Third-Party Heritage Preservation Interventions and 3D Printing

The Future of the Past: Third-Party Heritage Preservation Interventions and 3D Printing

Sydney Stewart Rose

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Museum Studies

Faculty of Information

University of Toronto

The Future of the Past: Third-Party Heritage Preservation Interventions and 3D Printing Sydney Stewart Rose

Master of Museum Studies

Faculty of Information University of Toronto

2018

Abstract This thesis investigates the role of the international community and 3D technologies in heritage interventions. This research seeks to ascertain how interventions initiated by the international community that seek to re-create cultural property destroyed by

ISIS/ISIL/Daesh since the beginning of the Syrian Conflict in 2011 may both resist and support Daesh’s aims. Daesh’s destruction of cultural property is understood as a form of violence against cultural identity that seeks to erase and impose cultural narratives.

Through an examination of three case studies that re-created cultural property destroyed by Daesh through 3D printing technologies, this research considers how such heritage reconstruction projects resist or support Daesh’s aims of erasure and imposition of cultural narrative and encourages critically-aware reconstruction and restoration efforts.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people to the completion of this thesis; my supervisor, Dr. Cara Krmpotich, who was endlessly patient; my second reader, Dr. Seamus Ross for pushing my thinking; and my family, Dr. Leslie Stewart- Rose, Sheldon Rose, and my dog Bailey, for always listening. iv

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iii Table of Contents iv List of Tables vi List of Figures vii 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Literature Review and Context 1 1.2.1. Cultural Property 1 1.2.2. Daesh’s Motivations for Destroying Cultural Property during Armed Conflict 4 1.2.3. Cultural Property Destruction as a Tool of Targeting Narrative 8 1.2.4 Heritage Responses 12 1.2.4.1 3D Printing Technology Applications in Heritage 12 1.2.4.2. Preservation as Resistance 12 1.2.4.3. Reproductions and Replicas in Museology 14 1.2.4.4. Meta-Cultural Property 16 1.2.4.5. Third-Party Intervention 17 1.2.4.6. Narrative 18 1.2.5. Findings and Thesis Chapter Outline 20 2. Methods 21 2.1. Methodology 21 2.2. Data collection 22 2.3. Coding and Analysis 26 3. Case Study #1: Material Speculation: ISIS by Morehshin Allahyari 29 3.1. Overview 29 3.2. Motivations 31 3.3. Relationships 33 3.4. Benefits 34

3.5. Target Audiences & Public Presentation 36 3.6. Ownership and Intellectual Property 38 3.7. Outcomes 39 3.8. Conclusions 41 4. Case Study #2: Busts Restored by the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro 43 4.1. Overview 43 4.2. Motivations 47 4.3 Relationships 48 4.4. Benefits 51 4.5. Target Audiences & Public Presentation 53 4.6. Ownership and Intellectual Property 54 4.7. Outcomes 55 4.8. Conclusions 56 5. Case Study #3: The Arch of Palmyra by the Institute of Digital Archaeology 46 5.1. Overview 46 5.2. Motivations 60 5.3. Relationships 61 5.4. Benefit 65 5.5. Target Audiences & Public Presentation 67 5.6. Ownership and Intellectual Property 70 5.7. Outcomes 72 5.8. Conclusions 76 6. Findings 60 6.2. Analysis 79 6.3. Conclusions 87 References 80 Web References 100

List of Tables

Table 1: Data Sources Table 2: Codes and Emergent concepts

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Map of Daesh Occupied Territory in 2015 from CNN Figure 2: Work from Material Speculation: ISIS by Morehshin Allahyari Figure 3: Busts in exhibition Rinascere Dalle Distruzioni at the Colosseum Figure 4: Close up of two busts at ISCR press conference by Belfast Telegraph Figure 5: The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility by Archie Carroll, 1991 Figure 6: IDA banner from publicity tent at Trafalgar Square by Gabe Moshenska, 2016

