A paradigm shift in the way the international community perceives cultural heritage at risk during armed conflict is occurring simultaneously with the current changes of war. ‘War has exposed historic monuments and works of art to two principal dangers: the danger arising out of the practice of taking spoils during or at the close of hostilities, and the danger of destruction from acts of war, especially artillery action and aerial bombardment.’1 Cultural heritage has been in peril from as early as 395 BC when the Romans looted works of art at the sack of Veii, to the fanatic iconoclasm in AD 391 under Emperor Theodosius I who ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, such as the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria. During the Italian Campaigns …show more content…
During the Balkan war of the 1990s, cultural heritage was destroyed as a form of ethnic cleansing4. In March 2001 the Taliban issued an edict to destroy cultural heritage representing anything different than Islam, this form of iconoclasm resulted in the loss of not only the Buddhas of Bamiyan, but also other Afghanistan statues belonging to their heritage. The Director General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura (1999-2009), issued a public statement against the destruction of Afghanistan statues, stating:
To blindly destroy the statues will not alter history, only deprive the future Afghanistan of one of its riches. I ask that all those concerned, and the highest leader of the Afghans themselves, to immediately take all measures for the protection of this unique cultural heritage. The loss of any Afghan statues, and particularly the Buddhas of Bamiyan, would be a loss for all
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716).
4 The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ was denoted to the acts of violence and armed conflict spurred on by President Slobodan Miloševic who was in pursuit to create an ‘ethnically pure Greater Serbia’; after the western condemnation of the bombing of Dubrovnik and Vukovar in Croatia, western governments although late to action declared in 1992 ‘a deliberate policy of genocide as “ethnic cleansing”’ which led to the deployment of peacekeeping forces. Jane M. O. Sharp, ‘Dayton Report Card’, International Security, 22 (Winter, 1997-1998), 101-137 (pp. 101-02).
5 Mounir Bouchenaki, the Director General of ICCROM (2006-2011) was accompanying the former UNESCO Director General, Mr. Koïchiro Matsuura, on official business to Algeria when the information regarding the Buddhas at Bamiyan was learned; later after the mission to Algeria, Mr. Matsuura, on his return to Paris, stated the cited. Mounir Bouchenaki, ‘UNESCO Action for the Safeguard of the Statues of Buddha and the Prevention of Future Intentional Destruction of Cultural Heritage’, ICCROM International Forum, (Paris, France: ICCROM, 2011).
Merryman, John Henry. Thinking about the Elgin Marbles: Critical Essays on Cultural Property, Art, and Law. London: Kluwer Law International Ltd, 2000.
Every Buddhist statue tells a story of its own. Educated person can say where the statue comes from and which time period it comes from just by looking at certain features, which proves the unique developments in eastern art, art that is so similar and different at the same time. Statues originating from same countries a lot of times are made of the same materials and are decorated in ways that trace throughout the region. For example there are three major features that characterize the Luang Prabang Buddha in comparison to those of the neighboring countries. The usanisa (cranial protuberance) is always embellished with a stylized flame; the earlobe unusually long is shaped like a snail shell; and the urna or divine frontal sign is never represented.
For years on end, countries have been fighting with big museums from other countries for ancient artifacts that belong to the original countries. The argument of whether or not the museums should be able to keep them still remains. It is the right of the country to have their own artifacts. It is imperative for countries to be able showcase their historical artifacts, therefor museums should return them to their rightful owners.
The debate over the Elgin marbles has been raging for centuries. When the ancient sculptures were stolen away from Greece’s Parthenon, Grecians were infuriated (Mortimer). Ancient stones are some of all that is left portraying the ancient Greeks’ religious figures. What gives nations the right to pillage each others’ archeological wonders?
Museums rely on items to build their collections but not all the items that are housed on their shelves unarguable belong to the museum its self. In the museum culture, there is a conflict between the museum and descendant communities over the rightful owners of cultural collections.
