Section 8.2 - The Risk of the Destruction of Cultural Heritage - (min. 19:10)

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En provenance du cours de Sapienza University of Rome

Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage

116 notes

Sapienza University of Rome

Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage

116 notes

Archaeology is, among human sciences, the discipline with the strongest importance for the rediscovery, but also for the preservation and protection of cultural heritage, as Humankind’s universal patrimony. You will be introduced to the way we ourselves reflect on and are engaged with the study of human past: from the practical and material recovery of ancient traces in the field to the study and interpretation. On the other hand, the discovery of human past implies the correct conservation and presentation for both experts and general public: the study and protection of the past we share every day prevent from any possible destruction, misuse, abuse and thus cancellation of human memory. “Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage” presents to a large public Archaeology as a historical discipline: through an inter-disciplinary perspective you will follow the evolution and change of archaeology to the moment when natural sciences contributed to make the historical reconstructions scientifically sound; the aid of informatics and of virtual reconstructions gives new fascination to the already strong suggestion of Archaeology, as the discipline of discovery par excellence. Within this frame, Ebla, which is the glory of the Sapienza school of Oriental archaeology, will have an exemplary meaning in the course development as a long lasting experience on the field and an excellent example of the scientific results of combined researches and disciplines. Moreover, the course will focus on actual, innovative instruments to preserve, monitor and give value to cultural heritage through a multidisciplinary approach, based on a deep archaeological and historical knowledge but also on ICT technologies. The wide adoption of ICT technologies in our daily life is also impacting in the way in which we interact with our cultural heritage in particular in terms of preservation and dissemination of cultural objects. In this course you will learn the basic techniques to digitize cultural objects and obtain 3D digital copies of a physical objects such as statues, vases or archaeological sites. We will also discuss how to structure the raw data in order to facilitate and make effective the access to digital contents. In particular, we will present the European Data Model, a framework for collecting, connecting and enriching data on cultural objects provided by a number of museum, archives, sites and libraries in Europe.

À partir de la leçon

Week 8 - Digitizing Cultural Objects and 3D virtual reconstruction

This module deals with some basic issues and principles. All heritages are “equal among them”. Heritages are a property of humankind and not of the single countries. Heritages need to be protected and preserved in their context. But many threats are posed to heritages: illegal digging is a serious risk, as well as actions due to hatred for the “other” and his heritage. As a consequence of what stated above, damages to heritage are a crime against all humankind. International Organizations are engaged in protecting the heritage, the future of which represents a contribution to dialogue and peace. Homework available since

Section 8.1 - Cultural Heritage Assets - (min. 17:56)17:56

Section 8.2 - The Risk of the Destruction of Cultural Heritage - (min. 19:10)19:10

Section 8.3 - The Future of Cultural Heritage - (min. 13:47)13:47

Rencontrer les enseignants

Paolo Matthiae
Emeritus Professor of Archaeology
Dipartimento delle Scienze dell'Antichità
Davide Nadali
PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology
Andrea Vitaletti
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Computer Science
Emanuel Demetrescu
PhD candidate

As we saw in the last lesson,

the works, monuments and sites recovered to knowledge by archaeology,

are a universal patrimony of Humankind.

For a number of years after 1945,

the terrible experience of the extremely severe damage

made to the universal cultural heritage during the Second World War, and

the strong impact of the declaration of UNESCO principles led to believe,

that deliberate damages to this patrimony had been stopped completely.

In simple words, the men of culture and

the politicians all over the world believed that no one was able to

witness brutal destructions like those, of Coventry, Dresden,

Montecassino, which with many more, during the Second World War and

certainly in different ways led to very severe losses

in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy.

At the same time they believed that the formulation of an ethic code, for

which many of the most important museums in the world engage themselves, following

precise indications by UNESCO, not to buy archaeological artifacts of probable

illicit provenance would certainly limit the problem of

illicit diggings, albeit it might not stop this horrible practice.

Indeed, these two very serious phenomena of depletion

of the universal cultural heritage - illicit digging,

which cancel the finding contexts of ancient works,

and intentional destructions of artistic and

architectural artifacts of the past- didn't disappear, against all expectation,

and even in some very important region of the planet

intensified beyond any possible expectation.

The reasons for these two phenomena are, as regards illicit diggings,

mainly of an economic nature and, as concerns

intentional destruction, mainly of ideological and political nature.

Even UNESCO, notwithstanding the repeated, and continuous attempts to contrast,

though sometimes quite late, cannot phase them.

Illicit digging which is one of the greatest barbarity of our times as

concerns cultural heritage, nourish the international trade in archaeological and

artistic artifacts coming from regions of the five continents.

In this trade economic interests are very high,

forgeries about the origin of the objects trade are very frequent,

and the attempts at blocking the trade of artifacts of

illicit provenance are always very difficult.

We must repeat that the extreme seriousness of illicit digging

depends on the fact that with this illicit activity the finding context

of ancient artifacts is completely destroyed, with a series of related damages.

In the first place, the value, and meaning of the artifacts brought to light

during an illicit digging, void of their original context, are seriously diminished,

because the finding context of ancient artifacts is precisely

what allows to reconstruct the history of those same artifacts.

In the second place, the research modes of illicit diggings,

which are similar to a treasure hunting, because they aim at finding

only precious objects, seriously destroy the finding places,

and therefore seriously hamper also future

researches in sacked places, like cemeteries.

In the third place, as in our times in several instances, illicit

diggings are planned by international organizations on appointment,

the excavation techniques, often going into depth,

provoke very serious damage to whole archaeological deposits,

but also they frequently destroy, completely, whole archaeological sites.

