CRASSH

Margaret M. Miles, American School of Classical Studies at Athens; UC Irvine
Still in the Aftermath of Waterloo

Abstract: What happens to art in time of war? Who should own art? Under what circumstances should victors in war allow the defeated to keep their art and other cultural property?  Should the age-old idea of ‘to the victors go the spoils’ still be the common expectation in warfare?  These are old questions that go back to debates in antiquity.  The first legal case that dealt with these issues was Cicero’s prosecution of Gaius Verres for extortion in 70 BCE; because Verres was a rapacious collector of art, Cicero used the theme of art collection as a buttressing point in his case. In the modern era, critics of Napoleon’s looting of Italy used the Verrines for fuel and denounced Napoleon as a new Verres. Lord Elgin was accused by Lord Byron of being another Verres in his despoliation of the Parthenon, and raised public ire against the acquisition of the Elgin Marbles.  But in the Verrines, Cicero had held up as models for behavior the conquering Roman generals who did not loot art, and especially Scipio Aemilianus, conqueror of Carthage, who repatriated art that had been taken from Sicily by Carthaginians.  This ancient model of repatriation and abstention from plunder was discussed again in London newspapers in 1815, in the aftermath of Waterloo. 

Thanks to the decisions made by the Duke of Wellington, a modern precedent was set for repatriating plundered art to Italy and other countries that had been invaded by Napoleon.  That episode in turn helped to inspire the Lieber Code during the Civil War in the U.S., the legal basis for international agreements that exist today to protect cultural property in time of war. In turn, concerns about nationalism as a basis for cultural identity and for making claims about cultural property are being debated as foreign governments are asking for the return of their cultural artifacts now in American museums.  This lecture reviews the debate about the repatriations after Waterloo among the British involved in the decision. A fresh examination of their reasoning provides new light on current debates.

Bio: Margaret M. Miles is currently Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classical Studies at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens (also Professor of Art History and Classics at the University of California, Irvine).  She is an archaeologist, specializing in Greek architecture and Greek religion.  She is the author of Agora XXXI:  The City Eleusinion (Princeton, 1998) and Art as Plunder: The Ancient Origins of Debate about Cultural Property (Cambridge, 2008), a study of the impact of Cicero's Verrines on early modern ideas about the fate of art in time of war.

Panel 1. The Laws of War and Cultural Policy

Roger O’Keefe, University of Cambridge
Wartime Destruction of Cultural Heritage: Punishment and Reparation under International Law

Abstract: Many people assume that those who deliberately damage or destroy cultural heritage in war ‘get away with it’.  But this is not always true.  Individuals guilty of such barbarism have in some instances been successfully prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  States responsible for damage or destruction of this sort have sometimes been compelled to afford compensation, in cash or kind, to the state on whose territory the heritage was sited or to its owner.  Roger O’Keefe highlights these cases and discusses some of the issues they raise.

Bio: Dr Roger O’Keefe is a Senior Lecturer in Law and the Deputy Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge.  His book The Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict was published by Cambridge University Press in December 2006.  He has also written several journal articles and chapters in edited volumes on the subject, has lectured on the topic at the Hague Academy of International Law, and recently gave evidence before the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport on the UK’s draft Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill.

Jan Hladík, UNESCO

Abstract: The current presentation is divided into two parts.  The first part focuses on the main tenets of the 1954 Hague Convention and its two (1954 and 1999) Protocols such as the safeguarding of and respect for cultural property, obligations of military character, penal measures as well as institutional issues under the Second Protocol.  The second part describes challenges for the Secretariat such as the need to increase the number of States party to those agreements and, in particular, to involve major military powers and to put a particular accent on the adequate national implementation of those agreements.

