertification 140 DeSilvey, Caitlin 419 destruction; of art see art destruction; of ethnic groups see ethnic cleansing; genocide; of heritage see cultural cleansing; cultural genocide; heritage destruction; heritage destruction during conflict; heritage destruction during peacetime Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) 160–161 Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (Gamboni) 159 development activities 7, 20, 58, 68, 70, 113, 114; Aswan High Dam project, Egypt 148, 149, 150–151; GAP and economic development in Turkey 148, 149–150, 152, 153; in Iraq 319; mining development, Pilbara region, Western Australia 385–391; sustainable development 413–421; urban development in Egypt 358, 360–366; see also dam construction; urbicide

430

Index digital media 43–44; see also media narratives; social media digital reconstruction 49 Disaster Risk Management (DRM) cycle concept 148; see also risk management disasters see humanitarian emergencies; natural disasters Disgrace (drawings, 2012) 166, 167 displaced people see people displacement Djadjiling rockshelter, Western Australia 387, 389 Djenné, Mali: Djenné Old Town 144, 225; Great Mosque of Djenné 225 documents: protection of 4, 81; provenance documentation 63; seized or destroyed in Iraq 316, 317, 319; see also archives; Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); libraries domestic courts’ competency to prosecute 97; see also national laws Doyle, Chris 212 Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (artwork, 1995) 165, 176, 418 Dubrovnik, Croatia: bombardment of 84, 281, 285–286 Duchamp, Marcel 158, 160, 177, 179 Dunant, Henry 243 Dunstan, David 377 Dunstan, Keith 377 Dunwich, England 141 Durant, Sam 164, 170 Durham Castle and Cathedral, United Kingdom 25, 26 Dutch Fort World Heritage Site, Sri Lanka 134 earthquakes 132–134, 135, 178, 242, 251, 309 Eastern Market, Melbourne, Australia 372, 373–376, 374, 380, 381 ECMM see European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM) École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) 292 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 225 economic development see development activities economic uses of heritage see art market; trade in cultural objects Egypt: archaeological practices 59, 357–359; archaeological site recording 357–358, 360, 362; Aswan 360; Aswan High Dam project 148, 149, 150–151; church renovation/ reconstruction 16, 366–369, 366–367; heritage buildings privately-owned 16, 360–370, 362, 363–365; heritage destruction agents 357; heritage objects taken to overseas museums 77–78, 153; museums 357, 359; Nile River 149, 358; Nile River dams submersion of

heritage sites 147, 148, 150–151, 152, 153; people displacement 151; Sufi tombs 361, 361; Temple of Serapis 91; urban development 16, 358, 360–366 Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) 80 Elgin marbles 60, 78 Elias, J. Jamal 233 Emin, Tracey 165 End Credits (video project, McQueen) 164 Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project 113, 115, 116, 358 England see United Kingdom environmental activism 399–400 environmental change see climate change impacts on heritage sites; natural heritage erasure of heritage 1, 15, 44–47, 50, 186; Caucasus region 333–334, 336–339; in India 190–192; by industrial development 385–391; in Iraq 16, 189–190, 316, 318 (see also Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq); removal of monuments 28, 44–46, 45, 163–164, 273, 337, 415; site rebranding 189, 317, 334, 338, 339; successive erasure 38, 358–359, 417; see also art destruction; conservation; cultural genocide; heritage predation; terrorism Erbil Citadel, Iraq 189, 319 erosion 139, 141–142; see also landslides ERR see Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) Esna, Egypt 360–361 Estonia 276; removal of Communist monuments 46; Soviet annexation of 269, 274–275; war damage 268, 269, 274–275 ethnic cleansing 6; Caucasus region 337, 338, 339; during Wars of Yugoslav Succession 15, 49, 105–106, 230, 279–280, 282, 284, 344; during world wars 260–261; see also Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948); cultural cleansing; genocide; people displacement; urbicide ethnicity rooted to territory 280, 333–334, 338; see also people displacement ethnocide 103, 107, 108, 333–334, 339; see also cultural genocide EU see European Union (EU) Euphrates River dams 147, 149, 149, 150; archaeological sites submerged 147, 152 Euromaidan Revolution of Dignity 46; see also Ukraine European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM) 280 European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage 153 European Court of Human Rights 96, 105

431

Index European Union (EU) 219, 226, 227; funded initiatives (archaeology) 357, 358 Evans, Bernard 377, 378 extractive industries see natural resources exploitation extreme weather events 20, 129, 135, 138, 144; hurricanes 141, 142, 143–144; rainfall 131–132, 135, 142, 143, 144; storm surges 141; tornadoes 142, 143; wind 142; see also climate change impacts on heritage sites fascist heritage in Italy 202, 203 Field, Alan 376 film and photography: damage to/destruction of 161; representations of destruction 162–164 Finland 276; cultural property damage during Second World War 268, 269–273; Finnish confiscation of Russian objects 273; Greater Finland concept 269–270, 272; national identity 272; war with Soviet Union 269–273, 276 fires 135, 140, 143 First Karabakh War 338 First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance (Australia) 390 First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention 80, 82, 86, 292; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) First World War 15, 19, 79, 80; cultural property damage 257–266; deliberate targeting of cultural property 260; incidental and collateral damage 261, 262, 263 Flaubert, Gustave 59 flooding: rainfall and flooding 142; sea level rise 141; submersion of archaeological sites in dams 147–152 Florence, Italy 142, 263 Forensic Architecture 29, 164 “Foro Mussolini” plan 202 Four Nocturnes (film, 2019) 163 France: colonial stewardship of Angkor Wat 289–292; cultural heritage damage during world wars 261, 263, 265; Italian wars 77; Lascaux caves 143; Napoleonic Wars 77–78, 80; Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris 417; Reims Cathedral 79, 261, 262, 263; World Heritage sites (number) 180 Francioni, F. 69, 83 Freedberg, David 10, 22, 28, 159, 185 freedom of expression, of religion, from discrimination see human rights Frezzotti, Oriolo 202 Frigerio, A. 115 Gaddafi, Muammar 47; see also Libya Gallaccio, Anya 161, 165 Galle, Sri Lanka 134

galleries see art galleries; museums Gallery of Lost Art 159–160 Gamboni, Dario 11, 24, 159, 176, 231 GAP (Güneydogu Anadolu Projesi, Southeastern Anatolian Project), Turkey 149–150 García Canclini, Néstor 176, 177–178, 181, 182 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Peace Agreement, 1995) 197–198, 281, 284, 287 Geneva Conventions (1949) 84; Additional Protocols (1977) 84, 258, 266; breaches of 84, 282 genocide 38–39, 41, 84–85, 92, 100–108; acts of 101, 104; Armenian 338; in Bosnia 84–85, 105–106; Circassian genocide 337; cultural cleansing see cultural cleansing; cultural genocide see cultural genocide; definitions 100–108, 117; ethnic cleansing see ethnic cleansing; heritage destruction as technique and form of 101–106; Holocaust 38, 41, 101, 102; international criminal tribunals and international law 104–108; by Islamic State 9, 100, 220, 301, 318, 322, 323–324, 329; in Tibet 103; see also Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948) geographical aspects of damage and risk 115 geological disasters 129–135, 144 Georgia 334, 335; Bagrati Cathedral 25, 68; heritage destruction 339; national identity 68, 335; see also Caucasus Gergiev, Valery 211, 222 Germany: breaches of 1907 Hague Convention 258, 263; Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin 417; military personnel cultural looting 79–80, 265; Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) 269, 274; Nazi genocidal strategies 38–39, 102; Nazi protection of ancient Germanic culture 275, 276; occupation and destruction in Denmark 275–276; scorched earth policy in northern Europe 273–274; targeted destruction of cultural property during world wars 79–80, 260–261, 263, 269; war damage in 264, 268, 417; World Heritage sites (number) 180 Getty Conservation Institute 116 Ghani, Mariam 164, 169 Ginzburg, Benzion 199 Glew, Anna 46 global communications 41–44, 391, 398; see also media narratives; social media global cultural heritage notion see “universal heritage” concept Global Heritage Fund 21 Goderich, Canada 142, 143 Goering, Hermann 265 Golan Heights, Syria 16, 307–308

432

Index González Zarandona, José Antonio 8–9 Great Patriotic War see Second World War Great Umayyad Mosque, Aleppo, Syria 303–304 Greece: Akrotiri 131; Athens 60, 78, 418–419; colonial sites in Africa threatened by sea level rise 141; Cyprus conflict 198–201, 204; Parthenon (Elgin) marbles 60, 78; Santorini volcanic eruption 131; Syracuse colony site looted 76–77 Greenland 138; Nuuk fjord 139 Grotius, Hugo 77 Grozny, Chechnya 337 Gulf Wars 16, 85, 313–314, 315–317 Güneydogu Anadolu Projesi (GAP, Southeastern Anatolian Project), Turkey 149–150 Guo-Qiang, Cai: Black Rainbow: Explosion Project for Edinburgh 161, 162 Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey 38, 186 Hague Air Rules (1922–1923) 258, 264, 266 Hague Convention (1899) 39, 79, 80, 85, 257 Hague Convention (1907) 39, 79, 80, 85, 257–258, 261, 264, 266; breaches of 258, 263, 265 Hague Convention (1954) see Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) Haiti 242 Hama, Syria 302–303 Hamilton, Gavin 61 Hammons, David 166 Hanna, Monica 357 Harrison, Rodney 5, 50 Hasankeyf, Turkey 148 Hashimi, Sayed Rahmatullah 224 Hatra, Iraq 208, 231, 322 Heartfield, John 160 HEAT (Heritage and Threat) project: typology of damage 116–117 Hebron, Palestine 347 Hedeby, Denmark 275, 276 Herceg-Bosna 279, 281; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Wars of Yugoslav Succession Herculaneum, Italy 131 heritage 6; authenticity criterion 25, 68, 69, 141, 174, 177, 181; authorised heritage discourse 66, 154, 186, 404; conservation see conservation; contested 5, 27, 28, 44, 337 (see also erasure of heritage); damage see damage; definitions and conceptualisations 3–5, 11, 17–18, 56, 174–175, 245, 395–396, 399, 400–404, 405; destruction see heritage destruction; heritage destruction discourses; heritage destruction during conflict; heritage destruction during peacetime; erasure see erasure of heritage; loss see loss of heritage; modification at local level 68, 70; and national identity see national

