Cultural Heritage

Last year, especially last summer, art journalists flocked to write about the latest scandal of conditions at Pompeii, which has been under threat for years and is visited every year by more than 2 million visitors — more than the Uffizi. In August, UNESCO threatened to put the site on its World Heritage in Danger list, which would be highly embarrassing for Italy. Here’s The Art Newspaper‘s report on the situation last August. And here’s an article in The Guardian from last August, reporting that the Italians had called on German assistance, specifically nanotechnology to “focus on one particular apartment building, or insula, at Pompeii and [they] will look to develop long-term solutions and preventative restoration.”

And there’ve been many other articles on “The Great Pompeii Project.”

But on Saturday, two new players — as far as I can tell with web searches — emerged in an article in The Wall Street Journal. The Dynamic Duo Saving Pompeii caught my eye with the mention of Giovanni Nistri, an art-theft specialist and “a police general who helped pry looted Italian antiquities away from top U.S. museums” and “Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, grandson of the last king of Italy—and a winner of Italian TV’s “Dancing with the Stars”—who has been recruited to attract investors.”

Nistri, the WSJ said, will run the project, which involves “restoration efforts, maintenance, a new drainage system and better closed-circuit television surveillance by the end of 2015.” The government reportedly gave him “special administrative powers to make sure the effort is executed on time, on budget, and without attracting the interest of organized crime endemic to the Naples area where the site is located.” From 2007 to 2010, Nistri supervised the carabinieri team that “tracked down millions of euros of art stolen from archaeological excavations. Before that, he was involved in negotiations with the Getty museum for the restoration of plundered antiquities.”

The “42-year-old Prince Emanuele Filiberto, a former hedge-fund analyst at Banque Syz in the mid-1990s” has been enlisted by Pompeii’s mayor to “tap his network of wealthy investors for the city’s plan to build a park north of the site and increase hotel capacity, which is currently just 700 people per night.” The park is intended to discourage “hit-and-run” tourism, instead enticing visitors to stay.

Is this change in the cast of characters a positive development, or just one more detour in the rescue? It is very hard to say from here. The Great Pompeii Project is funded in part by the European Union, so it is not solely dependent on Italian bureaucracy. Let’s hope this is a great step forward.

 Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Art Newspaper

 

“…74 precious artifacts [have] been destroyed and…90 were damaged, but repairable…” That is the partial toll of last week’s bombing in Cairo that destroyed much of the Museum of Islamic Art, according to The New York Times, which was late to the story, but made up for it on Friday with Triage for Treasures After a Bomb Blast: Sorting Through the Rubble of Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo.

The bombing killed four people and injured 76. Ahmed Sharaf, director of the Antiquities Ministry’s museum division, was quoted saying the damage “could take years” to repair. “We need funds. With financing we can do anything.” The museum owns about 97,500 objects and had “nearly 1,471 artifacts on display in 25 galleries.”

The article didn’t go much past what we knew already vis-a-vis the museum, but it added to what we know about the situation in Egypt, post-Arab Spring. It said, for example:

While Egypt has always had its share of antiquity theft, now it’s more frequent, more efficient and more outrageous. Thieves have struck Pharaonic, Greco-Roman and ancient Christian sites from Abu Rawash north of Cairo to Luxor in the south. And they’re selling these treasures faster than ever, sometimes within hours.

“The last three years, there’s been a drastic situation, where you see at every archaeological site excavating without permission,” said Saleh Lamei Moustafa, a conservator of Islamic architecture. “They’re even bringing loaders. There are only 300 in the antiquities police, armed with pistols, and they’re fighting people with heavy weaponry.”

It also, unusually, referred readers to an op-ed in the Times’s arch-rival, the Washington Post, written by Mohamed Ibrahim is Egypt’s minister of state for antiquities and a professor of Egyptology at Ain Shams University in Cairo. It was published last October, and asked for U.S. help. You can read that here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Associated Press via the NYT

With the war in Syria continuing now for two years, with no signs of a true settlement and only minimal progress at the talks in Switzerland, The Guardian has published an update on the damage to cultural heritage that includes devastating before and after pictures.