Bio: Jan Hladík works as a Programme Specialist in the Section of Museums and Cultural Objects of the Division of Cultural Objects and Intangible Heritage of UNESCO, Paris, France. Mr Hladík graduated in 1988 from the International Law Faculty of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and received the same year the degree juris doctor from Charles University, Prague (the Czech Republic).  After more than two years of work in the International Law Department of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he joined UNESCO in 1992 as a Young Professional. Mr Hladík is principally responsible for activities related to the implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. He is also involved in the elaboration of the UNESCO Draft Declaration of Principles Relating to Cultural Objects Displaced in Connection with the Second World War.  He has participated in a number of intergovernmental and other meetings concerning the implementation of the Hague Convention and its two Protocols.  In particular, he was a member of the UNESCO Secretariat at the March 1999 Hague Intergovernmental Conference on the Second Protocol to the Hague Convention.  His publications include: ‘The UNESCO Declaration Concerning the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage’, in Art Antiquity and Law, Vol. IX, issue III (June 2004), pp. 215 – 236;   ‘The Control System under The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 1954 and its Second Protocol’ in the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 4 (2001; The Hague, T. M. C. Asser Press, 2004), pp. 419 – 431; ‘Marking of cultural property with the distinctive emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict’,  Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge, Débat humanitaire : Droit, politiques, action/ International Review of The Red Cross, Humanitarian Debate: Law, Policy, Action, Vol. 86, No. 854 (2004), pp 379 – 387.

Patrick J Boylan, City University London
Military Necessity is Very Much More than Military Convenience
 
Abstract: Codes and Treaties of the law of armed conflict developed from the mid-19th century onwards almost invariably allowed the applicable principles to be set aside in exceptional circumstances of ‘military necessity’. The by then traditional exemption was therefore incorporated in the original 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and has been retained (though in a significantly restricted form) in the 1999 Hague Second Protocol.  However, in far too many cases a claim of military necessity has been made for cultural destruction (to say nothing of other breaches of humanitarian law) which was what Gen. (later President) Eisenhower characterised as military convenience rather than what was strictly necessary (and therefore possibly legal).  This paper will analyse the development, codifying and misuse of the military necessity exemption, and discuss the limitations on it, particularly in relation to cultural property.

Bio: Patrick Boylan was the Director of major UK local authority museums, arts, heritage and archive services in Exeter, Leicester and Leicestershire for almost 23 years before joining the Department of Arts Policy and Management, City University in 1990.  In the University he was Head of Department for five years, and at various times was Course Leader for the MAs in Arts Management, Arts Management in Education, and in Museum and Gallery Management.  On his official retirement in 2004 he was honoured with the award of the title of Professor Emeritus, so he remains closely associated with what is now the Department of Cultural Policy and Management as a research degree supervisor, researcher and guest lecturer.
 At the international level, he has been closely involved for over 17 years in the protection of culture in the event of armed conflict and both natural and civil emergencies and disasters.  One of the four founder members of the International Committee of the Blue Shield (the emerging ‘Red Cross for Culture’), he was the Head of Delegation for the Non-Governmental Organisations at the 1999 Hague Diplomatic Conference on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.  This drew extensively on Patrick Boylan's UNESCO research and proposals in drawing up the new March 1999 Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention.  His work in promoting cultural protection in times of conflict was recognised by the award of the High Order of Merit "Danica" of the Republic of Croatia in 1997, and his election as one of the 13 Honorary Members of the International Council of Museums in 2004.

Panel 2: Destruction of Cultural Heritage: Iraq (I)

Harriet Crawford, UCL/Mcdonald Institute
The Uses and Abuses of Heritage in Iraq

 

Saad Eskander, Iraq National Library and Archives
Internal Uprisings and Foreign Invasion: the Lootings and the Dispersal of  Iraq's official Documents, 1991-2008

Abstract: Between 1980 and 2003, Iraq was involved in three destructive wars (1980-1988, 1991 and 2003). Its cities and townships were the scene of popular uprisings, armed confrontations and chaos. As a result, tens of millions of current records and non-current historical records were either destroyed or looted by Iraqis and by foreigners, especially the Americans, who seized a huge quantity of highly sensitive records of the Saddam regime and the ruling Ba'ath party. This paper will investigate the issue of the seized Iraqi records from legal, academic, moral and historical-political perspectives. It will illustrate how the American occupiers neglected their duties under international law to safeguard Iraq's documentary heritage, while involving in an extensive looting of current Iraqi records. The paper will argue the illegality and the immorality of U.S. military and intelligence agencies' shipments of seized Iraqi records to America and the way they have been abused for propaganda and political purposes.