identity; as part of ongoing historical narrative 25, 26, 309; political use of see heritage predation; terrorism; protection see heritage protection; recognition of 20; and tourism see tourism; types 129; “universal heritage” concept 8–9, 22, 113, 210, 211, 213, 221, 233, 259, 316, 347, 395, 398, 401 (see also World Heritage sites); valorisation and risk of targeting 8, 15, 22–23, 24, 27, 218–227; value see value of cultural heritage; see also cultural heritage; intangible heritage Heritage and Threat (HEAT) project: typology of damage 116–117 heritage destruction 90; “always wrong” concept see conservation paradigm; by Ansar-Dine see Ansar-Dine; beneficial 18, 28, 418–419; citizen recording of 44; contribution to sustainable development 415–418; definitions and conceptualisations 5–10, 17–18, 56, 92–93; field of study 1–2, 10–12, 12, 18–21, 24, 42, 175, 182; as human rights issue 13, 25, 40, 47–50, 89–98; and humanitarian principles 15, 246–248; impact on people and communities 9, 21–23, 113, 247–252, 322–329; and imposition of Western world views 396; intentional see intentional destruction; by Islamic State see Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq; linking to terrorism 63; local versus international perceptions 7–10, 27; mental health and well-being 243, 248–252; motivations 6, 22, 56–57, 58, 115–116, 117–118, 120 (see also iconoclasm); narratives see heritage destruction discourses; media narratives; processes 1, 5–7, 19, 50, 115, 186; risk-based approach 110–122; in specific countries see names of specific countries; by Taliban see Taliban; as technique and form of genocide 101–106; typologies 116–117; understanding of 19–21; see also art destruction; cultural genocide; damage; iconoclasm; intentional destruction; looting and plundering; loss of heritage; military necessity; neglect of heritage; reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites; vandalism heritage destruction discourses 21–23, 55–64; necessity discourse 57–59, 63–64; preservation discourse 59–61, 63–64, 414–415; shaping action 63–64; vandalism discourse 56, 62–64 heritage destruction during conflict 9, 13, 19, 37–50, 72, 96; in Cambodia see Cambodia; changing nature of conflict 41–42; codification of conduct of armies 78–79; community experience and responses 9, 16, 323–329; damage drivers and threats framework 115–119, 120–121; deliberate targeting of cultural property see intentional destruction; destruction precipitating conflict 38; field of

433

Index study 42; incidental or collateral damage see collateral damage; in Iraq and Syria see Gulf Wars; Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq; key causes 19, 50; legal aspects see law of armed conflict; long-term consequences of conflict 20–21; military occupation causing damage 259, 264–265, 303, 304, 315, 317; motivations 42, 50, 56–57, 117; narratives and propaganda 42–44, 207, 208–210, 218–227; necessity 6, 39, 81, 82–84, 115, 117, 286; necessity discourse 57–59, 63–64; post-conflict recovery challenges 50, 196–204; RussiaUkraine conflicts 40, 44, 46, 86; urbicide 343–354; value of maintaining physical evidence 48; Wars of Yugoslav Succession 279–287; world wars 257–266, 268–277; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); First World War; looting and plundering; reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites; Second World War; terrorism; Wars of Yugoslav Succession heritage destruction during peacetime 6, 58, 65–74, 96; damage drivers and threats framework 14, 116–117, 119, 122; damage to archaeological sites 7, 113–114, 119; extraterritorial effects 70; responsibility 71; see also development activities; UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003); vandalism heritage destruction in World Heritage sites see World Heritage sites heritage destruction through neglect see neglect of heritage heritage management 42; community engagement in 25, 66, 68, 73–74, 111, 154, 390, 404–405; international versus national 66; and sustainable development 413–421; see also conservation; international law; international organisations; risk management heritage predation 14, 23, 185–192; definitions 14, 23, 185; India 190–191, 192; Iraq 188–190, 191, 192; see also erasure of heritage heritage protection: adverse effects of heritage protection initiatives 15, 22, 24, 218–227; Australian jurisdictions 384, 385, 386–391; Cambodian monuments 291–298; “cultural property in conflict” area of study 42; discourses 63, 66, 154, 174–175, 186, 404; Egypt 16, 357–358, 369–370; “enhanced protection” 40, 82; humanitarian need and 247; international heritage law 24–25, 39–40, 390; international initiatives see international organisations; international treaties and conventions; and law of armed conflict 40, 41, 76–86, 96, 115–116, 257–258; Melbourne, Australia 17, 379–382;

Muslim contexts 41; during natural disasters 251; place in humanitarian ecosystem 248–252; power imbalances 17, 111, 384–385, 389, 390, 420; responsibility 23–24; risk-based approach 110–122; soldier training for 86, 112, 236, 296; “special protection” 293, 298; and sustainable development 413–421; see also conservation; damage; heritage destruction; value of cultural heritage heritage protection, legal aspects see international heritage law; international human rights law; international humanitarian law (IHL); national laws heritage scholarship 1–2, 10–12, 12, 18–21, 24, 42, 175, 182 heritage sites see archaeological sites; archives; art galleries; libraries; museums; World Heritage sites heritage tourism see tourism Heritage Watch 85 Hesse-Kassel State Library 166 Hillberg, Gary 165 Hiller, Susan 165 Hills, Joan 161 Hilton Hotel, East Melbourne, Australia 379 Himmler, Heinrich 275 Hindu nationalism in India 190–191, 192 Hiroshima, Japan 162, 264 Hitler, Adolf 80; see also Germany Hladik, Jan 70–71, 231 Höch, Hannah 158, 160 Hodgens, Howard 375 Holocaust 38, 41, 101, 102 Holtorf, Cornelius 49, 50, 113 Homs, Syria 302, 326–327, 328 Howardena Pindell 169 HRC see United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) human remains: as cultural heritage 93; looted in Egypt 59; mass graves 284; at Pompeii 131; preserved in the cryosphere 138–139; restitution of 404 human rights 72, 92–94; access to culture 25, 71–74, 93–94; freedom of expression 94; freedom of religion 72, 94; implications of heritage destruction 25, 40, 47–50, 89–98; monitoring bodies 96, 97; non-discrimination 94; property 94–95, 107; self-determination 95; UN Human Rights Council 90, 94, 96; Universal Declaration of Human Rights 72, 93, 102; see also crimes against humanity human rights abuses see cultural cleansing; ethnic cleansing; genocide; war crimes Human Rights Chamber for BosniaHerzegovina 285 Human Rights Council see United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC)

434

Index Humanitarian Charter 243 humanitarian ecosystem 242–249; definitions and ways of working 244–245; heritage destruction/protection place in ecosystem 15, 248–252; humanitarian principles 15, 246–248; pressure on 249; stakeholders 243–244; see also international humanitarian law (IHL) humanitarian emergencies 15, 244–245, 248–252; see also natural disasters humanity principle 246, 247 Hume, Gary 165 Humphries, Barry 380 hurricanes 138, 141, 142, 143–144 IACHR see Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ICA see International Council on Archives (ICA) ICC see International Criminal Court (ICC) ICCPR see International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ICCROM see International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) Ice Man (Ötzi, late Neolithic man) 139 ICESCR see International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) ICJ see International Court of Justice (ICJ) ICOM see International Council of Museums (ICOM) ICOMOS see International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art (Latour and Weibel) 159 iconoclasm 6, 11, 24, 115; in art 158–159; definitions 116; digitally mediated 43–44; landscape iconoclasm 389; political 38–39, 56–57, 169, 170, 314, 415; religious 38–39, 56–57, 60, 209–210, 213, 223–224, 225, 232, 294, 398; see also Ansar-Dine; art destruction; Islamic State; Taliban Iconoclasm (art project, 2018/2019) 164 ICRC see International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) ICTR see International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ICTY see International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) identity see cultural identity; national identity IHL see international humanitarian law (IHL) illicit trafficking 9, 61, 62, 116, 117, 132, 236, 304, 306, 307; Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing Illicit trafficking (1970) 39, 292; First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention 82; Islamic State sale of antiquities 37, 55, 63, 197, 305–306;

by Taliban 224; UN Security Council Resolutions 85; see also looting and plundering; trade in cultural objects IMO see International Museums Office (IMO) impartiality principle 246, 247 incidental damage see collateral damage independence principle 246, 247 India: Ayodhya heritage complex 190, 191, 192; Babri Masjid, Ayodhya 38, 190; Citizenship Amendment Act 191; heritage predation and Hindu nationalism 190–191, 192; Kashi Vishvanath Corridor 190–191; Kashmir earthquake 134; relations with Pakistan 191; Taj Mahal 191; World Heritage sites (number) 180 Indian Ocean Tsunami 134 Indigenous heritage 175; Australian see Australian Aboriginal heritage; intangible 93–95; knowledge systems 129, 402; Latin America 403–405; non-Western versus Western notions of heritage 400–404, 405; protection law inadequacy 6, 7, 23, 25; vulnerability to development 7, 17, 23, 385; see also intangible heritage Indigenous people: Australian see Australian Aboriginal people; climate change impacts on traditional lifestyles 141, 144; cultural destruction as form of genocide 102–104; forced displacement 101, 301; forcible removal of children 103–104; IACHR case law 107; knowledge systems 129; population and cultural groups worldwide 384; protection from genocide 100–108; rights 73, 93–95, 101, 103, 106, 107, 384–385, 390; see also colonialism; people displacement Indonesia: tsunami damage 134 Institute of Puerto Rican Culture 144 Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field General Order No. 100 (Lieber Code 1863) 78–79 intangible heritage 92–95, 133, 395–396, 402–403; climate change impacts 144; definitions and types 4, 5, 37, 93, 245, 337, 402; Indigenous knowledge systems 129, 402; loss by displaced people 150, 151, 325–326; memories 182, 323–325, 351–353; protection of 4–5, 41, 112, 402–403; UNESCO Intangible Heritage List 4; see also Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003); human rights integrity: compromise of 92–93, 389; focus on 69; as protection criterion 69, 232 intentional destruction 37, 83, 115; in Cambodian civil war and Khmer Rouge regime 58, 292–294; definitions 92; as human rights violation 72–74, 97; intentional and unintentional damage distinctions 115, 336;

