Palmyra’s Temple of Bel was destroyed by ISIL this week, the United Nations has confirmed. Thousands of years of history, destroyed in seconds.
It is a huge blow to the world’s heritage and raises questions about if, and when, Syria and Iraq’s heritage sites are recovered, what can be salvaged?
In his book, The Reconstruction of Ruins: Principles and Practice, archaeologist Nicholas Stanley-Price calls reconstruction "one of the most controversial issues for those with an interest in the material evidence of the past".
“The urge to make whole again a valued building or work of art that is incomplete is a very strong one, similar in some ways to the urge to improve or correct someone else’s text,” Mr Stanley-Price writes.
“Both involve a strong desire to see an object that is complete and integral to one’s own satisfaction, rather than tolerate a creative work that has been diminished in its intelligibility.”
The idea that an object may have greater value in its incomplete state than if it is rebuilt runs counter to this compulsion, he argues.
This is shown by the Genbaku Dome – the Hiroshima Peace Memorial – which was the only building left standing at the epicentre of the atom bomb dropped above Hiroshima 70 years ago last month.
In 1966, the decision was made to preserve it in its exact state immediately after the detonation, and three conservation projects have since reinforced the structure with steel and synthetic resin.
Unesco describes the World Heritage site as a “stark and powerful symbol of the most destructive force ever created by humankind” and an expression of hope “for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons”.
Many charters have tried to lay down an international standard for reconstruction. In 1972, Unesco’s World Heritage Convention established that the reconstruction of archaeological remains or historic buildings or districts is only justiciable in “exceptional circumstances”. As a convention, this is legally binding for all member states.
But the 1964 Charter of Venice, a model of suggested best-practice, advises that all reconstruction work be ruled out apart from anastylosis – reassembling existing but dismembered parts.
One notable exception to this rule is Warsaw, which saw more than 85 per cent of its historic centre deliberately destroyed by Nazi troops, during the uprising of August 1944.
The Old Town, built in the 13th century, was rebuilt over six years, resulting in the rebirth of what Unesco calls a “symbol of elective authority and tolerance”.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos), a conservation organisation, concluded that the reconstruction was “identical with the original”.
The more recent Burra Charter of Australia Icomos, revised in 1999, offers more leniency, defining reconstruction as “returning a place to a known earlier state” and distinguished from restoration by the introduction of new material.
It recommends reconstruction only be where a place is incomplete through damage or alteration, and enough evidence exists to reproduce an wearlier state of the fabric.
“In rare cases, reconstruction may also be appropriate as part of a use or practice that retains the cultural significance of the place,” it states.
The Icomos Krakow Charter of 2000 elaborates: “Reconstruction of an entire building, destroyed by armed conflict or natural disaster, is only acceptable if there are exceptional social or cultural motives that are related to the identity of the entire community.”
The 16th-century Mostar bridge, designed by Ottoman architect Mimar Hajruddin and deliberately blown up by Croat forces during the Bosnian war, and its surrounds were rebuilt in 2004, with the help of an international committee established by Unesco.
Unesco said its reconstruction symbolised: “reconciliation, international cooperation and the coexistence of diverse cultural, ethnic and religious communities”.
Despite some consensus on restoration and reconstruction, there is clearly room for interpretation. In 2001, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered the destruction of “all non-Islamic statues and tombs considered offensive to Islam”.
Soon afterwards, the 1,500-year-old Buddhas at Bamiyan, which stood 58 and 38 metres tall, were battered with anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank mines and dynamite.
When the Taliban regime fell at the end of the year, a Unesco team visited the site to assess the damage, and protect the remaining blocks against the harsh winter.
They discovered cracks in the rock cliffs surrounding the niches where the statues stood. More than 80 per cent of the mural paintings in the caves, from the 6th and 8th centuries, were also lost to negligence and looting.
Although Unesco encouraged archaeologists to reinforce the cracked areas, in 2011, it said that any attempt to rebuild the statues would violate the terms of the 1964 Venice Charter.
Unesco has repeatedly emphasised that replacing the destroyed parts would damage the statues’ integrity, compromise their history and threaten their World Heritage status. And there was more meaning, it concluded, in preserving the damaged remains.