1.1. Introduction

The Syrian Conflict has been marked by highly visible destructions of cultural property. The ongoing and multi-sided armed conflict occurring in Syria and Iraq began as civilian protests against the Syrian Government of Bashar Al-Assad and escalated into civil war. The international community has become involved in the Syrian Conflict, with nations like the United States of America and Russia actively engaged in warfare on the ground in Syria and Iraq and providing armed troops. Of the multiple factions involved in this conflict, Daesh (also referred to as ISIS and ISIL) has garnered international attention for publicly releasing videos documenting their destruction of cultural property in Syria and Iraq, as well as the execution of humans. Daesh’s destruction of cultural property is a form of violence against cultural identity that seeks to erase existing historical narratives and impose Daesh’s ideological narratives.

In the wake of this destruction, the international community has employed 3D technologies in order to preserve or reconstruct cultural property damaged during the Syrian Conflict. The complexities of three well documented case studies of international heritage interventions are analyzed to consider whether these technologically enabled preservation efforts treat the physical object only, or also attend to the need to preserve the historical narrative. Ultimately, this research seeks to ascertain how interventions initiated by the international community may resist and/or support Daesh’s aims. In drawing attention to the dual erasure of objects and narratives, this research seeks to encourage holistic and critically-aware reconstruction and restoration efforts.

1.2. Literature Review and Context

1.2.1. Cultural Property

Cultural property is often conceptualized in two ways; either as the “components of a common human culture” or as “national cultural heritage" (Merryman 1986, 831-832).

The former is referred to as “cultural property internationalism” while the latter is framed as “cultural property nationalism” (Forrest 2007, 133; Geismar 2017, 12). Cultural property internationalism argues that cultural heritage belongs to all humankind and that states should intervene in international heritage situations if it is to preserve heritage. The international laws outlined in the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of May 14, 1954 (commonly referred to as the Hague Convention) tend to adopt this internationalist attitude towards cultural property, claiming that “the preservation of the cultural heritage is of great importance for all peoples of the world and that it is important that this heritage should receive international protection” (Hague 1954, Preamble). The Hague Convention continues to guide international heritage practises and was the first instance in which the term "cultural property" was used in English and in a legal context (Colston and Watt 2016, 15).1 Cultural property internationalism supports third-party heritage preservation by arguing that “damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all man-kind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world” (Hague 1954, Preamble).

In contrast, cultural property nationalism considers cultural property to be intrinsically connected to a specific cultural heritage and identity (Merryman, 1986; Bhat, 2001; Gillman, 2010). In this fashion, cultural heritage is ideally retained within the nation of origin as it is an element of a particular cultural heritage and, furthermore, that cultural property is enriched greater value when in (or close to) its original context. Bhat (2001, 10) argues that “the cultural property that [a specific culture] produces is an overt mark of its identity, a repository of cultural and traditional information, and an essential thing for a cultural group’s self understanding.” This attitude acknowledges the notion that cultural property informs the heritage process of a cultural group (Viejo-Rose, 2015). In this nationalism conceptualization, the connection between community of origin and object is valued. Definitions of the term cultural property prior to the 1980’s also supported this idea, as the term was mostly used “to denote portable works of art and architectural

1 Cultural Property has a legal designation in Canada, though academic literature often uses the term Cultural Heritage interchangeably with Cultural Property. In this thesis, I am using the term Cultural Property in non-legal sense and using it largely synonymously with Cultural Heritage.

3 monuments that embodied the history and identity of particular peoples or nation-states” (Brown 2005, 40). However, Brown continues to say that “today the expression is applied to things as disparate in their scale and characteristics as human remains, art genres, and regional landscapes” (2005, 40). Silberman (2017, 110) describes cultural property nationalism as positing an unalienable link between the modern state and all its ancient predecessors, [where] the control of cultural heritage is seen as nothing less than a prerogative of sovereignty. Like petroleum, timber, bauxite, and other natural resources, heritage objects and sites are, in the first instance, the property of the nation that contains them. Its claim for the return of looted or illegally exported cultural property even before the establishment of the state is based on territorial and, often, presumed genealogical priority.

