Old
Queen Zenobia came to Damascus the other day and was winched into place
in a prime spot on Umayyad Square, opposite the al-Assad national
library. The replica brass statue of the 3rd-century heroine was
representing Palmyra, her realm on the eastern edge of the Roman empire,
now in the hands of Islamic State. Zenobia’s ceremonial arrival in the capital was a pledge that Syria’s heritage has not been abandoned.
The destruction wrought by Isis on the desert city hauntingly known as the ‘Venice of the Sands’ horrified a world fatigued by a conflict that has claimed 250,000 lives and made millions homeless. And the tragedy was cruelly personalised by the fate of Khaled al-Asaad, the archaeologist who devoted his long life to Palmyra – and who was tortured and beheaded after refusing to reveal where its treasures had been hidden.
“Everyone is talking about Palmyra now,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director-general of antiquities and museums, and Khaled al-Asaad’s devoted friend and colleague, told the Guardian in his Damascus office. “But three months before it fell we asked the international community to do everything possible to prevent it falling.” Yet the battle to preserve the country’s glorious past goes on.
Abdulkarim, who is of Armenian and Kurdish background, embodies the cultural diversity of which Syrians were once proud – and which he remains determined to defend in the face of disintegration and hatred. He came to the antiquities job in the “catastrophic” summer of 2012, when rebel attacks seemed to threaten the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. His first decision was to close down all the museums in the country, to safeguard both collections and visitors. “I always say that I am the unhappiest director-general of antiquities in the world,” he quipped with a self-deprecatory smile.
The destruction wrought by Isis on the desert city hauntingly known as the ‘Venice of the Sands’ horrified a world fatigued by a conflict that has claimed 250,000 lives and made millions homeless. And the tragedy was cruelly personalised by the fate of Khaled al-Asaad, the archaeologist who devoted his long life to Palmyra – and who was tortured and beheaded after refusing to reveal where its treasures had been hidden.
“Everyone is talking about Palmyra now,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director-general of antiquities and museums, and Khaled al-Asaad’s devoted friend and colleague, told the Guardian in his Damascus office. “But three months before it fell we asked the international community to do everything possible to prevent it falling.” Yet the battle to preserve the country’s glorious past goes on.
Abdulkarim, who is of Armenian and Kurdish background, embodies the cultural diversity of which Syrians were once proud – and which he remains determined to defend in the face of disintegration and hatred. He came to the antiquities job in the “catastrophic” summer of 2012, when rebel attacks seemed to threaten the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. His first decision was to close down all the museums in the country, to safeguard both collections and visitors. “I always say that I am the unhappiest director-general of antiquities in the world,” he quipped with a self-deprecatory smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment