Syrias endangered herita.., p.11
Syria's Endangered Heritage, page 11
Satellite image showing the city of Raqqa and Herqla warehouses
FL: How much of the museum contents still remain to the best of your knowledge? Can you give us an estimate of the percentage of the original collection?
AF: I think the number of stolen artifacts is around 900 from the Raqqa Museum. There are still about 4,500 artifacts remaining inside. But at the warehouse in Herqla, the militias stole everything, but they left one mosaic panel because it was too heavy to move.
FL: What happened in the warehouse at the Herqla site, and what steps did you take before and after the looting?
AF: Herqla is an archaeological site seven kilometers east of Raqqa, and it contained warehouses (belonging) to DGAM and to foreign missions. The warehouses were targets for robbery and looting by unknown gangs on several occasions, but guards and local people of the village prevented them and defended the site as best they could.
We immediately communicated with the DGAM, and they asked us to pile the doors of (the) warehouses with sandbags, take all the important and precious pieces from the warehouses, and hide them in a safe place. And the guard’s house in Herqla village was the best choice.
However in mid—November in 2013, an armed group, estimated to be about 100 armed fighters from DAASH, broke in the museum and also the guard’s house. They stole all the boxes except mosaic panels and took them to unknown destinations. After that happened, we closed all doors and windows with iron bars.
Destruction in Herqla warehouses after looting
FL: Which hills and ancient buildings in Al-Raqqa Governorate have been illegally excavated and smuggled?
AF: We could not get into the hill of Al Sabee Al Abead, but the guards told us that it was excavated by simple tools. The hill of Shaheen was massively excavated using heavy machines and earth moving equipment. The sides of (the) hill of Hammam Al Turkmen were also excavated by heavy machines. Most of (the) hill of East Dammer was excavated, while the slopes of West Dammer were not excavated. The hills of al-Mafsh, of al-Sawan and of al-Sheikh Hassan were not excavated too widely. And here I should mention that I personally visited all of these sites.
While there are many archaeological sites around Raqqa, due to their location and security problems and difficulties of traveling to them, we still have no knowledge of the extent of excavations that have been done. It appears from reports when we were last in contact with guards at the hill of Khwera and Ghanem Al Ali that as of that time they had not been excavated. This may also be the case in areas like the hill of Al Swehat and the hill of Moumbaqa. But guards at the square of the ancient mosque, al-Jamee, which is located inside Al-Raqqa city, reported that it was excavated and then filled in again. After DAASH occupied Raqqa, they totally destroyed the Shia shrine of Wabesa bin Maabd al Asdi, which is located in the square of the mosque.
FL: To which country do you think most of the looted artifacts were sent? What have you heard about the methods of transport, and also what have you heard about the gangs doing the stealing and who they are working for?
AF: Because the Syria—Turkey border in the area of Raqqa is completely open, I think that most of the stolen antiquities were sent to Turkey, using cars and trucks by gangs and armed groups. Some gangs are widely known in the area to be working for international mafia groups, and some appear to be working on their own.
The temporary archaeological warehouse before the second looting in Herqla village
FL: Based on the latest information coming in to DGAM in late April, 2014, what is the situation with regard to the museum and the archaeological sites in Raqqa now?
AF: Well, there is some good news partly due to publicity about what is happening, and also some resistance from the local population, who deeply value Syria’s cultural heritage and want it preserved. Two weeks ago, the Raqqa Museum re—opened to the public, after the director of museum got permission from DAASH. I have learned from the museum director that all the iron gates which we installed are still (in place), so this means that no more robbery, looting or smuggling has taken place from the Raqqa Archaeological Museum. As for the other sites, we do not know anything recent or anything more about them than what I reported to you.
FL: Thank you Vice Director al Fakhri for your time and insights.
Public Executions and Pulverized Lions
In addition to Mr. al Fakhri, this author has also spoken with others who have been in Al-Raqqa since the city fell to the armed groups. Some of these people fled, and now are residing in Palestinian camps in Syria and Lebanon. Their accounts confirm the continued destruction of antiquities, as well as murders and executions. On May 1, 2014, DAASH executed seven prisoners, with one of the victims being an 11—year—old boy. Following this, some of the bodies were strung up on poles, crucifixion style. One man was tied to a pole, with his arms outstretched, and a sign in Arabic taped to his shirt: “This man fought Muslims and detonated an IED here.”
Antiquities in the area have not fared much better. On 4/25/14 DAASH militia members used a massive German—built Hydrema excavator to smash two statues of Assyrian lions believed to date to around 727 BC. According to eyewitnesses, DAASH officials explained that the lions were of pagan origin and were an insult to Islam because they depicted living creatures, and that hence they must have been worshipped as idols. The reasoning appears similar to that employed by the Taliban, which dynamited two giant statues of the Buddah in the Bamiyan Province of Afghanistan in 2001.
