07 April 2016
Give the Past a Future
Is it safe from the present?
by Neil Tidmarsh
In various parts of the world, the past is waiting apprehensively for the future, with one wary eye on the present. One wary eye? No – both eyes wide open with fear and anxiety.
The monumental Roman ruins of Leptis Magna in Libya are among the finest in the world. Founded by the Phoenicians in the fifth century BC, the ancient city is two and a half thousand years old. Septimus Severus was born there seven centuries later, and once he became Emperor he made sure its buildings matched the glory of Alexandria, Athens and Rome. Its magnificent temples, forum, basilica and theatre remain a marvel today. But for how long? Isis-held territory is less than half a day’s drive away (Isis has already struck at the nearby town of Zliten, where a massive truck-bomb killed sixty police officers last January). And this spectacular site is guarded only by a handful of volunteers armed with obsolete rifles, who are bravely and resolutely awaiting Isis’ inevitable arrival.
Isis’ deliberate and vindictive acts of vandalism in Palmyra in Syria suggest that Leptis Magna could well be on their list of targets, particularly after this week when they were driven from Palmyra with, thankfully, their work of destruction unfinished. The recapture of Palmyra by Assad regime forces, however, does not mean that this Unesco world heritage site is safe at last. The ‘Pearl of the Desert’ had been looted and pillaged for four years even before Isis arrived last summer – by the regime army which now occupies it once again, according to the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology. As well as plundering the ruins for valuable artefacts, the army apparently bulldozed tunnels, trenches and roads through the site. Now they will be using it as a military base to launch further attacks against Isis. And Isis has left the whole area littered with mines and booby traps.
Last week, professors of classical archaeology from around the world wrote to The Times, urging the authorities in Italy to resume excavations at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculanium. Previous excavations have recovered the charred remains of hundreds of papyrus scrolls from one area of the villa’s vast library. Modern technology is enabling experts to read them. They appear to be works of Greek philosophy. It’s believed that many others remain to be discovered; moreover, these discoveries seem to suggest that the unexcavated parts of the library are likely to be devoted to literature and to works in Latin. We know that only a small fraction of the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides have survived to modern times; could unknown ones be waiting down there for us to rediscover? Could lost volumes of history covering the Claudian invasion of Britain in AD43 be hiding down there? The prospect is mind-blowing. And yet they could still be lost to us; those experts were writing to The Times to warn that such treasures could be destroyed at any time by water damage or by another eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Whatever their fate, and whatever the fate of Leptis Magna and Palmyra, it is already too late for the 1,600 year old monastery of St Elian in al-Qaryatain in Syria. Last August, Isis released a video of their bulldozers demolishing this, one of the oldest monasteries and pilgrim sites in the world; this week regime forces drove Isis from the town and journalists confirmed that the site is now no more than ‘a pile of rocks’. It’s already too late for Palmyra’s first century Temple of Bel, second century Temple of Baal Shamin, third century Arch of Triumph, plundered museum, Tower of Elahbel and ten other funerary towers in the valley of the Tombs. And it’s too late for the nine tombs, one ancient mosque and thousands of ancient manuscripts wantonly destroyed by the extremist group Ansar Eddine, linked to al-Qaeda, when they occupied the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali, a Unesco world heritage site, for ten months in 2012.
But there are grounds for hope, nevertheless. The International Criminal Court at the Hague is prosecuting a jihadist, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, for ordering and taking part in the destruction at Timbuktu. He is the first person to be brought to justice for the destruction of cultural monuments, a type of war crime, and has apparently admitted his guilt. The case should send a powerful message to others like him around the world.
And the Institute of Digital Archaeology, a joint venture between Harvard University, the University of Oxford and Dubai’s Museum of the Future, has embarked on an ambitious project to digitally record as many monuments and ancient sites at risk around the world as possible; to record them so accurately and completely that exact reproductions could be made of them if they were destroyed. To this end it has distributed 3D cameras to volunteers around the Middle East and Africa to record at-risk cultural sites. “Our aim is to highlight the potential for the triumph of human ingenuity over violence by offering innovative, technology-driven options for the stewardship of objects and architecture from our shared past” its website declares. It quotes the managing director of Dubai’s Museum of the Future, His Excellency Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi; “By using digital techniques to map and preserve monuments and other aspects of shared human history, we are able to ensure that nobody can deny history or dictate that their narrative and ideology stands above the shared history of all humanity and our shared aspiration to live together in harmony”.
On 19 April, during World Heritage Week, Palmyra’s lost Triumphal Arch will be recreated in London’s Trafalgar Square, thanks to the Institute of Digital Archaeology.
As we stand under what is sure to be a breathtakingly accurate and magnificent copy of an otherwise perished part of Palmyra’s ancient wonders, we might like to consider how lucky we are to have the whole world’s museum (misleadingly called the British Museum) only a stone’s throw away in Bloomsbury. We might also like to consider the dangers threatening the future of even that museum’s treasures. State funding covers only a minute fraction of its costs; it is almost entirely dependent on voluntary donations and sponsorship. This week, a group of actors, fashion designers and other such experts in heritage and science matters demanded that the museum stop receiving sponsorship from BP, claiming that funding from such a source is morally and ethically unacceptable. Does BP deal in arms? No. Does it deal in drugs? No. What does it deal in, then? It deals in oil, that invaluable and necessary commodity on which we all depend for energy.
We might also like to consider the dangers threatening the mortal remains of William Shakespeare, that giant of world culture. His grave carries the verse “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear,/ To dig the dust enclosed here./ Blessed be the man that spares these bones,/ And cursed be he that moves my bones.” However, that wasn’t enough to deter a nineteenth century grave-robber from stealing his skull, if an old rumour and a recent scan of his grave (which last month revealed that it does indeed show signs of having been disturbed) are to be believed. And now, to add to the indignity, there are calls for the grave to be desecrated yet again to confirm once and for all whether or not poor William has lost his head. Thank goodness he has, in his own poetic work and our appreciation of it, “built himself a live-long monument” (as Milton reminds us) which far surpasses the pomp and glory of any grave.
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