Bio: Saad B. Eskander, Ph.D., Director General, Iraq National Library & Archives, since 2003, previously researcher for Iraqi Cultural Forum (London ) in conjunction with the Department of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck College, University of London. He has been nominated Archivist of the Year 2007 by the Scone Foundation, New York, USA. His publications include: From Planning to Partition, Great Britain and the Future of Kurdistan, 1915-1923 (Sulaimaniya, November 2007); Nation-State, Nationalism in Arab Iraq and Kurdistan (Sulaimaniya, 2005); The Rise & The Downfall of the Emirate Systems in Kurdistan, from mid-tenth Century-mid-nineteenth Century (Baghdad, 2005); ‘Southern Kurdistan under Britain’s Mesopotamian Mandate: from Separation to Incorporation, 1921-1923’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2 (April 2001); ‘Britain’s Policy in Southern Kurdistan: The Formation and the Termination of the First Kurdish Government’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2, (November 2000).

David Myers, Getty Conservation Institute
The GCI_WMF Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative: Enhancing Capacity for Cultural Heritage Site Conservation and Management

Abstract: Following the catastrophic damage sustained by Iraq’s cultural heritage during and in the aftermath of the 2003 war, in recognition of the depletion of the capacity of the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) as the steward of the nation’s heritage, and in anticipation of reconstruction efforts, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the World Monuments Fund (WMF) signed an agreement in March 2004 with the SBAH to establish the Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative. The Initiative has mobilized international resources and attention in support of the Iraqi cultural authorities toward rebuilding the country’s conservation and heritage management capacity. To that end the Initiative has held a series of training courses focused on a variety of topics. It is also developing a national, web-based geographic information system (GIS) for the SBAH to maintain a national inventory of the archaeological and historic sites and monuments of Iraq.  This will enable SBAH to record damage and threats to sites and to plan protective and conservation interventions.  Due to the security situation in Iraq, training activities have taken place mainly in Amman with the support of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. A similar web-based GIS is first being developed for Jordan.  This will subsequently be customized for Iraq.

Bio: David Myers is a project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, where he as worked since 2001, and where he now works on projects dealing with the conservation of cultural heritage sites for Iraq and in Jordan, the Valley of the Queens on the West Bank of Luxor, Egypt, and the rock art of the Southern African subcontinent. He was a Kress Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Conservation Research Center from 2000 to 2001. From 1991 to 1995 he served as a legislative assistant to a U.S representative. He studied historic preservation, geography, and political science and holds a master’s degree and an advanced certificate in architectural conservation and site management from the University of Pennsylvania as well as a master’s degree from the University of Kansas. 

Panel 3:  Destruction of Cultural Heritage: Iraq (II)

Major General Barney White-Spunner CBE, GOC 3 (United Kingdom) Division
How the Army and Academia Can Work Together

Abstract: The spectrum in which we conduct military operations today is increasingly diverse.  Military, political, economic and social threads all need to be woven together and coordinated.  The multitude of actors within this diverse arena, whether civil or military, indigenous or international, all have a critical role to play.  It is imperative that their agendas are understood, priorities are realised and matched to capacity and that a unity of effort is achieved.  As the Commander of British Forces in Basra earlier this year, I worked closely with the British Museum and the Ministry of State for Archaeology and Tourism of Iraq to develop such a thread.  The importance of Iraqi heritage to the Iraqi people and the international arena was obvious, as was the need to establish ways to preserve it.  By close cooperation, open discussions and an understanding of what could be achieved in the time frame and with the assets available, the military and academia formed a strong relationship and worked together on developing and executing an important cultural heritage project.