Smashing two statues of Assyrian lions in Raqqa city
DAASH’s practice of following executions with a public display of the corpse (often in crucifixion poses) is reportedly growing more frequent. According to witnesses, a spokesman for the group announced that the crucifixions were intended as warnings to anyone challenging Islamic rule—such persons being regarded as enemies of Allah.
“These violent acts are part of a fundamentalist revival campaign, but these forms of ancient punishment were rarely if ever seen in the Muslim world in recent centuries,” said Abbas Barzegar, assistant professor of Islamic studies at Georgia State University, USA. “Yet they have now become a common practice of fringe Islamist groups to revive these outdated practices in an effort to bring back what they believe is authentic.”
The United Nations, the Syrian opposition and human rights groups have corroborated the scenes of horror in Raqqa—while as of mid—August, 2014, the anti—DAASH activist group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, had garnered more than 18,000 followers on its Facebook page. Meanwhile, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has stated the obvious, which is that these mass executions are war crimes.
The Syrian government launches restoration projects to restore archaeological sites as security conditions permit
The wanton destruction of the lions in Raqqa is not an isolated event; similar acts have been repeated throughout the country by other fundamentalist armed groups. Crosses and Byzantine mosaics, along with numerous Greek and Roman statues, have been destroyed, often on the grounds that they are “idols,” or that their representation of human figures violates religious beliefs. At the same time, spirited efforts are being made to take hold of the fragmented pieces and to try, wherever possible, to put them back together. To that end, DGAM has undertaken a number of ambitious restoration projects, and perhaps one of the more remarkable ones has been in the capital city of Damascus.
In November of 2013, mortar rounds fired from rebel—held areas of the East Ghouta suburb slammed into the Umayyad Mosque in the old city of Damascus, causing serious damage to one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Built in 715, the Umayyad is located in an area rich in historic buildings, and is considered by many Muslims to be the fourth holiest place in Islam. Located nearby are the Azem Palace and Khan As’ad Pasha, the tomb of Saladin, and the Museum of Arabic Calligraphy.
The shell slammed into the mosque on the night of November 13 and blew a one square meter section out of the mosaic panel.
Known as the Great Mosque of Damascus, the Umayyad Mosque has a complicated past. After the Arab conquest of the city in 634, the mosque was built on the site of a Christian basilica that had been dedicated to John the Baptist. John is honored as a prophet by both Christians as well as Muslims, who refer to him as Yahya. The cathedral was still in use by the local Christians in the seventh century, although a prayer room (musalla) for Muslims was constructed on the southeastern part of the building. Three minarets were also built, the tallest being named the Minaret of Jesus (Issa), while the minaret in the middle of the north side is called the Bride, or al-Arous, and is the oldest minaret still standing on any mosque in the Muslim world.
According to a tradition dating at least as far back as the sixth century, the head of John the Baptist lays buried beneath the great mosque. In 2001, Pope John Paul II visited Damascus and stopped in at the mosque, mainly for purpose of paying homage to the saint’s relics. It was the first time in 14 centuries a pope had visited the site. The mosque is also generally regarded by Muslims as the place where Jesus Christ (the Prophet Issa) will return at the End of Days—specifically he is expected to appear, or come down from the sky, at the Issa Minaret, named in his honor, and it is said also that accompanying him will be the Prophet Muhammad and the Mahdi, or Twelfth Imam, of Shia doctrine. Additionally, the mosque is also home to the tomb of Saladin, a factor certainly enhancing its heritage significance.
Historical Context
So why would jihadists want to bomb such an important site—and particularly why given its potential as a place of historic musalaha, or reconciliation? The reasons may have to do with its somewhat checkered past and having played a rather pivotal role in one of the most famous schisms in history. In addition to the link to John the Baptist, the mosque, or more specifically its grounds, is where the head of Hussein ibn Ali was exhibited to the public by the Umayyed leader, Yazid I, whose forces defeated Hussein at the historic Battle of Karbala on October 10, 680. The mosque’s entrance gate, known as known as «Bab as-Sa‘at,» is where the survivors of Karbala were made to stand for 72 hours, and there is also a white pulpit that was erected on the spot where Hussein’s son, Ali ibn Hussein, addressed Yazid’s court.
It is in this historical context, then, that the attack on the Umayyad Mosque in late 2013 took place. The reaction among the local community, even with all the other violence plaguing the country, was one of shock and dismay—and both the local community, and the government, have made a concerted determination that the mosque must be restored, as near as possible, to its previous condition.
Damage to Umayyad Mosque
That effort is in fact well underway. Damage to the mosque included a direct hit upon the large mosaic decorating the external façade. Known as the “al-Kabir” mosaic, the magnificent work of artistry is believed to be a representation of “paradise,” and experts think it is one of the earliest examples of ornamentation in the Islamic era, given that it portrays neither humans nor animals. The restoration is being directed by two Palestinian archaeological experts, Burhan al-Zaraa and Muhammad al-Kayed, who are assisted by students from Damascus University and the Institute of Archaeology. Al-Zaraa and Al-Kayed were living in the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk, but were forced to flee when the conflict escalated in 2012. Al-Zaraa’s family hails originally from the Palestinian city of Haifa, while Al-Kayed has roots in Nazareth, yet both appear destined to play key roles in the restoration of Syria’s damaged cultural heritage.