Of course, the regions richest in archaeological sites, and

most of all in cemeteries, suffered the most, and

still suffer from illicit diggings, from Iraq to Peru,

from Mexico to Italy, from Iran to Egypt, from Laos to Greece.

In very simple words, the action against illicit diggings

may have some effectiveness particularly by means of two prevention tools.

On the one hand, we should act on the education of local

peoples in order to improve the awareness about

the importance of the preservation of cultural heritage,

also taking into account that the same peoples may draw some

advantage from the integrity of the territories,

for instance, as concerns tourism development.

On the other hand, create police forces specialized in the action

against illicit diggings, which should be distributed

in the territories particularly rich in archaeological deposits,

and traditionally exposed to the actions of illicit researches,

in order to create a permanent controls over the places, and

districts more frequent by bands of clandestine diggers.

Realistically, we should say that a serious, effective, and

successful contrast, was never achieved in any part of the planet.

Generally speaking fact, in the Countries richest in archaeological

sites, like Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Peru, Italy, Iran,

an adequate covering of the territory, with specialized, and

effective police forces, would be so much expensive that,

indeed, it was never accomplished anywhere in the world.

However, there is no doubt that where the government

expressed a true political will to contrast illicit diggings,

these events were drastically reduced when two

strong elements of discussion were accomplished.

On the one hand a strong worsening of punishments on the legislative level,

and on the other hand, the placement on the territory of inadequate

number of the police forces with administrative experience.

The hunt for archaeological treasures in the clandestine excavations

in archaeological sites, are a very ancient phenomenon,

and in times luckily quite far away from now,

during the 17th and 18th centuries, it even happened

that the Spanish imperial government in Peru, granted permissions to adventurers

in order to make researches in Pre-Inca burial grounds of the countries,

where tombs were extremely rich in precious metal ornaments.

As already maintained, the second phenomenon creates a very

serious impoverishment of the universal cultural heritage,

namely the intentional destruction of artifacts, monuments and

sites of the heritage, and this is something horrible,

we believed had seen the last even dreadful

manifestations during the Second World War.

Yet, the phenomenon of the intentional destructions

of cultural heritage has reappeared in our days,

in a very serious and in unpredictable ways,

as to become an international emergency, which came up again

in the world political scenarios, in large regions of the planet.

The reappearance of this phenomenon of intentional destructions of the cultural

heritage of civilizations 'other' than that of the protagonists of the destructions,

is determined by the inexpiable hatred, and

by the complete intolerance of fundamentalist milieus, aiming

at annihilating any expression of a 'different' culture.

This kind of intentional destructions has been realized already

with heavy losses during the recent wars in the Near and Middle East.

During these conflicts, which are usually internal crisis of

a Country leading to civil wars,

with extended interventions of regular and irregular troops

of foreign powers - from Afghanistan to Iraq, and from Lebanon to Syria -

three main causes for losses, or

risks to the cultural heritage, to frequently place.

In the first place, the exorbitant increase in illicit diggings,

caused by the complete lack of control of the territories by police forces,

by the condition of extreme poverty of many inhabitants,

by the not rare intervention of organized bands of treasure hunters on commission.

In second place, the occupation of archaeological sites by

military commands or detachments, which damage the sites, but

also make of those same sites the automatic objective

of often devastating shelling by the other contender.

In the third place, the aim of destroying every expression, and

material evidence of a culture felt as irreconcilable adversary, for ideological,

as well as political reasons, but also, and most of all, for religious reasons,

even within the same religious belief, as happens with devastations

by extremist Sunnis also as regards the orthodox Sunnis.

Only in order to make some example of extremely serious

events, as regards to the impressive increase in illicit diggings,

the sites of the capitals of pre-classical Babylon in Iraq,

like Isin and Umma, are nowadays almost completely lost,

and not too different situation can be witnessed at Apamea and Dura Europos,

two sites of the Roman period in Inner Syria, and on the Euphrates.

In the second case of historical centres occupied by military forces,

and therefore shelled with important damages,

we might recall the wonderful medieval fortress of the Knight's Krack,

and the Omayyad Mosque of Aleppo in Syria.

In the third case of intentional destruction of

artifacts belonging to cultures felt as hostile,

we have to mention the sack of Maalula,

the Christian village of Syria, where they still speak Aramaic,

Jesus' language, the destruction of the big Buddhas of Bamiyan

in Afghanistan, and the demolition of important Assyrian and

Aramaean statues, at Raqqa, and Tell Ajaja.

Some extreme case of barbarian sacks

of the cultural heritage during this regional crisis of the Near East,

had different and contrasting interpretations.

Yet, the fact remains of the unprecedented gravity

of the responsibilities of those who were not able or

didn't want to prevent them against the UNESCO conventions and declarations.

The most dramatic case is the sack of the Iraqi museum,

and of the National Library of Baghdad, as soon as the troops

of the United States of America entered Baghdad in 2003 in

order to bring Saddam Hussein's regime down.

In other cases of very serious and irreparable destructions,

three main causes we have just recalled may sum up.

So, it is certain that the wish to take possession of precious artifacts,

made possible by the almost complete absence of police forces,

as well as the will to annihilate artifacts recalling the hatred times

of the ancient, pre-Islamic Paganism, brought to the attack

against the Regional Archaeological Museum of Minya in Middle Egypt,

where a number of artifacts of the Amarna age -

the age of the heretic Pharoah Amenophis IV, Akhenaten -

were in large part destroyed and in a smaller part stolen.

Summing up, the organized, and systematic, illicit diggings, and

the intentional destructions of the cultural heritage during civil and

regional wars are very serious phenomena of a new, unexpected,

and deplorable barbarity, which bring our contemporary world

back to ruthless and obscure times,

marked, on the one hand, by a blind will to enrich oneself,

and, on the other hand, by unacceptable ideological intolerance.

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