435

Index by Islamic State see Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq; Nablus, Palestine 350, 351; during two world wars 259–261, 268, 269; urbicide 343–354; as war crime 8, 40, 73, 84, 85; in Wars of Yugoslav Succession 279–287; see also heritage destruction during conflict; heritage destruction during peacetime; UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003) Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) 95, 96, 107 interfaith shrines 318 Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 68; Operational Guidelines for implementation of World Heritage Convention 68, 401, 413; see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 138 international assistance programmes 187; see also peacekeeping International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) 24, 110, 113, 114, 116, 119, 148, 246, 249; ABC risk management approach 110–111 International Commission of Jurists 103 International Committee of the Blue Shield see Blue Shield International International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 8, 243, 280 international conventions see international heritage law; international treaties and conventions International Council of Museums (ICOM) 24, 223; see also museums International Council on Archives (ICA) 24; see also archives International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) 24, 25, 68, 223, 280, 420 International Court of Justice (ICJ) 89, 96, 106, 285, 295 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 93, 95 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 93, 95; see also human rights International Criminal Court (ICC) 8, 25, 40, 85, 96–97, 101, 106, 219, 226, 227, 237; Al Mahdi (Timbuktu) case 8, 49, 85, 106, 225– 226, 233, 236–237; formal cooperation with UNESCO 237; Policy on Cultural Heritage 85; Rome Statute (1998) 40, 85, 96, 101, 117, 235, 236; Trust Fund for Victims 49, 97

international criminal law 70, 96, 101, 107; absence of “forced assimilation” concept 102 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) 101 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 84–85, 282, 285–287; cultural property damage definition 285; Dubrovnik bombardment case 84, 285–286; establishment 101, 285; genocide convictions 105–106; incidents not brought to trial 286; intentional destruction of cultural heritage established as crime against humanity 83, 91–92, 94; Prosecutor v. Kordic and Cerkez case 58; significance of 24–25, 83, 285; Stari Most destruction case 84, 90, 286; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; Kosovo; Wars of Yugoslav Succession International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) 24; see also libraries international heritage law 24–25, 39–40, 390; see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972); Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003); Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970); Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005); Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2011); First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention; Hague Convention (1899); Hague Convention (1907); International Criminal Court; international law; Roerich Pact for the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions (1935); Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention; UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003) international human rights law 89, 96, 102, 105, 107; and 2003 Declaration 71–74; absence of “forced assimilation” concept 102; Western view of human rights 101, 102; see also human rights; humanitarian ecosystem; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; United Nations Human Rights Council; United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP); Universal Declaration of Human Rights international humanitarian law (IHL) 40, 41, 96, 245, 285–287; see also Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

436

Index of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948); Geneva Conventions (1949); international heritage law; law of armed conflict international law 39–40, 83; crisis thinking in 25, 67–68, 74; customary international law 69–70, 74, 83–84, 105, 107; Declarations (defined) 74; and peacetime destruction of heritage 65–74; prizes and war booty 77; “universality of jurisdiction” principle 81, 97; see also international heritage law; international human rights law; international humanitarian law (IHL); international treaties and conventions; law of armed conflict; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998); United Nations Security Council Resolutions International Monetary Fund 153 International Museums Office (IMO): 1938 proposals for heritage protection 79, 258; see also museums International Organisation for Migration (IOM) 244, 249–250, 251 international organisations: adverse effects of heritage protection initiatives 15, 22, 24, 218–227; human rights monitoring bodies 96, 97, 280–281; humanitarian ecosystem 242–252, 244; ineffectiveness 280; role in reconstruction 327, 329; role of heritage organisations 24, 153, 248–249, 390, 391 (see also International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS); UNESCO; World Heritage Committee); see also North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); United Nations international politics 23, 218–227, 247 international treaties and conventions 39–41, 83–85, 112, 153; see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972); Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003); Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970); Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948); Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005); Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2011); Geneva Conventions (1949); Hague Convention (1899); Hague Convention (1907); Universal Declaration of Human Rights; United Nations Security Council Resolutions

The invisible enemy should not exist (art project, 2007–ongoing), 170 IOM see International Organisation for Migration (IOM) IPCC see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Iran 223, 302, 306, 315, 334 Iraq 9, 23, 313–319; al-Askari Mosque, Samarra 190, 191; Arch of Ctesiphon 315; assassinations of scholars and scientists 316; Assur 319; Babylon 188, 189–190, 315, 317; Baghdad 316, 319, 324; Bashiqa 324, 328–329; colonial archaeology 314–315, 317, 319; community responses to heritage destruction 323–329; Constitution (2005) 188, 189, 197; cultural objects trade 63, 85, 197, 316, 317; dams 149, 152, 319 (see also Euphrates River dams; Tigris River dams); documents and archives seized or destroyed 316, 317, 319; Erbil Citadel 189, 319; Gulf Wars and aftermath 16, 85, 313–314, 315–317; Hatra 208, 231, 322; heritage destruction by Islamic State 37, 41, 44, 91, 100, 117, 162, 208, 313–314, 318 (see also Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq); heritage destruction in 19th century 318–319; heritage institutions 188, 189–190; heritage loss and dislocation of people 23, 313–319; heritage predation 188–190, 191, 192; interfaith shrines 318; Kerbala 318–319; Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) 188, 189; Mosul see Mosul, Iraq; museum artefact theft 170, 316; museum destruction 44, 100, 162, 208, 209, 318, 322; National Library and State Archives 316; National Museum of Iraq 170; Nimrud 212, 318, 322; Nineveh 212, 318, 322; no inventory of war damage and deaths 23, 313, 315; political system (Muhasa) 188–189, 314; Samarra 190, 191; sanctions against 23, 314, 315, 316; Shia Endowment 189–190; Shrine of Prophet Ezekiel 189–190, 191; Sunni Endowment 189; UN Security Council Resolutions 85; Ur 315; Yezidis 9, 188, 301, 318, 322; see also Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq Ishtar Gate, Babylon, Iraq 317 ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) see Islamic State Islamic religious law (Sharia) 41, 209, 232; see also Muslim traditions and heritage Islamic State: genocidal behaviour 9, 100, 220, 301, 318, 322, 323–324, 329; ideology 209, 301, 305, 318, 322; Manbij Archaeological Administration 306; media strategies 43–44, 207, 305, 322; revenue sources 37, 55, 63, 85, 117, 197, 213, 305–306 Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq 22, 301–302, 322–323; community responses 9,

437

Index 16, 322–329; heritage destruction discourses 56–57, 117, 208–210, 305; intentional destruction 41, 91, 100, 162, 179, 188, 192, 208–210, 219–222, 305–306, 309, 318; looting of archaeological sites 37, 55, 63, 117, 305–306; Palmyra destruction narrative 22, 208–210, 213, 219–222 (see also Palmyra, Syria, destruction); as propaganda tool 219–222, 226–227; see also Iraq; Syria Israel: control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory 345–354; excavations on Golan Heights 307–308; Jerusalem 76; signatory to Hague Convention (1954) 308 Istanbul, Turkey: Hagia Sofia 38, 186 Italy: Benedictine Abbey, Montecassino 261, 265; Benevento Cathedral 264, 265; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze 142; body preserved in cryosphere 139; earthquakes 133–134; floods 142; Florence 142, 263; Herculaneum 131; Italian wars 77; landslides 135, 142; looting during Second World War 265; Naples see Naples, Italy; Palazzo M, Latina 201–203, 201, 204; Pompeii 131, 259, 264; Roman ships museum, Nemi 260; Syracuse Greek colony site looting 76–77; Venice see Venice, Italy; volcanic eruptions 131; war damage 258, 259, 260, 263–264, 265, 268, 417; World Heritage sites (number) 133, 180 Jahan, Pierre 163 Jamestown, Virginia 103 Japan: colonial administration of Korea 261; earthquake damage 134; Hiroshima and Nagasaki 162, 264; tsunami damage 134 Jerusalem, Israel 76 Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia ( JSCNA) 386, 387–388, 389, 390 Jokić, Miodrag 84, 285–286; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Wars of Yugoslav Succession Jones, Christopher W. 232 Jorgic, Nikola 105 Joy, Charlotte 225, 232–233 JSCNA see Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia ( JSCNA) Julfa khachkars (carved-cross steles), Nakhichevan 338 Juukan Gorge rockshelters, Australia 18, 21, 386–391 Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin, Germany 417 Kakadu National Park, Australia 141, 390–391 Kalman, H. 47–48 Kaphar, Titus 168, 169

