Damage to Syria’s heritage – 19 December 2016

The Day After Heritage Protection Initiative offer insight into the looting ongoing in Syria, before and during the conflict, in Syria Direct here.

Palmyrene, Libyan & Yemeni artifacts seized at Swiss free port after being trafficked via Qatar. See more information in France 24 here.

Idlib Antiquities Centre released a documentary video by Al-Jazeera about the Hekaya educational project, which aims to raise awareness about the importance of protecting the cultural heritage among the children of Idlib. See more here.

Under the patronage of Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with Ministry of Tourism, Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums, and the Office “ ICONEM “ for document the heritage, held a scientific Colloquium titled “new visions and proposals for the resilience of the Syrian heritage” on December 10 to 11, 2016 at the National Museum in Damascus, reported on the DGAM website here.

Participants called for the creation of a Web database to publish Syrian archaeological documents, and carrying out rescue work for heritage in coordination with concerned Syrian institutes, reported here in the Syria Times.

Mamoun AbdulKarim reports on plans to protect Syria’s heritage in Sputnik News, here. “According to Karim, his department of antiquities and museums together with UNESCO has already devised a master plan for restoration of the damaged buildings of Aleppo. A special team has been set up which includes many renowned engineers and historians.”

Entitled “Six Years”, Nizar Sabour’s art exhibition was opened at Khan As’ad Basha. The exhibition showcases more than 120 artworks of different themes, stemming from the heart of the Syrian pain and suffering. It narrates stories of resistance and steadfastness. In a statement to SANA, Sabour said that the exhibition includes all art works of his own since 2010 up to the present date, adding that the first two paintings rose a question about if the intuition could tell anything about the future after which he worked on art as a witness of society and a way to defend life against death.
Read more in SANA here.

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The two-day Conference brought together heads of state and ministers from over 40 countries affected by heritage loss due to armed conflicts, alongside key players involved in the field of heritage preservation, international public and private institutions, museums and private donors engaged in the field of cultural heritage, as well as experts working in the field. The conference set up an international fund and demanded the UN Security Council intervention to protect cultural heritage during armed conflicts.
The international fund will be based in Geneva in Switzerland, according to Jack Lang, the French President’s representative to the conference. France will contribute $30 million (£24M) in the next two years towards the fund; the UAE also announced its commitment at the conference. the rest will be obtained by fundraising.

France and the UAE are also discussing the possibility of introducing a resolution at the UN Security Council for the protection of heritage sites in conflict zones, based on the proposals and recommendations to be made by the conference, Lang said.

The News Section (below) contains links to a number of news articles covering the conference, and there are a number of photos of the conference on the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology Facebook page here.

“The U. S. Department of Justice announced today that the United States has filed a civil complaint seeking the forfeiture of multiple antiquities associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Da’esh. The complaint alleges that ISIL, which is designated by the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, markets and sells antiquities to finance its terror operations. The lawsuit marks the first time that the United States has filed an action to forfeit antiquities that are foreign assets of ISIL.” Read more here.

The Aleppo Project has published a report on how conflict has transformed the Syrian economy. Three groups shape the Syrian war economy today: a violent, power-seeking elite that now controls most sources of wealth; a new opportunistic class providing services to a third group; that is the urban poor living on the edge of survival.
This report studies the state of the war economy in rebel held Aleppo and Idlib provinces. How important is the Syrian-Turkish border for the economy? How do rebels finance their war? What are the characteristics of the shadow economy? How does the poor majority cope with the new reality?

The second section focuses on ISIS oil trade where rebels, smugglers, shopkeepers, factories, criminal networks and ordinary people have been sucked into. Why it is difficult to destroy ISIS oil economy? What is the alternative?
Available here.

La destrucció del Patrimoni Artístic en els conflictes armats El cas de Síria
For a copy, please contact the author, Marta Miras or H4P.

• “If the ruined ruins of Palmyra could speak, they would marvel at our shock. After all, they have been sacked before. In their mute and shattered eloquence, they spoke for centuries not only about the cultures that built them but also about the cultures that destroyed them—about the fragility of civilization itself, even when it is incarnated in stone. No designation of sanctity, by God or by UNESCO, suffices to protect the past. The past is helpless. Instead these ruins, all ruins, have had the effect of lifting the past out of history and into time. They carry the spectator away from facts and toward reveries.”
  Read Lessons from the Rubble of Palmyra, in the Atlantic, here.
• Apollo: The International Art Magazine examines Palmyra’s legacy, here.
• Al-Monitor profiles the Syria, A Living History Agha Khan Exhibition in Toronto, here . The exhibition is also covered here in QZ.
• Why extremists destroy ancient treasures, from USA today, available here.
• E-Flux considers the Destruction of cultural heritage, from Napoleon to ISIS, here.
• A number of organisations have covered the Abu Dhabi conference (here is a selection):
  ~Ahram Online here.
  ~Asharq al-Awsat here.
  ~The Guardian here.
  ~The National here.
  ~An Article on Press Reader here.
• Fisk highlights the complexities of the discussion about returning artefacts taken (legitimately or otherwise) during the colonial era in the Independent here.
• Berita Daily reports on Cultural heritage in jihadist crosshairs here.