However, Silberman’s definition homogenizes nation-states, but also fails to account for individual ownership, and his focus on “property” does not explicitly consider imperialism and colonialism within these contexts, which creates tension. For example, Yamada (2017, 316) observes that, arguments for the preservation of important cultural things on behalf of all humankind may be noble and worthy of support in principle, but they frequently conflict with two potentially competing social facts: that many things are claimed by particular cultures and many are privately owned. The quick answer would be that all things are equally part of “world heritage” and a particular national or local heritage. But that is too easy a response; it satisfies symmetry but at the expense of careful recognition of the realities of possession and control.

These two conceptualizations of cultural property, nationalism and internationalism, are often seen as being in conflict with one another (Forrest, 2007; Gillman, 2010). Forrest describes how the “preference for the protection of cultural heritage by a state with which the heritage has some connection, such as geographical origin, and the notion that, even so, that heritage belongs to all humankind, has created a damaging perception that these two notions are in conflict” (Forrest 2007, 133). Many scholars believe these two ideals can coexist in international law as the State may act as a trustee of cultural property on behalf of all humankind (Forrest 2007, 143-144). UNESCO heritage conventions and the Hague Convention adopt an attitude that reflects the values of cultural property

4 internationalism, but it is also the case that such conventions are brought into practise through national legislation.

Since Merryman’s initial writings in 1986 on cultural property internationalism and nationalism, Caswell (2011) has proposed a postcolonial approach to cultural property. This approach to the internationalism and nationalism dialogue “takes into consideration the reality of power relations between colonized and colonizer, asserts the sovereignty of states in spite of outdated nationalist constructs, and yet still acknowledges the universal appeal of cultural property in an increasingly globalized world” (Caswell 2011, 238). Further, Graham and Howard (2008) note that alternative approaches have begun to include other stakeholders, such as “sub-state actors.” As described by Silberman (2017, 11) this sometimes includes anti-state actors and “activists in indigenous communities, ethnic minorities, threatened language speakers, linguistic enclaves, class and gender movements, and diasporic groups.” Daesh is an example of a sub-state actor.

1.2.2. Daesh’s Motivations for Destroying Cultural Property during Armed Conflict

The Syrian Conflict began in 2011 as a civil war between Bashar Al-Assad’s government and the people of Syria. Peaceful protests against Al-Assad’s government were countered violently by Al-Assad’s government and resulted in “rebel” forces arming themselves. The group opposing Al-Assad’s government was first known as the Free Syrian Army, but as this conflict escalated, many different factions became involved in the war. This conflict is also marked by tensions between religious groups. Syrian Kurds, who represent about 9% of the Syrian population and are clustered in the Northeast of Syria, seceded from Al-Assad’s rule and joined the conflict, as did a branch of Islamic Al- Qaeda called Jabhat Al-Nusra (Vox, 2017). The rebel groups are in a precarious alliance as each faction has their own motivations and does not share one uniform ideology other than the desire to remove Assad from power. The rebel factions were initially poorly armed, however, the conflict has gained international attention and both the US and Russia have backed forces involved in this conflict, creating what journalists have called

5 a proxy war (AbuKhalil, 2014; Bremmer, 2018). The main players in this conflict can thus be categorized into 4 factions: Bashar Al-Assad’s government (supported by Iran and Hezbollah, as well as Russia), rebel factions (backed by Turkey, the Gulf States and Jordan, as well as by the US), the Kurds, and Daesh.2

In February 2014, a branch of the Al-Qaeda group separated from the Rebels and began to call themselves The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL, also known as Daesh) (Zarandona 2017, 650). Daesh calls themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), however, this thesis has chosen to instead use an acronym of the Arabic translation of ISIS (al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham). The use of the name Daesh is seen as form of resistance, as it may be considered as a pejorative term for ISIS in Arabic (Oakley, 2017). Daesh declared themselves enemies of Al-Qaeda and began to fight against rebels and Kurds rather than Assad, and declared their occupied territory as their caliphate. A map detailing the territory occupied by Daesh in 2015, the year that cultural property from Palmyra and Mosul which is discussed in this thesis was destroyed, can be seen below (Figure 1).