Bio: Major General Barney White-Spunner joined The Blues & Royals in 1979.  He served in a variety of junior regimental appointments until attending the Army Staff College in 1989.  Thereafter he commanded a Medium Reconnaissance Squadron, both in the UK and with the UN, and spent two years working for The Military Secretary, dealing with personnel issues.

In 1993 he went to Western China as Deputy Leader of the Joint British/Chinese expedition that made the first crossing of the Taklamakan Desert before spending 6 months on a Defence Fellowship at King’s College, London.  Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1994, he became Military Assistant to The Chief of Defence Staff, dealing primarily with the Balkans and European issues.  From 1996 until 1998 he commanded The Household Cavalry Regiment, based in Windsor.  This tour included four squadron deployments to Bosnia and providing the OPFOR at BATUS. 

In late 1998 he became Deputy Director of Defence Policy in the Ministry of Defence, dealing with long-term defence planning issues.  He was promoted to Brigadier in December 2000 and attended the Higher Command and Staff Course before assuming command of 16 Air Assault Brigade in April 2001. As Commander 16 Brigade he commanded the NATO Task Force Harvest operation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2001 and the Kabul Multi-National Brigade in 2002.  He took over as Chief of Joint Force Operations in 2003 and was, in that capacity, Chief of Staff to the National Contingent Commander on Op TELIC in the Gulf from April – May 2003, and thereafter ran several small-scale operations in Africa and Asia.  He became General Officer Commanding 3rd (United Kingdom) Division in Autumn 2007, having been Chief of Staff at Headquarters LAND. He is an Honorary Legionnaire (1st Class) in the French Foreign Legion.

Major Hugo Clarke, Headquarters 3 (United Kingdom) Division
OPERATION HERITAGE – An Iraqi Cultural Initiative

 

Abstract: OPERATION HERITAGE was initiated by Headquarters 3 (United Kingdom) Division and  the British Museum, together with the Ministry of State for Archaeology and Tourism in Iraq.  The project aimed to identify key heritage sites in Southern Iraq and assess what state the sites were in.  The importance of setting achievable goals in a set time frame and managing expectations was critical to the development of the project, as was the importance of having an Iraqi lead and buy-in from the start.  The project demonstrated how archaeologists and the military could plan and work closely together, drawing on each other’s capabilities. 

Bios: Major Hugo Clarke was commissioned into the Scots Guards in 1990, seeing service in Germany, the First Gulf War and Northern Ireland.  Leaving the army in 1995 he joined the HALO Trust, a mine clearance charity, training and leading indigenous teams in Afghanistan and Angola.  On rejoining the army, he has held several appointments including running overseas training exercises outside of Europe and more recently as Military Assistant to the General Officer Commanding in southern Iraq.  He is presently working as the Civil Military co-operation officer with Headquarters 3 (UK) Division, where he is focused on running a heritage project with the British Museum in Iraq.

John Curtis, British Museum
War in Iraq and Damage to Cultural Heritage

Abstract: This paper will briefly review the extent of the damage to the Iraqi cultural heritage since 2003, examine the reasons for it, ask what steps were taken to prevent it, and consider what is being done now to arrest and or improve the situation. The roles played by coalition troops, UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, and various governmental and non-governmental bodies including the British Museum will be scrutinized and assessed. Particular attention will be paid to the need to obtain accurate and reliable assessments of damage to museums and archaeological sites, and it will be demonstrated that the military authorities (working with international and Iraqi experts on cultural heritage) have an important role to play here. It will also be emphasized that the military authorities can assist in rebuilding the cultural heritage of Iraq. Lastly, we will show how some aspects of the Iraqi cultural heritage have become politicized.

Bio: John Curtis (OBE, FBA) is Keeper of the Department of Middle East at the British Museum. His main academic interests are in Iraq and Iran in the 1st millennium BC (1000-330 BC). He has excavated and travelled widely in both countries. He is the author or editor of 15 books and numerous articles. Since 2003 he has visited Iraq six times in connection with documenting damage to Iraqi cultural heritage occasioned by the war and the military occupation.