Karabakh Wars 338–339 Karadžić, Radovan 282, 286 Karelia (Finland/Soviet Union) 269–273, 276; see also Finland; Soviet Union (to 1991) Kashi Vishvanath Corridor, India 190–191 Kerbala, Iraq 318–319 Kerry, John 220, 322 Khayat, Azeez 61 Khmer artefacts 289–298 Khmer Rouge 58, 294–295; see also Cambodia Kirkuk, Iraq 316, 318, 327 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 4 Kish, Iraq 315 Koldewey, Robert 317 Korea: cultural property damage during Japanese occupation 261 Kosciuszko National Park, Australia 140 Kosovo: cultural heritage destruction during war 279, 281, 284–285; ethnic cleansing 284, 344; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Wars of Yugoslav Succession Kovačević, Vladimir 84; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Wars of Yugoslav Succession Krasner, Lee 165 Krstić case 92, 105–106 Kumm, Elizabeth 379 Kyoto, Japan 264 LaFranche, Pierre 223 landslides 134–135, 142; see also erosion Landy, Michael 165, 169 Lang, Liane 164 language see intangible heritage Lascaux caves, France 143 Latchford, Douglas and family 297 Latham, John 160 Latin America: heritage notions and heritage destruction 395–405; see also Argentina; Caribbean area; Mexico; Peru Latina, Italy 201–203 Latour, Bruno 159, 176 Latvia 46, 269 law, international see international law; international treaties and conventions law of armed conflict: and cultural heritage protection 40, 41, 76–86, 96, 115–116, 257– 258; military necessity provisions see military necessity; principles of distinction, feasibility, proportionality 82; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); heritage destruction during conflict Lawton, Laura 416 League of Nations 79

438

Index Ledra Palace Hotel, Nicosia, Cyprus 198–201, 200, 204 Lee, Robert E.: statues removed 44, 45 legality 105; versus cultural acceptability 117 Lego Portraits. Ayotzinapa Case (artwork, 2019) 179–180, 181 Lemkin, Raphael 6, 41, 100, 102, 103, 116; Axis Rule in Occupied Europe 38–39, 102; see also Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948) Lenzerini, Federico 69, 83 Lesser Antilles: volcanic eruptions 132 Lewis, Mark 163 libraries: acquisition and return of cultural objects 265; al-Waqfeya library, Aleppo 304; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze 142; British Library, London 265; captured during war 77; damaged/destroyed 2, 79, 100, 166, 260, 283, 286, 304, 316; desecration by Islamic State 322; destruction of, as cultural genocide 39; International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions 24; Louvain (Leuven) University Library 79, 260; National and University Library, Sarajevo 2, 283, 286; National Library and State Archives, Baghdad 316; protection of 2, 4, 78–79, 81; Royal Society library, Naples 260; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); heritage protection; museums Libya: Cyrenaica 141; pre-Arab Roman sites neglected 47; Sabratha 141; sites threatened by sea level rise 141 Lieber Code (1863) 78–79 Lieber, Francis 78 List of World Heritage in Danger see World Heritage in Danger List Lithuania: removal of Communist monuments 46 Littoria, Italy see Latina, Italy Locke, Hew 163, 169, 170 London, United Kingdom: museums 77–78, 314–315, 317 looting and plundering 19, 37, 50, 63, 115, 117, 259; in Cambodia 289–290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295; in the Caucasus 338; development of law of armed conflict 76–86; in Egypt 357; in Iraq 37, 55, 63, 117, 314, 316, 317; justifications for collecting antiquities 60–61, 77–78; motivations 117; post-conflict 20; return of looted objects 24, 77, 78, 265, 297, 298; risk after natural disasters 143–144; Second World War 39, 79–80, 264–265, 270, 272; in Syria 37, 55, 59, 63, 117, 302–303, 305–306, 307; Wars of Yugoslav Succession 279–280; see also collectors; illicit trafficking; trade in cultural objects

loss of heritage 9, 20, 49, 68, 93, 95, 309, 416, 418; in Afghanistan see Afghanistan; after migration 325–326; appeal of loss 416; assessment and risk management 112–114; in Australia see Australian Aboriginal heritage; in Cambodia see Cambodia; in Egypt see Egypt; emotional consequences 130; factors in risk of loss 118–122, 118 (see also risk management); impact on people and communities 9, 23, 150, 151, 249–252, 313–319, 323–329; in Iraq see Iraq; irreversible process 389; local versus international perceptions of 7–10; methods of study 10–12; in people displacement by dams 150, 151; redress 47–50; and sustainable development see heritage management; in Syria see Syria; see also erasure of heritage; heritage destruction; reparation; value of cultural heritage Lostal, Marina 50 Louis, M. 233–234 Loulanski, Tolina 414 Louvain (Leuven) University Library, Belgium 79, 260 Machu Picchu, Peru 135 Mackenzie, S. 294 McQueen, Steve 164 Madgin, Rebecca 372 Maertens, L. 233–234 Maine: shell middens 140 Mak’houl Dam, Iraq 319 Mali 37; Ahmed Baba Institute 226; conflict in 224–226, 230 (see also Al Mahdi, Ahmad Al Faqi; Ansar-Dine); Djenné 144, 225; Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) 86, 236, 237; Timbuktu see Timbuktu, Mali, heritage destruction; Tomb of Askia 225; Tomb of Sidi Mahmoud 225; World Heritage sites 225 Manar al-Athar initiative 358 Manbij Archaeological Administration (MAA) 306 Mapuche International Link 404 Marker, Chris 163 market countries: heritage destruction discourses 55–64 marking of cultural property 81; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) Martinique: volcanic eruptions 132 massacres: Bosnia and Herzegovina 106, 284; cultural dimensions of 107, 180, 398; Mexico 179–180, 181; see also genocide Matsuura, Koïchiro 223 Mauritania: Chinguetti Mosque 140 Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, Turkey 416

439

Index May, Larry 106 media narratives 9, 21, 55–56, 305; Bamiyan Buddhas destruction 18, 19, 42, 223–224; digital media 43–44; heritage destruction as propaganda 42–44, 56–57, 207–213; Palmyra destruction 9, 55–56, 207–213, 219–222, 305; social media 21, 43–44, 226, 307; Timbuktu destruction 225, 226; see also heritage destruction discourses Medina, Cuauhtémoc 177, 178 Meharg, Sarah 352 Melbourne, Australia 17, 372–382; Eastern Market 373–376, 374, 380, 381; heritage protection initiatives 379–382; Southern Cross Hotel 376–380, 377, 382; SX Towers 380–382, 381 memories 182, 323–325, 351–353; see also intangible heritage mens rea (criminal intent) 90–91, 101 mental health impacts of heritage destruction 249–252 Meroe, Sudan 140 Merryman, John Henry 60 Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, United States 140 Meskell, Lynn 232, 233 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 61, 153, 223, 296 Metzger, Gustav 158, 160 Mexico: archaeological site management 404–405; Aztec structures built-over 397–398; Christian imagery destroyed 38; fire damage to obsidian site 140; landslides 135; nation-building 8–9, 399; Resetting Memories exhibition 8–9, 178–181; San Juan de Grijalva 135; student murders 179–180, 181; World Heritage sites (number) 180; see also Latin America Middle-East see Iraq; Syria military forces: respect for cultural property 81; training 83, 84, 86, 112, 236, 296; see also peacekeeping military necessity 6, 115, 286; Hague Convention (1954) provisions 81, 83, 84, 117; necessity discourse 57–59, 63–64; Second Protocol (1999) provisions 39, 82, 83; in Stari Most bridge case 84; see also collateral damage; heritage destruction during conflict military occupation: causing damage 19, 259, 264–265, 315, 317; Hague Convention 1954 provisions (Article 5) 81, 82; Second Protocol provisions (Article 9) 82; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention

Milošević, Slobodan 279, 284; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Serbia; Wars of Yugoslav Succession mining see natural resources exploitation MINUSMA see Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali Missouri river (USA) submersion of archaeological sites 147 Mladić, Ratko 286; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Serbia; Wars of Yugoslav Succession MNLA see National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) modernisation see development activities Moffatt, Tracey 165 Montecassino, Italy: Benedictine Abbey 261, 265 Montserrat: volcanic eruptions 132 Monument Lab 415 Monumental Inversions (art project, 2016) 168 Monuments at Risk survey (United Kingdom) 114, 116 Morris, Ian 418 mosques: al-Askari Mosque, Samarra, Iraq 190, 191; Chinguetti Mosque, Mauritania 140; destruction of 22, 38, 49, 58, 105–106, 190, 219, 282–285, 303–304, 350; Great Mosque of Djenné 225; Great Umayyad Mosque, Aleppo, Syria 303–304; intentional targeting of 84–85, 91, 91, 282–285; reconstruction of 47; see also Timbuktu, Mali, heritage destruction Mostar Stari Most bridge see Stari Most Bridge, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina Mosul, Iraq: community sense of loss and trauma 323, 326; Mosul Museum destruction by Islamic State 44, 100, 162, 208, 209, 318, 322; Nebi Yunis shrine destruction 318 Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) 86, 236, 237 multinational companies 70, 391; see also Rio Tinto Mulvey, Laura 163 Murujuga, Western Australia, rock art 7 museum ethics 297; see also art market; trade in cultural objects museums: acquisition of Egyptian objects 77–78, 153; acquisition of Iraqi objects 314–315, 316; British Museum 77–78, 317; colonial collecting policies 314–315, 319; desecration by Islamic State 322; destruction of, as cultural genocide 39; displays and interpretations 402; in Egypt 357, 359; in Iraq during war and US occupation 170, 316; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 61, 153, 223, 296; Mosul Museum destruction by Islamic State 44, 100, 162, 208, 209, 318, 322; National Museum of Naples 265; protection of 4, 81; Roman ships