Headline Syria’s Heritage in Ruins, the article says that all six UNESCO World Heritage sites have been damaged. Specifically, it reports:

• “In Aleppo, one of the oldest covered marketplaces in the world is now in ruins; its maze of stone streets has been one of the most intense battlefields in the country for the past 18 months, bombed from above by air force jets and chipped away at ground level by close quarter battles that show no sentiment towards heritage. Those who dare raise their heads above the ruins, towards the ancient citadel that stands at the centre of the city, can also see damage to several of its walls.”
• “Several hundred miles south, just west of Syria’s third city, Homs, one of the most important medieval castles in the world, Krak des Chevaliers, has taken an even heavier toll. Directly struck by shells fired from jets and artillery, the hilltop fortress now stands in partial ruin.”
• “Homs itself has fared even worse. A residential street, where cars not long ago parked under gum trees, has been destroyed. Life has ceased to function all around this part of the city, as it has in much of the heartland of the country. In one shot, a destroyed tank stands in the centre of a street. The old minaret next to it has also been blown up.”

The article quotes Emma Cunliffe, a Durham University PhD student and member of the Global Heritage Network, saying “Archaeological sites in Syria are often on the front lines of conflict and are experiencing heavy damage. Economic hardship and decreased security mean even sites away from the fighting are looted. This is denying not only Syrians but the world a rich heritage which can provide a source of income and inspiration in the future.”

Please use the link above to see The Guardian’s full report.

I’ve posted one before-and-after, of the Old Souk in Aleppo, in 2007 and 2013, courtesy of The Guardian and Corbis, Eyevine.

 

Renewed bombing in Cairo has destroyed the highly decorated facade of the Museum of Islamic Art there, and severely affected much of the art and artifacts inside. The damage occurred on Friday, when a powerful car bomb exploded in front of the adjacent headquarters of the security police, according to Ahramonline.  The bomb, which killed four people and injured dozens more, also damaged the nearby Egyptian National Library and Archives building.

It’s unclear what can be salvaged inside the building, which dates to the 19th century. The collection includes wood, metal, ceramic, glass, crystal, and textiles objects “of all Islamic periods from all over the world.” Ahramonline said:

“The museum building is in a real mess,” said [Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed] Ibrahim, describing the interior of the museum as “topsy-turvy.” According to Ibrahim, a number of ceilings inside the building collapsed, and some artefacts were damaged.

“Until now I cannot move freely inside the museum to continue my inspection tour due to safety reasons, as the ceilings are still on the verge of collapsing,” he said.

The Associated Press article dated Jan. 24 has a full report, including:

Centuries-old glass and porcelain pieces were smashed to powder, a priceless wooden prayer niche was destroyed and manuscripts were soaked by water spewing from broken pipes…

…Ceramic and Gypsum pieces dating to the Fatimid and Mamluk periods suffered the most damage, along with ancient lanterns once used in mosques during the holy month of Ramadan. Of the world’s 300 rare lanterns, the museum houses 60, and five of those were ruined, said Rafaat el-Nabarawy, an Islamic antiquities professor….

…Among other destroyed treasures, he said, were glass pieces dating back to 750, including an ornate pot of a rare type of glass believed to be pioneered by the early Egyptians.

Other priceless pieces that were damaged or destroyed included a century-old wooden niche or “mihrab” used in mosques to point to the direction of Mecca during the five daily calls to prayer. Arabic inscriptions and verses from the Quran were carved on the piece, which belonged to Ruqaya, a daughter of Ali, a successor of Prophet Muhammed…

Today, the Associated Press reported that a UNESCO team was on its way to Cairo to assess the damage. UNESCO promised $100,000 to help the museum recover.

UNESCO’s statement condemning the bombing is here.

The AP also reported that the museum “recently completed $14.4 million renovation [that] included 25 exhibition halls, as well as state-of-the-art security and lighting systems, a fully-equipped restoration laboratory, a children’s museum and a library, much of which was gutted by the blast.”

The pictures I’ve posted are before and after shots.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of UNESCO (top), of Ahramonline (bottom)