Panel 4: Cultural Heritage and its Vicissitudes

Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly, Archaeologist - Journalist, Al Akhbar newspaper
Heritage and Identity: Between Destruction and Reconstruction in Lebanon (from the civil war to July war of 2006)

 Abstract: As the guns of the civil war (1975 – 1992) fell silent, people in Lebanon started creating inventories of their losses. There was demolition everywhere, and heritage took its share. Most of the buildings in Beirut’s center were hit, either partially or severely. In people’s minds the concept was that since the war was over, these buildings were saved, but that was without taking into consideration the major reconstruction project. Major archaeological sites and historical buildings were being demolished, as they were classified as ‘irreparable’. What happened in Beirut had set a precedent that was to be repeated in Southern Lebanon, 12 years later, after the July war in 2006. The villages of southern Lebanon had been destroyed, and many traditional and historical buildings were hit. The villages lost their identity, either by the demolitions or by the reconstruction that followed - the post war phase was implemented with no concrete planning, in particular what concerns the preservation of heritage. The Beirut model was imitated. Two years on, people have started feeling the impact of their acts on their everyday life.
 
 Bio: Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly is an archaeologist and a journalist. She works for the Lebanese daily Al Akhbar where she is responsible for the weekly page dedicated to Archaeology and Heritage. She is also the Middle East correspondent for the French magazine Archéologia. Since 1993, she has been involved in archaeology and heritage issues in Lebanon, either as a student of archaeology working in the rescue excavations program in Beirut down town, or as a journalist observing and reporting on all issues concerning Archaeology and Heritage.

‘Archaeology and War’ is a theme Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly worked on in Lebanon and Iraq, which she visited regularly from 1998 till 2004. She investigated the looting of the Iraq museum and witnessed the destruction and looting of the archaeological sites after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In 2005 she was guest speaker at 14 universities in the USA on this issue. After the July war on Lebanon in 2006, she was the first journalist to publish reports on the damage to archaeology and heritage caused by the war. In 2008, Joanne co-edited The Destruction of Cultural Heritage in Iraq (Boydell & Brewer) with Peter Stone.

András Riedlmayer, Harvard University
Cultural Heritage as a Target in War: Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo

Abstract: The Balkan wars at the end of the 20th century brought about the deaths of 150,000 people and the forced dislocation of millions more, targeted for persecution because of their ethnic and religious identity. The violence against human beings was accompanied by the systematic destruction of their heritage. A European Parliament report (1993) termed it ‘a cultural catastrophe in the heart of Europe.’ This paper examines attacks on culture in these wars and their aftermath and seeks to place them in a broader theoretical and legal context, amidst the growing recognition of the nexus between cultural heritage and human rights.

Peter Stone, University of Newcastle
Archeology and Conflict: Uneasy Bedfellows?

Abstract: In 2003 I was the only archaeologist to whom the UK military would speak regarding the identification and protection of the cultural heritage in Iraq. This was strange given my lack of knowledge of the archaeology of the area and my role was, quite rightly, questioned by colleagues. My role has also been questioned in terms of the ethical appropriateness of archaeologists providing specialized knowledge to the military. The suggestion is that, as an ‘embedded archaeologist’, by providing information concerning the cultural heritage I was in some way providing legitimacy to an illegal war. My presentation will discuss the difficult position in which I found myself, question my actions, and begin to discuss how the relationship between archaeologists and the military should develop – if at all.

Bio: Peter Stone is Head of School of Arts and Cultures and Professor of Heritage Studies in the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies at Newcastle University. In 2003 he was advisor to the Ministry of Defence with regard to the identification and protection of the archaeological cultural heritage in Iraq. He is co-editor with Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly of The Destruction of the Cultural Heritage in Iraq, published in April 2008 by Boydell and Brewer. He produced, with the Oriental Institute in Chicago, a travelling version of the Institute’s exhibition Catastrophe!  that charts the destruction of the cultural heritage in Iraq.