Figure 1: CNN https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/world/isis-everything-you-need-to-know/index.html

2 Civilian casualties are common from all sides of this conflict, though Bashar Al-Assad's government is said to have caused the largest losses of life through indiscriminate bombings and chemical attacks against civilians (Amnesty International, 2015).

Amidst this conflict, these different factions and their motivations have increased in complexity, though the brutality of Daesh has especially captured the attention of international media. Daesh has aggressively used social media to promote their agenda and state that they are attempting to gain control over as much land as possible, citing Salafist religious beliefs as their motivation. Daesh’s stated religious beliefs support the destruction of cultural property during this conflict, a topic I return to below.

In times of armed conflict, the destruction of cultural property is common and may be motivated by a range of strategic reasons. Brosche et al. (2017, 248) identify four, not mutually exclusive, groups of motives: (i) attacks related to conflict goals, in which cultural property is targeted because it is connected to the issue the warring parties are fighting over (ii) military-strategic attacks, in which the main motivation is to win tactical advantages in the conflict (iii) signalling attacks, in which cultural property is targeted as a low-risk target that signals the commitment of the aggressor (iv) economic incentives where cultural property provides funding for warring parties.

The deliberate destruction or damage of cultural property has been a symptom of wartime conflict for thousands of years (Cuncliffe et al. 2016, 2), however, the notion of “signaling attacks” (Brosche et al. 2017, item iii) addresses the destruction or damage of cultural property as a specific ideological target. This thesis focuses on ideological motives behind the destruction of cultural property and the ideological implications of restoring, repairing, or reproducing destroyed cultural property by third parties.

Daesh formalized their treatment of cultural property by developing specific units called Kata'ib Taswiyya, or settlement battalions. These units scout out heritage sites to be destroyed. Daesh places "great importance on establishing tawhid (monotheism) and eliminating shirk (polytheism)" (Romey, 2015). As noted by Romey (2015, para. 7), The Islamic State’s notion of shirk not only applies to pre-Islamic sites like Nimrud, but also any Islamic heritage that does not follow their strict Sunni

interpretation of Islam, as well as sites belonging to the region’s religious minorities.

Daesh’s interpretation of Islam is different than most interpretations, as Islamic histories have generally been more “flexible in its treatment of the churches of unbelievers, converting them into mosques rather than demolishing them” (Bevan 2006, 32). Isakhan and Zaradona (2017, 2) describe Daesh’s strategic targeting of cultural property as falling into one of two categories, both of which resonate with “signalling attacks”: Symbolic Sectarianism – that is, attacks on sects within Islam that do not conform to the Salafi and Wahhabi inspired doctrine of the IS, especially Shia and Sufi mosques and shrines. The second is Pre-Monotheistic Iconoclasm – the destruction of sites and artefacts that pre-date monotheism and emphasise polytheistic cults and practices, such as those of ancient Mesopotamia or the Greco-Roman world.

As Bevan (2006, 10) observes, Daesh’s destruction is “informed superficially by [their] iconoclastic religious doctrine” which enforces a narrative of “the oneness of God” but is actively targeting all “secular archaeology, museums, or world heritage sites.” Justifying their destruction of archaeological evidence at Nimrud, Daesh’s online magazine, Dabiq, announced that: The kuffār [unbelievers] had unearthed these statues and ruins in recent generations and attempted to portray them as part of a cultural heritage and identity that the Muslims of Iraq should embrace and be proud of.

In this sense, any cultural property which supports pluralistic narratives Daesh wishes to erase are targeted. This proclamation also demonstrates that tactical reasons were not primary concerns leading to the destruction.