440

Index museum, Nemi, Italy 260; Second World War protection and destruction 259, 260, 265, 270, 271, 272–276; selection and storage dilemmas 50; in Syria 302–303, 316; Viipuri museum, Finland 270, 271, 272; see also archaeology; art; art galleries; collectors; Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); International Council of Museums (ICOM); International Museums Office (IMO); libraries Muslim traditions and heritage: erasure in India 190–192; forms of doctrine and practice 209, 232, 305, 318; mosques see mosques; Muslim traditions as safeguard for cultural heritage 41; Ottoman structures see Ottoman heritage; religious structures destroyed in Wars of Yugoslav Succession 282–285; Sharia law 41, 209, 232; Sufi shrines 209, 225–226, 361, 361; see also mosques; religious iconoclasm Mussolini, Benito 201–202 Myanmar: earthquake damage and reconstruction 133; Plains of Bagan 133; Rohingya refugees 249–250, 251, 252 Naarm see Melbourne, Australia Nablus, Palestine 9, 16, 344, 347–354, 348–350, 352–353 Nagasaki, Japan 162, 264 Nakhichevan enclave 337, 338 Naples, Italy 131, 259, 260, 265; inundation of heritage structures 141; National Museum of Naples 265; Royal Society library, Naples 260; volcanic eruption damage 131; war damage 260, 265 Napoleonic Wars 77–78, 80; see also France Narva, Estonia 274–275 Nashashibi, Rosalind 161 nation building 6, 8–9, 37, 395, 399 National and University Library, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2, 283, 286 national identity 6, 9, 77, 129, 180–181, 259, 399; Armenia 335, 337; Azerbaijan 335, 337; Cambodia and Thailand 295; Finland 272; Georgia 68, 335; Poland 260–261; Ukraine 46–47; see also cultural identity national laws 63, 81–82, 112, 153, 187, 188–189, 390 National Library and State Archives, Baghdad, Iraq 316 National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) 230, 232 National Museum of Iraq: artefact theft 170 National Trust of Australia (Victoria) 379–380 NATO see North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) natural disasters 20, 129, 130, 135, 144; earthquakes 132–134, 178, 242, 251, 309;

flooding 141, 142; heritage rescue 251; human reactions causing heritage damage 143–144; humanitarian response 20, 244–245; hurricanes and tornados 141, 142, 143–144; landslides 134–135, 142; tsunamis 134; volcanic eruptions 130–132; wellbeing of crisis-affected people 20, 243, 248–249; wildfires 135, 140, 143; see also climate change impacts on heritage sites; erosion; extreme weather events natural heritage: and 1954 Hague Convention 4; climate change impacts 143; dam construction impacts 150, 151; definitions 245; see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972) natural resources exploitation 405; Australia 385–391; Latin America 399–400 Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust 379, 380 Nazi Germany see Germany neglect of heritage 6, 50, 115, 203–204; in the Caucasus 338; denigration of heritage 47; as justification for removing antiquities 60–61, 62, 78; Ledra Palace Hotel, Nicosia, Cyprus 198–201; in Libya 47; Sufi tombs in Egypt 361 Nepal: earthquake damage 132–133, 242, 251, Kathmandu Valley 132 The Netherlands 264 neutrality principle 246, 247 New Britain, Papua New Guinea 132 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA 143 New Zealand: earthquake damage 133–134; and UNDRIP 103 NGOs 15, 221, 224, 227, 243, 318; see also Blue Shield International; International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Nicholas II, Czar of Russia 79 Nietzsche, Friedrich 158, 160 Nile River 149, 358; archaeological sites submerged by dams 147, 148, 150–151, 152 Nimrud, Iraq 212, 318, 322 Nineveh, Iraq 212, 318, 322 Nixey, Catherine 419 Nocera, Italy 131 noncombat military misuse 19 Normandy, France: damage during world wars 261, 265 North America see Canada; United States North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 219, 226, 227, 280, 284–285; risk management definition 112 Norway: frozen archaeological material 138, 139; Second World War damage 268, 269, 273–274; Second World War German occupation 269, 276; Second World War heritage 276–277, 277 Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris 417 Ntaganda, Bosco 85

441

Index Nuremberg Charter and Control Council Law 80 Nuremberg International Military Tribunal 80 Nyiyaparli rockshelter, Western Australia 387, 388, 389–390 objects re-used in artworks 165–166, 168–170 occupation see military occupation oceans: acidification 141; salinity 143 odiousness criterion 70, 71 Oguibe, Olu 161 O’Keefe, Patrick 245 O’Keefe, Roger 4, 69, 83 Old City of Nablus see Nablus, Palestine Olier, Charles-Marie-François (Marquis of Nointel) 60 Ono, Yoko 158, 160–161 Operation Barbarossa 269 Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention 68, 401, 413; see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972) Oppdal, Norway 139 oral histories see intangible heritage Ortiz, Raphael Montañez 160 Ottoman heritage: Bosnia and Herzegovina 279, 283; in Egypt 362, 363–365, 366; Iraq 190; Kosovo 285; Nablus, Palestine 347; see also Stari Most Bridge, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina Ötzi (late Neolithic man) 139 Outstanding Universal Value 67, 113, 189, 220, 347, 401 Pakistan: relations with India 191 Palazzo M, Latina, Italy 201–203, 201, 204 Palestine: Bethlehem 347; collective memory 9, 351–353; cultural identity 350–352, 354; Israeli occupation and destruction 344, 345–354, 346, 348; Nablus 9, 16, 344, 347–354, 348–350, 352–353 Palmyra, Syria: concert at 211, 222, 305; history 57–58, 61, 207–208, 219; increased knowledge of 416; as symbol of Syrian state 208, 211, 213; World Heritage site 219 Palmyra (Site of Palmyra), Syria, destruction 55–64, 100, 112, 207–213, 218, 219–222, 305, 322; American and British narrative 22, 55–56, 210, 213, 221–222; Aurelian destruction of (pre-Islam) 57–58, 208; international focus on Palmyra 9, 55–56, 219–222, 416; Islamic State narrative 22, 179, 208–210, 213, 219–222, 305; looting by 19th century collectors 59; market country discourses and perceptions of damage 22, 57–64; monuments destroyed (list and dates)

305; published images of 179, 222; removal of antiquities 61; Syrian Arab Republic and Russian narrative 22, 211–213, 222; as war crime 220–221 Panamnagar area, Bangladesh: rainfall damage 142 Papua New Guinea: volcanic eruption, New Britain 132 Paris, France: museums 314–315; Notre-Dame Cathedral 417 Parker, Cornelia 158 Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe: Combating Terrorism through Culture statement 41–42 Parthenon, Athens 60, 78 peacekeeping 86, 187, 235, 236, 237, 280–281, 285 peacetime destruction see heritage destruction during peacetime people displacement 187, 344; Bosnia and Herzegovina 49, 105–106, 282, 284; Caucasus region 335, 336–337, 338, 339; due to dam construction 150, 151; forcible removal of children 101, 102, 103–104; Indigenous people forced displacement 101, 399; Iraq 16, 189, 190, 301, 316, 319, 323–329; Palmyra 208; return of displaced peoples 49, 197, 284; Rohingya refugees 249–250, 251, 252; Syria 301, 323–329; see also cultural cleansing; ethnic cleansing; urbicide People’s Republic of China see China permafrost thaw 139 Perrott, Leslie M 377, 379 Peru: Machu Picchu 135; see also Latin America pest species range and distribution 143 petroglyphs 140; see also rock art photographic data 140, 141–142, 296, 358, 359 photography in art see film and photography Picasso, Pablo 158 Pilbara region, Western Australia 385–391 Pindell, Howardena 161 Pisa, Italy 263 place annihilation see urbicide places of worship: earthquake damage 133–134; intentional destruction 84–85, 91; interfaith shrines 318; protection in international law 4, 257–258; Wars of Yugoslav Succession destruction 279–287; world wars damage and destruction 261, 262, 263–265; see also churches; mosques; synagogues; temples Plets, Gertjan 219 ploughing damage 20, 113 plundering see looting and plundering Poland: national identity 260–261; Royal Castle of Warsaw 260–261; war damage 260–261, 264 policies see state policies

442

Index Policy Guidance for Heritage and Development Actors (2021) 420 political iconoclasm 38–39, 56–57, 168–169, 170, 314, 415 political use of heritage see heritage predation The Politics of Heritage Management in Mali ( Joy) 225 Pompeii, Italy 131, 259, 264 Ponomarenko-Leverash, Tatiana 211 Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy 263 Pope, David: cartoon 18, 19 population exchanges see people displacement post-conflict reconstruction see reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Freedberg) 159 Prasat Preah Vihear (Prasat Khao Phra Wihan), Cambodia 295–296 Prasat Ta Moan Thom (Prasat Ta Muean Thom) temple, Cambodia/Thailand 295–296 preservation discourse 59–61, 63–64, 78; see also conservation; reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites Prince Claus Fund 248 Prlić et al. case 84, 90, 286; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Wars of Yugoslav Succession progress see development activities propaganda see heritage destruction discourses; media narratives property rights 94–95; see also cultural property Prott, Lynn 245 provenance documentation 63; see also trade in cultural objects Pueblo rock art 140 Puerto Rico 144 Putin, Vladimir 211, 222, 305, 337 Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) peoples’ heritage, Australia 386–389, 391 pyroclastic flows 131, 132 Qal’at Salah El Din, Syria 301 Qus, Egypt: houses 362, 362, 363 Rabaul, Papua New Guinea 132 radical extremists see Al-Qaeda; Ansar-Dine; Islamic State; Taliban; terrorism rainfall 131–132, 135, 142, 143, 144; see also climate change impacts on heritage sites Rakowitz, Michael 165, 169–170 Rancière, Jacques 200–201 Raqs Media Collective 168–169, 170 Rauschenberg, Robert 158 ‘readymade’ concept 177–178 reconciliation 196–197, 198, 276 reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites 8, 47–49; after natural disasters 130, 133,