Peter Stone has published widely on heritage management, interpretation and education. He has worked extensively overseas and advised UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre in the development of the World Heritage Education Programme. He was Honorary Chief Executive Officer of the World Archaeological Congress between 1998 and 2008. He is currently a member of the Culture Committee of the UK National Commission for UNESCO, a member of the National Trust’s Archaeology Panel, and is Chair of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site Management Plan Committee. In 2004 he was seconded for two days a week to the Regional Development Agency regarding the value of World Heritage Sites to the North East. He previously worked for ten years for the English Heritage Education Service.

Panel 5: Conflict, Iconoclasm, and the Museum

Robert Knox (Former Keeper, Asia Department, British Museum)
Restoring the National Museum at Kabul: part of the process of building a peaceful civil society in Afghanistan

Alastair Northedge, Université de Paris I
Conflict in Iraq: the Case of Samarra

Abstract: The effects of the war in Iraq are particularly well-documented in the case of Samarra, the site of the 9th century Caliphal capital. Quite different from the ancient tells of the south, Samarra has not been pillaged, but subjected to a variety of different phenomena, including violent action. Through satellite imagery, photos from soldiers in the field, and recurring visits by western journalists, it has been possible to build up a more detailed picture of events than elsewhere in Iraq.

Bio: Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology, Université de Paris I  (Panthéon-Sorbonne); Maître de Conférences, Université de Paris IV  (Paris-Sorbonne) 1991-1998. PhD (SOAS), ‘Qalat Amman in the Early Islamic Period’, published as ‘Studies on Roman and Islamic Amman’,  British Academy Monographs in Archaeology, No. 3 (1993). Rescue excavation at Ana 1981, published as Northedge, Bamber & Roaf,  ‘Excavations at Ana’ (1988). Survey of Samarra, 1983 onwards. The first volume of the final publication, the ‘Historical Topography of Samarra’, appeared in 2006, and the manuscript of the second, the  ‘Archaeological Atlas of Samarra’, has been completed. His recent fieldwork has been in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Oliver Urquart-Irvine, British Library
Stewarding Property in a Post-Ownership World

Abstract: The British Library's collections are international in scope and origin: they range across time, space, languages, religions, cultures, and nations, and they contribute to the world-wide understanding and celebration of British culture and values, not least the global phenomena of English language and literature. The Library must act within its governing statute but recognises also an ever-expanding and complex non-legal environment, including codes of practice, advisory panels, and other drivers, including UK political, partnership and collaborative opportunities, as well as the challenges of international cultural diplomacy and cultural foreign policy. Against this background, present and past acquisition and restitution of cultural property for all institutions has come under increasingly close scrutiny. This applies no less to the ongoing preservation of and access to material already held by the Library. The dichotomy of a non-proprietorial world is that it can exist only because the legal rules of ownership must apply, and that the benefits and possibilities of opening up access and sharing collections can flow only from security of title and possession.

Bio: Oliver Urquhart Irvine is the British Library's first Cultural Property Manager, the first such full-time post in any national United Kingdom institution. The appointment was made to develop and lead implementation of an overall strategy for the Library's holdings of significant cultural property, national as well as international, taking account of the increasingly complex external environment of legislative changes, and political, faith-related and other cultural sensitivities. The remit for this work extends across all the Library's collections, wherever housed, and across the whole range of the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and science, technology and medicine. He studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and the University of Amsterdam, followed by the Common Professional Exams at the College of Law, and has written articles on a variety of subjects for the Oxford Companion to Art (2000), numerous auction and retail catalogues. Forthcoming publications include "The law and ethics of the acquisition of expatriate archives" for Archives (2009). He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in June 2008.