But two years later, a German team of Icomos archaeologists, led by the former head of the organisation, started rebuilding the feet and legs of the smaller statue. The team had originally been given the job of building a platform to protect visitors from falling rocks.
Michael Petzet, team leader, admitted the reconstruction was done without Unesco approval, but with the knowledge of Afghan authorities.
The Afghanis denied this and put a stop to it.
Francesco Bandarin, Unesco’s assistant director general for culture, was said to have called the expedition “wrong on every level”.
The statues were recreated for two days this summer using 3-D projection.
When explosions were first reported at the Temple of Bel, Syria’s head of antiquities and museums hoped most of the structure had survive. Unfortunately, as the UN revealed in a satellite image, nothing remained of the main temple. ISIL had previously murdered Khaled Asaad, an 81-year-old archaeologist who had cared for Palmyra for four decades.
Dr Ingrid Perisse-Valero, head of the archaeology and history of art department at Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, worked at Palmyra between 2001 and 2004.
“It was a wonderful experience because it is an amazing, wonderful, beautiful site, with very welcoming, friendly people. I knew Mr Khalid Al Assad, of course, and he was someone who was respected and appreciated by everyone,” Dr Perisse-Valero says.
These are “very sad, dark days” for the archaeological community, “because we think about the people there and we don’t know what happened to them.
“We don’t have any news from them; we don’t know what happened. I can’t make a call or ask, I just hear some news from my friends in the antiquities in Damascus.”
Palmyra was the most important caravan stop linking India, the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean during the Roman period.
“Even before the 2nd millennium BC, meaning 4,000 years ago, it was a caravan stop in the desert,” she says.
“Until this awful destruction”, Palmyra’s temples, shrines and unique architecture were “in a very wonderful state of preservation, with no parallel”.
The Temple of Bel was built to pagan gods in the first century. “At the end of antiquity it was transformed into a church and after that a mosque.”
When archaeologists arrived to the site at the start of the 20th century, the temple sat inside a 4-hectare courtyard, along with the settlement of Tadmor, Palmyra’s old name. When they excavated, the village was moved to a nearby site.
“To date, it is,” she pauses, “I mean, it was – it’s so awful to say ‘it was’ – one of the most important archaeological sites, because it was so well preserved and could have provided a lot of information about life 2,000 years ago.
“I think they destroyed it because it was a wonderful, beautiful monument and it is the identity of Syria; it is the identify of Palmyra, and they know that they kill the heart of the Syrian people doing this.
“All over the world, and especially in western countries, when you think about Syria, you think about Palmyra.”
Dr Perisse-Valero, who has worked in the Middle East for almost two decades, says the satellite images are shocking. “From what I can see on my screen the Temple of Baalshamin is completely erased, and the Temple of Bel has disappeared.”
Unfortunately, due to the excessively violent manner of demolition, she is pessimistic about hopes of future reconstruction.
But she concedes that archaeologists decide case by case, and will only know what can be salvaged after architects, archaeologists and curators visit the site.
Some researchers in Europe, and particularly in France, she says, are working on 3D models of heritage sites, “not to save the monuments, because it’s too late, but to save the memory”. This may be the future of monuments such as the Temple of Bel.
“If you look at what was done in Baniyan, they didn’t restore it because it was impossible, it was sprayed to dust. So,they decided not to restore something new, or something fake, but to make a 3D model, and they projected a hologram at an event.”
The Temple of Bel is just the latest in a long line of heritage sites destroyed or severely damaged by ISIL, including the ancient city of Nimrud in Iraq, the Assyrian capital of Khorsabad, the Mosul museum, thousands of rare books and manuscripts from Mosul Library, Jonah’s tomb, Hatra, Bosra, the Great Mosque of Aleppo and the crusader castle, Crac des Chevaliers.
One of the unfortunate consequences is an exodus of young Syrian archaeologists.
“There is a new generation of Syrian archaeologists and now they can’t work,” Dr Perisse-Valero says. “Many of them now are in Paris, because French universities, as centres of research, are offering them a place to continue their work.”
Although some have stayed in Damascus, the first priority is to save their and their families’ lives, she says.
“These archaeologists are Christians, Muslims, all working from different religions. But that is not the point. The point is heritage. The point is archaeology, history and roots.”
halbustani@thenational.ae