135, 143; in Bosnia and Herzegovina 47–48, 49, 284; church renovation/reconstruction in Egypt 366–369, 366–367; community engagement in 327–329, 351; demolition instead of repair 143; humanitarian need and 247; Iraqi and Syrian responses 16, 326–329; Palestinian responses 351; postconflict reconstruction 14, 196–204; potential destructive aftermath of 196–198; repurposing buildings 202–203, 204; temporary and digital reconstructions 49, 210; Timbuktu mausoleums 235–237; see also conservation Red Cross: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 8, 243, 280 refugees see people displacement Reims Cathedral, France 79, 261, 262, 263 religious buildings see churches; mosques; places of worship; synagogues; temples religious iconoclasm 38–39, 56–57, 60, 209–210, 213, 223–224, 225, 232, 294, 398; see also Ansar-Dine; Islamic State relocation of heritage monuments 150, 151, 152–153 remote sensing techniques 11, 113, 116, 222, 358; satellite imagery 10, 21, 22, 222, 306 Resnais, Alain 163 The Repair from Occident to Extra-Occidental Cultures (art project, 2012) 166 reparation 8, 47–50, 79–80, 96–97; Al Mahdi case 8, 49, 97, 237 Republika Srpska 280, 281, 282; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Wars of Yugoslav Succession Resetting Memories exhibition, Mexico City 8–9, 14, 178–181 resources extraction see natural resources exploitation responsibilities of states see state responsibility Responsibility to Protect international doctrine 23 restitution: artefacts 24, 77, 78, 265, 296, 297, 298; see also First Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention; human remains 404 restoration see conservation; reconstruction of damaged or destroyed sites Riedlmayer, András 2; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) right to property 107; see also human rights Rio Tinto: destruction of rockshelter sites in Juukan Gorge 18, 21, 385–391; protection of significant Aboriginal sites 386–387 risk: analysis and evaluation 119, 122; drivers 118–119, 122; factors in 118, 120–121; stakeholders 111–112, 120 risk management: ABC approach 110–111; actors and stakeholders 111–112, 120; damage

443

Index processes 115–117, 120–121; definition 112; Disaster Risk Management (DRM) cycle concept 148; geographical aspects 115; mitigation 111–112, 119, 122; motivation for damage 117–118, 120; time factors 114–115; value and loss 112–114, 118 Rist, G. 234 Rist, Pippilotti 158 Robeson, Paul 164 rock art 7, 47, 140, 143, 336, 387, 389–390 rock avalanches see landslides rockshelters, Australia 18, 21, 386–391 Roerich Pact for the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions (1935), 79 Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre, Bangladesh 250, 252 Rohingya refugees’ mental health 249–250, 251, 252 Roman Republic and Empire: cultural looting 76–77; destruction of Temple of Serapis, Alexandria 91; Flavia Neapolis (Nablus) 347; Libyan sites neglect 47; and Palmyra 57–58; Roman ships museum, Nemi, Italy 260; ruins as inspiration for critical thinking 419; sites discovered as a result of acts of destruction 417; sites submerged in dams 148, 152; sites threatened by sea level rise 141 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 40, 85, 96, 101, 117, 235, 236; see also International Criminal Court (ICC) Rosén, Frederik 24 Rosenberg, Alfred 80 Rosetta, Egypt: houses 360, 362, 364–365, 366 Rosetta Stone 77 Rotterdam, The Netherlands 264 Royal Society library, Naples 260 The Ruins of Palmyra (Wood) 61 Russia 334; cooperation between Russian and Finnish museums and universities 273; heritage destruction by Russian forces 339; independence of Eastern European countries 46; influence in Caucasus region 335, 336–337, 338, 339; Palmyra destruction narrative 22, 211–213, 222, 305; ratification of Hague Convention (1954) 40; support for Syrian regime 211, 222, 302, 305, 306, 307; war with Ukraine 40, 44, 46, 86; Winter Olympics, Sochi (2014) 337; see also Soviet Union (to 1991) Russian Persian Wars (1804–1813 and 1826–1828) 336 Rwanda: International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 101 Sabratha, Libya 141 safekeeping of cultural objects see Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954)

Salcedo, Doris 163, 169 salinity: ocean 143; soil 151 Samarra, Iraq 190, 191 San Juan de Grijalva, Mexico 135 Santa Fe National Forest, Mexico 140 Santorini, Greece 131 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 48, 48, 282, 283; National Library bombardment 2, 283, 286; see also Wars of Yugoslav Succession satellite imagery 10, 21, 22, 222, 306; see also remote sensing techniques Sauer, Eberhard 38 Scaled Down (art project, 2018) 165 Scandinavia: cultural property damage during Second World War 268–277 scholarship 1–2, 10–12, 12, 18–21, 24, 42, 175, 182 scientific collections: protection of 4, 81; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954) Scotland: flooding risk assessment 142; heritage sites revealed and lost 140; Skara Brae, Orkney Islands 140; storm surge damage to sites 141–142 sculptures: fragments re-used in artworks 165–166, 168–170 sea ice decline 139 sea level rise 141–142 Second Karabakh War 338–339 Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention 39, 40, 80, 82–83, 86, 113, 280, 287; breaches (Article 15) 82; Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Article 27) 82; conduct of occupying power (Article 9) 82; conflicts not of an international character (Article 22) 82; criminal offences (Article 16) 82; cultural property definition (“greatest importance for humanity”) (Article 10) 113; enhanced protection (Article 10, 13) 40, 82, 113; incidental damage minimisation (Article 7) 82; International Committee of the Blue Shield (Article 27) 39, 82; military necessity waiver (Article 6) 82, 117; noninterference with cultural heritage (Article 9) 82; non-state actors and non-international armed conflicts (Article 22) 82; principles of distinction, feasibility or precaution 82; state party responsibilities (Article 16) 82; see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); military necessity Second World War 15, 19, 25, 41, 132; ‘Baedeker Raids’ on English towns 260; cultural property damage 257–266; cultural property damage in Scandinavia and Baltic region 268–277; deliberate targeting of cultural

444

Index property 79–80, 260–261, 263; fascist heritage damage 202; incidental and collateral damage 261, 263–264; looting 79–80, 264–265, 270, 272; Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) 269, 274; monuments, destroyed in Ukraine 46; new heritage created 276–277, 277; Operation Barbarossa 269; rubble in artworks 166 Secunda, Piers 162 Serbia 279–280; cultural heritage destruction by Yugoslav/Serb forces 279–287; ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs 282, 284; removal of cultural objects from Croatia 280, 281; war crimes committed 84, 106 (see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)); see also Wars of Yugoslav Succession Serbian Orthodox heritage 84, 279, 280, 281, 283, 284–285 Sergatskova, K. 46–47 Serra, Richard 166 settler colonialism see colonialism Seyrig, Henri 208 Shadows of Liberty (art project, 2017) 168 Sharia see Islamic religious law (Sharia) Shibboleth (Salcedo) 163 shipworms 143 shirk (Islamic theological term) 208–209 Shoup, Daniel 147 Shrine of Prophet Ezekiel, Iraq 189–190, 191 Siberia 138–139 Sicily, Italy: Syracuse colony site looted 76–77 Sinjar, Iraq 318, 324, 325–326 Skaer, Lucy 161 Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, Scotland 140 Slovakia 135 Slovenia 281, 282 Smith, Laurajane 5, 66, 175, 186, 404 Smithers, Arthur 378 Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative 20 social media 21, 43–44, 226, 307; see also media narratives Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) see Wars of Yugoslav Succession; Yugoslavia, former soil salinity 151 Somalia 37 Sonargaon, Bangladesh: rainfall damage 142 songs see intangible heritage Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig 4, 11, 12, 17 Southern Cross Hotel, Melbourne, Australia 372, 376–380, 377, 382 Soviet Union (to 1991): annexation of Estonia 269, 274–275; failure to ratify 1907 Hague Convention 258; Finnish removal of Russian objects 273; influence in Caucasus region 335, 336–337, 338, 339; military personnel cultural looting 80, 270, 272; Molotov-Ribbentrop