Panel 6: Contesting Culture: Afghanistan

Jonathan Lee: independent scholar and consultant
A Shattered Visage’: documenting Afghanistan’s cultural heritage in a time of conflict

Abstract:  The paper examines some of the challenges faced during thirty years of conflict in Afghanistan and will drawn on three decades of experience documenting Afghanistan’s heritage through expeditions and surveys in the country. The paper will illustrate the challenges with reference to several ‘search and rescue’ missions conducted under successive of governments from 1977 to 2006.

The paper takes as its point of departure the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban in the spring of 2001 and point out that damage, not just to the Buddhas but to other sites and monuments, was already a matter of grave concern long before the Taliban arrived. Not are acts of deliberate destruction confined to the recent decades of war. Both the Amirs of Afghanistan and the British army played their own part in the destruction of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage.

The papedr will examine the adverse impact of the jihad against the Communist government and Soviet invaders (1978-1992) and the mujahidin government of President Rabbani 1992-1996/8 on Afghanistan’s cultural heritage and point out that the Taliban’s cultural policy was not completely negative or destructive.

Since the change of government in late 2001 a number of specialist international missions had established their presence in Afghanistan, particularly the French Archaeological Mission, DAFA, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and UNESCO. As a result of increased international attention there has been more funding available for cultural heritage projects, after thirty years of underfunding. As a result significant progress has been possible in a number of specific areas such in Bamiyan itself, the restoration of Babur’s Gardens and in conservation and restoration projects in the old cities of Herat and Kabul. When national and provincial government, communities, international organisations and law enforcement agencies have all work together there have been significant successes.

Yet given the extent of the destruction and damage, the task before remains vast and extremely costly. We are still picking up the pieces, often literally. There is still concern about the way in which former militia leaders, who now hold senior government posts, continue to put personal gain before the national interest and an overall lack of government capacity and skills level. At the same time, reconstruction both civil and military, and the building boom, pose both an actual and potential threat to historic monuments as well as archaeology.

The paper will conclude with a brief identification of some ways in which the cultural heritage sector can advance and meet the challenges.

This paper is dedicated to the memory of Ralph Pinder-Wilson FSA (1919-2008), who died in October of this year to whom I, and many others, are profoundly indebted for his encouragement and support of our studies both whilst Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies (1976-1981) and over the ensuing years.

Bio: Dr Lee has been studying the history and archaeological heritage of Afghanistan for over three decades and has lived in the country for many years, most recently from 2003-2006. He graduate from the University of Leeds in 1972 and from 1977-78 was Fellow of the British Institute of Afghan Studies. Following the fall of the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan, in 1992, Dr Lee began a series of short-term archaeological reconnaissance missions inside Afghanistan supported by grants from various British Academy bodies and the Society for the Protection of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH). These expeditions resulted, amongst other things, in the recording of the Sasanid fresco of Ghulbiyan (1998); the recovery of the Bactrian inscriptions of Rabatak (2000) and Tang-i Safedak (2002) and the discovery of the Sasanid rock carving at Rag-i Bibi (2003). In 1999, Dr Lee was awarded a PhD in Religious studies from the University of Leeds for his work on the New Year festivals at the shrine of Shah-i Mardan in Mazar-i Sharif. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain. Dr Lee has published numerous monographs on the archaeology and history of Afghanistan. His major publications include editing the Journals of Edward Stirling in Persia and Afghanistan, 1828-29 (Naples, 1991) and The ‘Ancient Supremacy’, Bukhara, Afghanistan and the Battle for Balkh, 1732-1901 (Leiden, 1996). He is currently researching the Armenina community of Afghanistan and writing a book on Afghanistant’s history for Reaktion Books.

Dr Lee works as a self-employed consultant and applied social researcher for international organisations. His social research includes a series of field studies of Afghanistan’s mirab (water-master) system for Asian Development Bank contractors and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unity’s (AREU), EU funded ‘Water Management, Livestock and the Opium Economy’ research project. In January 2007 Dr Lee emigrated to North Island, New Zealand where he continues his work as a self-employed writer and social consultant.