Art is a key element in understanding history and culture. It is the written words, drawings, constructions of a nation. Eric Mortimer Wheeler, an archaeologist and British officer, was part of one of the first efforts to conserve art during the war. A fellow officer asked Eric Wheeler how important the destruction to buildings in Leptis Magna, a great city of a Roman emperor, by the British army were. His words were, “They’re irreplaceable. They’re history. They’re… It’s our duty as soldiers to protect them, sir. If we don’t, the enemy will use that against us (Edsel 35)”. Another example of art’s importance is seen when Walter Hancock gave a Torah to a Jewish chaplin. It was previously thought by Jewish survivors at his previous service that all Torah scrolls were destroyed. When the Jewish chaplin brought it to his next service, the scroll received great emotional response, “the people weeping, reaching for it, kissing it, overcome, with joy at the sight of the symbol of their faith (Edsel 310)”. Art protection was crucial during World War II. “This was the moment of art conservation; there was not a second to lose if the world’s cultural patrimony was going to be preserved (Edsel 27)”.
Hagia Sophia, a beautiful landmark in Istanbul, was originally constructed to be a Church by the Byzantines. Yet, after the invasion of the city by the Turks, Hagia Sofia was turned into a mosque immediately because it was thought to represent the power of Byzantine. Western history books refer to Hagia Sofia and the invasion as an unfortunate event because supposedly all the images of Jesus and other holy figures, which were masterpieces of the artists of Byzantine, had been destroyed by the brutal Turks. I know that this is not true, because I have personally seen all the icons from the Byzantine times in Hagia Sofia, which is now a museum. What is more ironic is that the biggest destruction of Icons in the history of Byzantine was made
The Giant Buddha of Leshan is a carving of a large Chinese Monk that resides in the mountain of Mount Emei that looks over three rivers, the Minjian, Dadu, Qingyi. However, the element that stands out is that the Buddha of Leshan is considered to be one of the largest statues in the world. The carving stands 233 feet tall and is roughly 92 feet wide, and even some people would say if the giant statue was not sitting it would be taller than the Statue of Liberty. However, when looking at the statue from my perspective, the artist and construction crew captures a sense of artistic beauty, hard work, and dedication. With his black spiraled curly hair, his broad grin, and his gazing eyes as the water from the river flows below his feet; the giant
"Should Britain Return the Elgin Marbles?" The Week UK. N.p., 14 Feb. 2009. Web. 13 Feb.
I believe that cultural artifacts should not be returned because of all the different harms it could do to the actual artifacts. One example of this would be in the first passage "Returning Antiquities to Their Countries of Origin" in paragraph 7 were James Cano talks about how he "doesn't support the return of legally acquired works" and he says why in the next paragraph. He says why
What a monument is portraying is an important factor, the message that a monument displays is one of the reasons it may “stand” or get neglected and moved from one museum to another until it finds it’s way into a dumpster. Amongst the most important parts in the construction of monuments or
Yes cultural artifacts should be returned to their religion of origin. The artifacts should be returned to their religion of origin because that is where the artifact came from. So it is like we are stealing the artifacts from that religion. If we keep taking all the artifacts from a religion and putting them in a museum people could almost completely forget about that culture.
The aim of this essay is to summarise, analyse, and evaluate two articles - “Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in the 2003 UNESCO Convention: a critical appraisal” and “Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage: Key Factors in Implementing the 2003 Convention” by Richard Kurin.
Flood, Finbarr B. "Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum." The Art Bulletin (2002):
rratives would have us believe - see, for example, Gennadios (1930); Kokkou (1977)), but because they were invested with supernatural properties. Fragments from monuments were re-used in the building of modern houses (they were mainly placed above the front doors (Gennadios 1930: 139)), not in order to rescue them (contra Kokkou 1977: 22), but as part of the cosmological belief in their apotropaic and protective properties. People were reacting angrily to the destruction of antiquities, not because of any sense of protection of heritage but because they feared that the destruc- tion would upset the supernatural spirits dwelling in the monuments, which would bring diseases and other disasters to the population as punishment and retribution.