Pact (1939) 269, 274; Nakhichevan enclave 338; Second World War 269–272, 274, 276; Soviet republics 58; Treaty of Moscow (1921) 338; war with Finland 269–273, 276; see also Russia Spain; colonialism 397–398, 404 (see also Latin America); national narratives 198; restoration of cultural heritage 49; Spanish Civil War 49, 79; World Heritage sites (number) 180 species distribution 143, 144 Spis Castle, Slovakia 135 Srebrenica, (former) Yugoslavia 105–106 Sri Lanka: Dutch Fort World Heritage Site 134; heritage destruction and communal violence 38; tsunami damage 134 Stari Most Bridge, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina 47–48, 48, 283; ICTY case 84, 90, 286 state policies 116 state responsibility 23–24, 40, 70, 71, 81–82, 83; state jurisdiction and human rights in wartime 96 state stability 116, 118, 119 Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues also die) (film, 1953) 163 Statue of Liberty, United States 141 statues, removal of 28, 44–46, 163–164, 273, 337 Stone, Peter G. 115, 117 Storey, Rohan 379 Strugar, Pavle 84, 285–286; see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Wars of Yugoslav Succession Sudan: Meroe 140; people displacement 151 Sufi shrines 209, 225–226, 361, 361; see also Timbuktu, Mali, heritage destruction sustainable development 413–421; see also development activities Sweden: cultural heritage damage 268, 272; cultural looting 77; cultural property protection 268; occupation by Germany 269 SX Towers, Melbourne, Australia 372, 380–382, 381 synagogues: destruction of 189, 261, 350 Syria 6, 9, 16, 219, 301–309; Aleppo (Ancient City of Aleppo) 212, 301, 303–304, 309; Ancient Villages of Northern Syria 301; Ba’athist regime 45–46, 209, 211–213, 219, 302, 305, 307, 316 (see also Al-Assad, Bashar); Bosra 301; civil war and international backers 302–304, 306–307; civilian casualties of war 212; community responses to heritage destruction 9, 16, 323–329; Crac des Chevaliers 301, 303; cultural objects trade 63, 85; dam construction impacts on heritage 152 (see also Euphrates River dams; Tigris River dams); Damascus (Ancient City of Damascus) 301; destruction and re-erection of statues

445

Index 44–46; Great Umayyad Mosque, Aleppo 303– 304; heritage destruction by Islamic State 37, 41, 55, 63, 85, 91, 100, 117, 207–213, 219–222, 301, 305–306, 306, 309, 322–323; heritage destruction impact on Syrians 309; heritage destruction post-Islamic state 306–308, 308, 309; heritage destruction pre-Islamic State 21, 57–58, 208, 302–304, 304, 309; looting 37, 63, 85, 117, 305–306; natural disasters 309; Palmyra see Palmyra, Syria; peacetime damage 116; Qal’at Salah El Din 301; signatory to Hague Convention (1954) 303; symbols of Syrian state (Palmyra and Zenobia) 208, 211, 213; UN Security Council Resolutions 85; World Heritage sites damage 301, 305 (see also Palmyra, Syria, destruction); see also Islamic State destruction in Syria and Iraq Syrian Golan Heights 26, 307–308 Syrian Network for Human Rights 212 Ta Moan Thom (Prasat Ta Muean Thom) temple, Cambodia/Thailand 295–296 Taj Mahal, India 191 Taliban; cultural heritage destruction see Bamiyan Buddhas, Afghanistan, destruction; cultural heritage used as weapon of war 226–227; regime 223–224; sanctions against 223, 224; trade in cultural objects 224; see also Afghanistan Taormina, Italy 135 Tartu, Estonia 274; see also Estonia technology 20, 22, 154 temperature change see climate change impacts on heritage sites; wildfires (bushfires) temples: in Cambodia 20, 58, 289–298; in Palmyra 55, 61, 208, 220, 222, 305 (see also Palmyra, Syria, destruction); Temple of Serapis, Alexandria, Egypt 91; in Thailand/ Cambodia 295–296 Tempus IV programme 357, 358 terrorism 6, 21, 40–42, 62–63; ‘cultural cleansing’ framed as terrorist strategy 8, 15, 230–238, 301; funding from cultural objects trade 37, 55, 63, 85; linked to heritage destruction 63; no responsibility to adhere to international conventions 40; socially mediated 43–44; see also Al-Qaeda; AnsarDine; Islamic State; Taliban Thailand: Angkorian monuments 295–296; conflict with Cambodia 295–296; flood damage 142; Prasat Ta Moan Thom temple, Cambodia/Thailand 295–296; restitution of Thai artefacts abroad 296; signatory to Hague Convention (1954) 296, 298 Theodosius, Roman Emperor 91 Thiele, Leslie 421 Thirty Years’ War 77 Three Gorges dam, China 153, 154; number of sites submerged 147

Tibet 58, 103 Tigris River dams 148, 149, 149, 150, 153; archaeological sites submerged 147, 152 Timbuktu, Mali, heritage destruction 86, 100, 224–226, 230–238; Ahmed Baba Institute 226; community response to ICC intervention 8; ICC case 8, 49, 85, 97, 106, 225–226, 233, 236–237; interpretations of 231–234; mausoleums’ reconstruction 235–237; reparation 8, 49, 97, 237; Timbuktu listing as World Heritage site 225; Tomb of Sidi Mahmoud 225; UNESCO intervention and framing 8, 15, 225–226, 230–238; UNSCR response 86, 226 time horizon in risk management 114–115 Tlass, Mustafa 208 Tōmatsu, Shōmei 162 Tomb of Askia, Mali 225 Tomb of Sidi Mahmoud, Mali 225 tornadoes 142, 143 tourism: agent of destruction 68; heritage tourism 49, 92, 129, 132, 180, 181, 223; sites that have lost materiality 49, 416, 418 towns and cities see urban development; urbicide trade in cultural objects 59–60, 63, 166; Cambodian artefacts 289–298; Iraqi artefacts 63, 85, 197, 316, 317; provenance documentation 63; Syrian artefacts 63, 85; Thai artefacts 296; see also art market; illicit trafficking traditional knowledge see intangible heritage transnational corporations 70, 391; see also Rio Tinto trauma see cultural cleansing; cultural genocide; ethnic cleansing; genocide; loss of heritage; war crimes; well-being Treaty of Westphalia (1648) 77 Tresoldi, Edoardo 49 Trindade, Cançado 89–90 Trippe, Charles 378 Trouxas Ensanguentadas (Bloody Bundles or Situationes) (Barrio) 163 Trust Fund for Victims 49, 97 tsunamis 134, 135 Tuđman, Franjo 286 Tupajić, Milan 282 Turkey 153, 302, 334, 335; dam construction impacts on heritage 148, 149–150, 152, 153; economic development and GAP project 149–150; Euphrates River 149–150, 152; Hagia Sofia, Istanbul 38, 186; Hasankeyf 148, 153; Mausoleum of Halikarnassos 416; military operations in northern Syria 307; people displacement 150; Treaty of Moscow (1921) 338 Turku, Finland 270, 272 Turnbull, Clive 375

446

Index Ukraine 44, 46–47; erasure of Russian identifiers 46; heritage destruction 40, 86; ratification of Hague Convention and Second Protocol 40; Russia-Ukraine conflicts 40, 44, 46, 86 Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia 395, 400 UN see United Nations Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention (2011) see Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2011) UNDRIP see United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) UNESCO 226, 227, 280; assistance to Cambodia 292–293, 296–297; campaign to save Bamiyan Buddhas 223–224; concept of heritage 401–403; on ‘cultural cleansing’ as terrorist group strategy 8, 15, 230–238, 301; on destruction of Palmyra 220–221, 222; on heritage destruction as war crime 8, 234; on heritage destruction in Mali 8, 15, 225–226, 230–238; on importance of heritage protection 248; Intangible Cultural Heritage list 4; nature of Declarations 74, 83; perceptions of 232–233; repositioning as operational actor 15, 230, 231, 234–238; rescue of endangered heritage in Nubia 151; “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” project 327; role and responsibility 24, 27–28, 231, 237–238; World Heritage sites see World Heritage sites; see also Boccardi, Giovanni; Bokova, Irina UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage (2003) 39, 65–66, 69–74, 83, 92, 106; criminal responsibility (Article 7) 71; “heritage” interpretation 70; intentional destruction avoidance or prevention (Article 3) 70; intentional destruction definition (Article II.2) 92; international human rights law application (Article 9) 71; peacetime activities (Article 4) 70; Preamble 90; scope 70, 71; state responsibility (Article 4, 6) 70, 71; threshold of international importance 70; UN Special Rapporteur remarks on 72–73 UNESCO Declarations, nature of 74, 83 UNESCO General Conference 68, 402 UNESCO treaties see Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972); Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954); Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003); Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970); Convention on the Protection and

Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005); Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage (2011) UNESCO World Heritage Committee see World Heritage Committee UNESCO World Heritage sites see World Heritage sites UNFICYP see United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) UNGA see United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) UNHCR see United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) 231, 244 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) see Soviet Union (to 1991) United Kingdom: Bristol 28; British heritage and planning regulation 7; British Library 265; British Museum 77–78, 317; coastal erosion 141–142; Durham Castle and Cathedral 25, 26; heritage sites in Scotland 140, 141–142; House of Commons 37, 60; Monuments at Risk survey 114, 116; Skara Brae, Orkney Islands 140; war damage 260, 264; see also British news media United Nations: cluster system for humanitarian assistance 243, 244; Declarations see United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP); peacekeeping 86, 235, 236, 237, 280–281, 285; system based on functionalist division of tasks 231, 237–238 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 231, 244 United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 93 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 95, 101, 103, 106, 384–385, 390 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization see UNESCO United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) 198, 199 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 90, 219, 224, 226, 227, 243; humanitarian principles 246–248; see also Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention, 1948) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 244, 280 United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) 90, 94, 96 United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) 86, 236, 237 United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 20