Jolyon Leslie, Aga Khan Foundation
Culture and Contest in Afghanistan

Abstract: Central to the post-2001 narrative of a ‘new Afghanistan’ has been the notion of loss of cultural identity, with Afghans portrayed as victims. The focus of post-invasion cultural initiatives was on recovery of this loss. Six years later, as resistance to the foreign presence grows, culture is again a site of contest, as outside influence is readily portrayed as anti-Afghan. The paper will explore how the space for cultural activity in the country is again narrowing, as both the opposition groups claiming to defend Afghan social and cultural values, and a fragile administration that is hostage to powerful conservative interests, become more assertive.   

Bio: A South Africa-born architect, Jolyon Leslie has since the early 1980s managed post-war and disaster recovery programmes in the Middle East and central Asia for the UN and NGOs. He has lived in Kabul since 1989, and in 2004 published an assessment of the political transition (Afghanistan: the Mirage of Peace, Zed Press).  He currently manages the activities of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Afghanistan.

Reinhard Bernbeck, SUNY Binghamton
Who Has, and Who should Have, Power over the Past and its Remains?

Abstract: I address two issues concerned with the preservation of cultural remains in situations of armed conflict. First, I juxtapose two modes of humanitarian work, ‘humanitarian intervention’ and neutral, independent humanitarian relief in conflict situations.  I use these as a backdrop for discussions of tendencies toward involvement in the realm of culture, including ‘embedded archaeologists’ and the ‘human terrain system’ (HTS). Secondly, I discuss the specific limits of parallels between humanitarian relief and attempts at salvaging cultural heritage. I propose a basic set of ethical principles that ought to guide anyone who wants to engage with culture in times of war. I will draw on examples from the conflict in Afghanistan.

Bio: Reinhard Bernbeck is an archaeologist at Binghamton University, Department of Anthropology. He has done field research in Syria, Iran, Turkey, and Jordan, and has published books on the Neolithic of the Near East. He is interested in the emergence of social inequality, museology, the ideologies of historiography and an archaeology that explicitly addresses political problems. He has also worked repeatedly for a humanitarian organization in the conflict in Afghanistan.

Panel 7: Cultural Property and its Claims

Michael Barry, Princeton University and Metropolitan Museum, NY
Whose Cultural Property? The Fate of the 11th-15th-century Shrine of Gazurgah in Herat

Abstract: The 11th-15th-century shrine of Gazurgah in Herat is one of the most important Islamic monuments in all Afghanistan: yet whose approaches were bombed and filled with mass graves of executed ‘suspects’ under the Communists in 1979-1989; then whose figural carved allegories narrowly escaped destruction by the Taliban in 1995-2001; then whose surrounding highly symbolic sacred landscape has become encroached upon and cluttered by the tasteless buildings of druglords since 2001. The 15th-century miniature paintings that do allow us to make sense of the elaborate symbolism of this shrine and its landscape now survive - as heirlooms for the Afghan people - only because, throughout the 20th century's wars and guttings, they were safely housed and cared for in a rigorously temperature-controlled environment in either the British Library or in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. If kept in a Kabul or Herat Library, these delicate paintings would have undoubtedly perished between 1978 and 2001, and now, still, could not be properly conserved there: the paradox of a nation's cultural property when the nation-State collapses.

Bio: Michael Barry, born in New York in 1948 and raised in France, teaches Persian literature and medieval and modern Islamic history at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies. Between 1979 and 2002, however, he served as an international humanitarian field officer - for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and for Médecins du Monde, then as consultant and team leader in the field for the United Nations in war-torn Afghanistan. In addition to his studies on modern Afghanistan, Dr Michael Barry is the author of numerous books and articles in both French and English on medieval Islamic art and literature, and has won seven literary prizes from France and Iran. In  2005, he was asked by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to reconfigure the entire layout of their galleries of Islamic Art, scheduled to re-open in spring 2011. He is happy to visit Cambridge again, where he read for a post-graduate diploma in anthropology at King's in 1971.