Palestinian archeologists Burhan al-Zaraa and Muhammad al-Kayed work at restoring the mosaic.
Measuring 16 by 16 meters, the damaged mosaic decorates the courtyard of the mosque. The shell blew out a one square meter section of the montage and also destroyed the main support beam. This observer had an opportunity to tour the site and meet with the members of the restoration team, some of whom explained that the restoration process involves several phases, including removal of the metal grid embedded within the old cement and thoroughly cleaning it so as to provide increased support to the restored panel. Some of the staff and students are also involved in restoring other mosaics, and the team makes use of a classroom and workshop space set up for them at the Citadel of Damascus, a large medieval fortified palace that is part of the Ancient City of Damascus, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Other areas of the Great Mosque of Damascus—also damaged in the mortar barrage—have already been repaired.
Shrine of John the Baptist inside Umayyad Mosque
Chapter 4
‘This Has Never Happened in Our Country’
“Go back as far as you will into the vague past, there was always a Damascus. In the writings of every century for more than four thousand years, its name has been mentioned and its praises sung. To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time, not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise, and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality.”
-Mark Twain-
T he reconstruction of ‘paradise’ at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus isn’t the only mosaic restoration project the Syrian students are at work upon. A much larger artifact, one which in fact sustained far more damage, is the Berhalia mosaic.
It was in mid—July of 2013 that DGAM received an urgent message from the village of Berhalia, 30 kilometers west of Damascus, regarding a destroyed mosaic. The antiquity in question had been shattered, seemingly beyond repair, yet it might be possible, said the villagers, to recover the pieces of it from the rebels who had taken possession of them. The thousands of small—colored tiles, called tesserae, were initially impossible to identify because the archaeological context had been substantially demolished, as had the building which housed the relic. But the mosaic chips were discovered to depict scenes from Syrian history. It was also discovered that the surface area of the composition had been approximately 60 square meters in size, making it larger even than the al-Kabir mosaic at the Umayyad Mosque
Decorated with geometrical ornaments, the Berhalia antiquity consists of two rectangular panels. One of these features an orthogonal pattern of perpendicular, intersecting four—pointed stars in tangent, the overlapping sectors forming lozenges, alternately recumbent and upright. The second, only partially conserved, is decorated with a large star of two interlaced squares inscribed in a circle. The heaps of tesserae date to around the second half of the fourth century, said Dr. Komait Abdalla, director of DGAM’s scientific laboratories.
Great discussion in the mosaic restoration laboratory at Damascus Citadel
Tesserae from the Maelstrom
What transpired leading to the tiles ending up in DGAM’s possession is worth relating. A local resident in Berhalia, apparently a former rebel sympathizer who had also been a student at Damascus University, took an interest in the mosaic, located not far from the home he and his family had been forced to flee months earlier. Contact was then made with Syrian army units in the area. A meeting took place that included a delegation of local citizens and a group of rebel militiamen, some of whom had been known to the villagers before the crisis erupted. It was the militiamen who had possession of the small pieces of the 15—century old mosaic. The people of Berhalia, like so many other Syrians this observer has met, feel deeply connected to their cultural heritage. Spare the country’s antiquities from the ravages of war—this was their message. An eyewitness reported that the hardened fighters appeared somehow moved, and soon a delegation of specialists in archaeological preservation left Damascus for Berhalia village to investigate.
Some locals hint that money may have changed hands as well, but not wanting to encourage would—be black market entrepreneurs, no one is saying for sure. One member of the community put it this way: “Who really cares much one way or another, given the continuing maelstrom here, as long as a part of Syrian cultural heritage remains under its citizens’ protective care?” It is a sentiment this observer has heard expressed more than a few times by Syrians desperately wanting an end to the violence and the soonest possible return to normal life.
The mosaic in Barada Valley
At any rate, more than a thousand pounds of tesserae, each piece measuring approximately ¾ cm by ¾ cm, were transported by military—style vehicle to Damascus for safekeeping. It was at this point that Professor Maamoun Abdulkarim, DGAM’s director, along with some of his colleagues, made it their personal mission to not only preserve the pieces, but actually restore the antiquity to its original state. The piles of tesserae were moved to Syria’s Archaeological Scientific Reconstruction Laboratories.
One of several rare mosaics discovered in the Damascus region, the mosaic of Berhalia is now progressing towards restoration. Supervision is being handled by Muhammad Kayed and Burhan al-Zaraa, whose work at the Umayyad Mosque is discussed in chapter three. When the project is complete, the mosaic will be exhibited in the nine and a half century—old Citadel of Damascus.
Tea and Pastry and a Talk with Syrian Students