447

Index United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Program (UNOSAT) 222 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 219, 226, 227, 237, 247; on cultural heritage destruction 235, 236; denies inventory of Iraq war damage 23, 315; embargos 223; force deployed to Mali 226; on heritage destruction 221, 222; war crimes tribunals see International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Nuremberg International Military Tribunal United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) 39, 85–86, 112, 221, 226, 236, 237, 303, 307, 316 United Nations Special Rapporteur in the Field of Cultural Rights 72–73, 92, 235 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 25, 413, 415, 420–421 United States: archaeological sites submerged 147; Bandelier National Monument 143; bombing of Japan 264; heritage damage from human reaction to disasters 143; heritage erasure 44, 45; hurricane and tidal surge damage 141, 142; Lieber Code 78–79; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 61, 153, 223, 296; Pueblo rock art fire damage 140; shell middens, Maine 140; Statue of Liberty 141; and UNDRIP 103; see also American news media United States National Park Service 129 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 72, 93, 102; see also International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) 402 “universal heritage” concept 8–9, 22, 113, 210, 211, 213, 221, 233, 259, 316, 347, 395, 398, 401; see also value of cultural heritage; World Heritage sites universality of jurisdiction principle 81, 97 University of Fine Arts, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 292 UNSC see United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Ur, Iraq 315 urban development 111; Baghdad, Iraq 319; in Egypt 358, 360–366; Melbourne, Australia 372–382 urbicide 16, 343–354 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) see Soviet Union (to 1991) value of cultural heritage 413; assessment and risk management 112–114; destruction targets 22, 24; great importance 4, 67, 81, 113, 245–246, 247, 250, 285 (see also Convention

for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954)); greatest importance for humanity 113 (see also Second Protocol (1999) to the 1954 Hague Convention); marketable value 59, 181 (see also trade in cultural objects); outstanding universal value 67, 113, 189, 220, 347, 401 (see also Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972)); preservation discourse 59–61, 63–64, 414–415; societal assets 129, 384–385; “universal heritage” concept 8–9, 22, 113, 210, 211, 213, 221, 233, 259, 316, 347, 395, 398, 401; valorisation and risk of targeting 8, 15, 22–23, 24, 27, 218–227; very great importance 113, 298 (see also Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention 1954)); see also cultural heritage; cultural property; heritage protection; intangible heritage; loss of heritage; World Heritage sites vandalism 6, 39, 115; definitions 6, 116; discourse 62–64; human traces over time 416 Vatican collections 77 Vattel, Emmerich de 77 Venice, Italy: Cathedral of St Mark (San Marco) 77, 264; floods 142; Scalzi church (Santa Maria di Nazareth) 263; war damage 263–264 Verres, Gaius 76 Vesuvius eruptions 131–132 Viejo-Rose, Dacia 4, 11, 12, 17, 115 Viipuri, Finland 270–272, 273; museum 270, 271, 272 Vō, Danh 166 volcanoes 130–132, 135 Vukovar, Croatia 281, 286 Walasek, Helen 9, 49 Walther, O. 232 Wang Family Ancestral Hall (art project, 2015) 178–179, 181 war: aerial bombardment 19, 162, 257–266, 268, 269; benefit to progress and social sustainability 418; changing nature of 41–42; civilian casualties 90–91, 212, 257–258, 260, 263–264, 273, 296, 314, 315; just war 13, 77; scorched earth policies 268, 273–275; “small wars” 40, 41; technology 257–258, 261, 263–264, 266–267; urban warfare 343–354; see also Cambodia: civil war; Chechen wars; First Kharabakh War; First World War; Gulf Wars; heritage destruction during conflict; Iraq; law of armed conflict; military occupation; Napoleonic Wars; Russian Persian Wars (1804–1813 and 1826–1828); Russia-Ukraine conflicts; Second Karabakh War; Second

448

Index World War; Syria; Thirty Years’ War; Wars of Yugoslav Succession war crimes 80, 97; in Democratic Republic of the Congo 85; in former Yugoslavia 49, 84, 105–106, 280, 282, 285–286; ICTY case law 104–106, 285–286; intentional destruction as war crime 8, 40, 73, 84, 85, 117, 234, 235, 236; in Mali 8, 49, 85, 96–97, 106, 237 (see also Al Mahdi, Ahmad Al Faqi); Palmyra destruction as war crime 220–221 (see also Palmyra, Syria, destruction); plunder of public and private property as war crime 80; reparation 8, 49, 96–97, 237; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court 8, 40, 85, 96, 101, 117, 235, 236; see also cultural cleansing; ethnic cleansing; Geneva Conventions (1949); genocide; International Criminal Court (ICC); International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Warhol, Andy 177 Wars of Yugoslav Succession 15, 41, 80, 84–85, 91, 279–287; Dayton Peace Agreement (1995) 197–198, 281, 284, 287; Dubrovnik bombardment 84, 281, 285; ethnic cleansing 49, 105–106, 230, 279–280, 282, 284, 344; international monitoring groups 280–281; outcomes 281; Stari Most Bridge destruction 47–48, 48, 84, 90, 283, 286; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Kosovo; Serbia Warsaw, Poland: Royal Castle 260–261 Washington, George 168 Washington Pact for the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and of Historic Monuments (1935) (Roerich Pact) 79 We Are Bristol History Commission 28 weather see extreme weather events Weaver, David 416 Weber, Max 418 Weizman, Eyal 164, 345 well-being: of crisis-affected people 243, 248–249; heritage loss impact on people and communities 9, 23, 150, 151, 313–319, 323–329; mental health impact of heritage destruction 249–252 Welton Becket and Associates 377 Wentworth Hotel, Melbourne, Australia 379 Western Australia: Aboriginal heritage site destruction 6, 7, 17, 18, 47, 385–391; Aboriginal rockshelters 18, 21, 386–391 Western colonialism see colonialism Western media: coverage of Bamiyan Buddhas destruction 223–224; Palmyra destruction narrative 22, 55–56, 210, 213, 221–222; see also media narratives; social media

What Dust Will Rise? (art project, 2012) 166, 169–170 What Remains exhibition (2019) 162 Whitman, Jim 237 Whitmarsh, Tim 210 Wieseltier, Leon 210 wildfires (bushfires) 135, 140, 143 wind damage to heritage sites 142 Winter Olympics, Sochi (2014) 337 Wolfe, Patrick 103 Wood, Robert 61 World Bank 153 World Commission on Dams 153; see also dam construction World Heritage Centre 401, 402 World Heritage Committee 25, 68, 112, 225, 234, 401, 402 World Heritage Convention (1972) see Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention 1972) World Heritage in Danger List 42, 67–68, 220, 225 World Heritage Site List: coverage 65, 402; criteria 68, 69, 401–402; establishment 401; List of World Heritage in Danger see World Heritage in Danger List; sites see World Heritage sites; Tentative List see World Heritage Tentative List World Heritage sites: in Caucasus region 336; climate change threats 140, 144; local versus international perceptions 8–9; natural disaster damage 133, 134, 135; numbers of 180; as targets during conflict 8, 226, 230–234; see also Acropolis, Athens; Aleppo (Ancient City of Aleppo), Syria; Ancient Villages of Northern Syria; Angkor Wat, Cambodia; Assur (Ashur (Qal’at Sherqat), Iraq; Ayutthaya (Historic City of Ayutthaya), Thailand; Babylon, Iraq; Bagan, Myanmar; Bagrati Cathedral, Georgia; Bamiyan Valley World Heritage cultural landscape (Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley), Afghanistan; Bethlehem (Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route), Palestine; Bosra (Ancient City of Bosra), Syria; Chinguetti Mosque, Mauritania (Ancient Ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata); Crac des Chevaliers, Syria; Cyrenaica, Libya (Archaeological Site of Cyrene); Damascus (Ancient City of Damascus), Syria; Danevirke (Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke), Denmark; Djenné (Old Town of Djenné), Mali; Dubrovnik (Old City of Dubrovnik), Croatia; Durham Castle and Cathedral, United Kingdom; Dutch Fort

449

Index World Heritage Site (Old Town of Galle and its Fortifications), Sri Lanka; Egypt (Nubian Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae); Erbil Citadel, Iraq; Florence (Historic Centre of Florence), Italy; Gelati Monastery, Georgia (see Bagrati Cathedral, Georgia); Hagia Sofia, Istanbul (Historic Areas of Istanbul), Turkey; Hatra, Iraq; Hebron, Palestine; Herculaneum, Italy (Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata); Jerusalem (Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls), Israel; Kakadu National Park, Australia; Kathmandu Valley, Nepal; Lascaux caves (Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley), France; Machu Picchu (Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu), Peru; Meroe, Sudan (Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe); Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris (Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Former Abbey of Saint-Rémi and Palace of Tau, Reims); Palmyra (Site of Palmyra), Syria; Pompeii, Italy (Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata); Prasat Preah Vihear (Prasat Khao Phra Wihan) (Temple of Preah Vihear), Cambodia; Qal’at Salah El Din, Syria; Sabratha, Libya (Archaeological Site of Sabratha); Samarra (Samarra Archaeological City), Iraq; Skara Brae, Orkney Islands (Heart of Neolithic

450

Orkney), Scotland; Statue of Liberty, United States; Taj Mahal, India; Timbuktu, Tomb of Askia, Mali; Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia World Heritage Tentative List 21, 133 World Monuments Fund 116 World War I see First World War World War II see Second World War Wright, Lawrence 210 Wright, William 59 Yan, Holly 210 Yangtze River dams submersion of archaeological sites 147, 153, 154 Yemen 187, 234, 301, 357 Yezidi heritage 9, 29, 188, 301, 318, 322, 324–329 Yugoslavia, former 41, 58; signatory to Hague Convention (1954) and World Heritage Convention 280; Srebrenica 105–106; Wars of Yugoslav Succession 15, 41, 279–287; see also Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); Kosovo; Serbia Zelenskyy, Volodymyr 40 Zenobia (ruler of Palmyra) 57, 207–208