Over the last few months the archaeological world has been subjected to the horror of the deliberate destruction of ancient artifacts and even cities by the ISIS terrorist group. However, it may not be all about the destruction, as Catherine Brahic reports in NewScientist (14 March 2015), “Can we save history from ISIS vandals?” (paywall):
THE Islamic State’s latest propaganda video shows fighters smashing statues and artefacts that are thousands of years old in the Mosul Museum, Iraq. The destruction is shocking, but maybe it is not random.
Archaeologist Katharyn Hanson of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has examined the video and points out that valuable objects are missing. She says that despite what the IS fighters say, they are not destroying everything.
The missing objects will likely be sold for a healthy profit on the black market, using international crime networks. Just how much money ISIS generates for its military campaign from looted art is still debated. Some believe the sale of ancient art is a key revenue stream for the terrorist group. Others, including Hanson, argue that ISIS makes far more money from oil stolen from pipelines and ransoms paid for hostages. Either way, treasures are being lost forever.
Nor is looting confined to ISIS:
“Looting is happening everywhere and anyone with a shovel is doing it,” says Michael Danti, an archaeologist at the University of Boston. “All the jihadi groups are doing it, factions within the Syrian regime are doing it, and there are stories of factions within the Syrian opposition doing it. It’s very tempting, and lucrative. Some people are trying to feed their families, others are buying weapons.”
It’s hard not to feel sympathy for the archaeologists, but if this is how you feed a family, it’s even easier to empathize with the desperate citizens of Syria – and far more understandable than the ISIS destruction, which appears to be more about entrenching power and destroying a mythos at odds with their own ambitions.
The Penn Cultural Heritage Center is leading an effort to preserve Syrian archaeological treasures here.
