The price of civilisation: Would you die for art?

27 February 2018

When Islamic State fighters overran the Syrian city of Palmyra in 2015, they set about destroying its historical treasures. But some residents refused to bow to their will, even under threat of deadly violence. Who are the people willing to risk their lives for art?

After Islamic State fighters captured the Syrian city of Palmyra in May 2015, the group began to demolish parts of the Unesco World Heritage Site that it deemed to be idolatrous. IS advertises its demolition of such sites for propaganda purposes, but there is also a financial motive - the looting and selling of antiquities has been a significant source of funding.

For Khaled al-Asaad, the stones and statues and columns of Palmyra were more than simply an ensemble of antiquity.

Simon Schama

Militants from the Islamic State group interrogated Khaled al-Assad, the retired director of antiquities, on the whereabouts of the city's artworks. The 81-year-old refused to cooperate. He was later beheaded in one of the town's squares.

"For Khaled al-Asaad, the stones and statues and columns of Palmyra were more than simply an ensemble of antiquity", observes Simon Schama in the first episode of Civilisations. "He didn’t need a Unesco certificate to tell him that the significance of Palmyra was at once both local and universal; it’s there for believers and unbelievers and east and west."

What is so special about this place? According to Unesco, Palmyra is one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. In the 1st and 2nd centuries a range of cultures fused together – Greco-Roman, Persian, Semitic, Indian and Chinese – to create a fabulous trading city in the middle of a desert.

Palmyra's remote location meant the city avoided the impact of creeping urbanisation, leaving the site in excellent condition. "There are very few sites in the Roman world that have this much architecture intact," says Stephennie Mulder, an archaeologist at the University of Texas at Austin, "you can essentially walk into a 2,000-year-old city".

One of the most significant losses was the Temple of Bel. Unesco considered this to be one of the most important religious buildings in the region. Maamoun Abdul Karim, the head of the Syrian Department of Antiquities and Museums, described its destruction as a "catastrophe".

Khaled al-Assad was an expert on this place, to the extent of being fluent in Aramaic, the ancient language of Palmyra. He had looked after its ancient ruins for more than 40 years and was an "icon of Palmyrene archaeology... essentially he was 'Mr Palmyra'", according to former Syrian antiquities official Amr al-Azm.

Khaled al-Assad was not alone in protecting Palmyra, as many others also put themselves in harm's way to protect the city's heritage. The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen interviewed two of them: Khalil Hariri was part of a group of local men who, as forces approached, smuggled 400 antiquities out of the city under heavy gunfire. Mohammed al-Assad, Khaled's son, said they were unable to move larger structures and pieces.

In 2003, Donny George Youkhanna held a position at the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq. When the US invaded and fighting in Baghdad was imminent, a plan was formulated to protect the National Museum. Employees guarded the building and its artefacts on shifts from night to night.

With missiles raining on the communications building opposite, the remaining few people took refuge in the National Museum's basement.

It soon became too dangerous to travel openly in the city, and the workers and researchers assigned to protect the museum began to drift away. The plan was failing but Youkhanna chose to stay, along with the chair of the Antiquities Board, Dr Jabir Khalil Ibrahim.

With missiles raining on the telecoms building opposite, the remaining few people took refuge in the museum basement. When they spotted three men in the museum gardens carrying RPGs and machine guns, aiming to confront American tanks, it was time for George and Khalil to leave.

Inevitably, the museum was looted and many precious artefacts disappeared. Dr. George, who dropped his last name in professional circles, managed to return to the museum a few days later, as explosions shook the city and bridges were destroyed. His attempts to persuade US soldiers to stop the looters were unsuccessful. Although the facts around the museum's losses became disputed, the US protection of the oil fields while stores of human knowledge and art were left open to exploitation was much criticised.

Soon after, George was named Director of the Museum and carried out important work investigating the thefts and preventing sales at international auction houses. Ultimately over a third of the stolen objects were brought back to Iraq.

George fled to Syria in 2006 after death threats against his son, and then moved to the United States where he was appointed Visiting Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at New York's Stony Brook University. Donny George died of a heart attack in 2011, aged only 60.

Facing down destruction in Egpyt

Art and World War Two

The US military was criticised for its failure to protect Baghdad's National Museum following the invasion in 2003. There are people in the British military who want to be better prepared to protect art in conflict zones.

Lt Col Tim Purbrick, an Army reservist and art expert who was a tank commander during the Desert Storm campaign, has a plan for how the British Army could better preserve art in future wars: a dedicated unit of cultural protection specialists.

He told Radio 4's Front Row that a database of cultural properties across the world is required, so that they aren't targeted by bombs and "are protected when we get to those places".

Such a unit would need to recruit people with specialist skills in many areas – monuments, fine arts, archivists, manuscripts, librarians, archaeology, art conservation, art logistics, art crime investigations and languages.