Not all of Daesh’s interactions with cultural property involve physical destruction. The looting of antiquities from Daesh-controlled areas is said to finance the organization, with reports of Daesh charging for “the provision of licences enabling authorized traffickers to carry out excavations and sell on any objects discovered, subject to taxes of 20% - 50%” (Center for the Analysis of Terrorism 2016, 19). This expands the range of rationales to include economic incentives (Broche et al. 2017 item iv). The export of these items is considered illegal by UNESCO, but has been formalized under Daesh as evidenced

8 through documentation and forms used for the administration of the tax imposed by Daesh on antiquities. This is a lucrative strategy from a purely financial perspective, as Daesh can profit financially by controlling antiquities while simultaneously fulfilling their ideological aim of removing Syrian cultural heritage from Syria. As Thompson (2017, 158) explains, their decisions appear calculated: the sculptures pulverized in the videos are too large to transport easily and too recognizable to find a willing buyer. But the destruction also operates as another reminder to Shia, Yazidi, Christian, and other populations that IS considers heretical—that no alternatives to IS’s views, even those long dead, will be permitted.

Whether Daesh is controlling antiquities trading and taxation or destroying non-portable cultural property, Daesh’s focus on cultural property is motivated by the goal to erase pluralistic cultural narratives and symbols of polytheistic societies.

1.2.3. Cultural Property Destruction as a Tool of Targeting Narrative

Cultural property is not just the physical instantiation of of the object, but the pragmatics, context, and stories connected to a tangible object (MacDonald & Alsford 1991, 307; Bhat 2001, 10; Starn, 2002; Bevan, 2006; Reisinger and Steiner, 2006; Lixinski 2013, 21; Holtorf, 2013). In a discussion of archaeological object authenticity, Jones (2010, 182) argues that the authenticity of cultural property is culturally situated rather than inherent in materiality, while simultaneously connected to the materiality of the object. Meanings and stories are ascribed to cultural property by many audiences; to external communities, cultural property is often considered as a “cultural icon” and a signifier for the cultures in which they originated (Bevan 2006). As Bevan (2006, 23) notes, “content is not inherent in form, but arises when those forms are placed in a societal and historical context. It is the ever changing meanings brought to brick and stone, rather than some inbuilt quality of the materials or the way in which they are assembled.” In this way, cultural property can be seen as information and this research considers heritage institutions as information-rich resources, not simply object-rich resources. MacDonald & Alsford (1991, 307) note that

There are several advantages to thinking of the primary resource, or commodity, of the museum business as information, rather than as artifacts. One is that it validates the collecting and use of intangibles of culture (e.g. processes, oral history, mentifacts) and of replicas, without reducing the importance or value of material collections of original objects.

Objects of tangible cultural property are significant to the communities which created them, the cultural communities which managed and preserved them, and to external communities who were not involved in the creation of preservation of these objects, as signifiers of meaning.

Cultural property has been a target for wartime ideological violence because of this deep connection between cultural property and cultural identity, as the physical object is intrinsically connected to the heritage narratives which surround them. Philosopher Henri Lefebvre discussed this connection, saying that “monumental space offered each member of a society an image of that membership, an image of his or her social visage ... It thus constituted a collective mirror more faithful than any personal one” (Lefebvre in Leach 2005, 133). In this sense, cultural identity is tied to cultural property, as cultural property reflects and manifests cultural identity (Van der Auwera 2013, 50). It is for this reason that the destruction of cultural heritage in armed conflicts is viewed as “psychologically affecting the communities linked to it and potentially causing increased violence" (Cuncliffe 2016, 2). Cultural property is increasingly damaged not as a byproduct of armed conflict, but is actively targeted as a form of cultural and ethnic cleansing (Brammertz et al. 2016, 1143). This occurs because, as Bevan states, “the link between erasing any physical reminder of a people and its collective memory and the killing of the people themselves is ineluctable” (Bevan 2006, 8).

In Syria and Iraq, this ideological warfare is palpable. While the physical danger to cultural property is the visible action, Daesh is using this destruction as a way of targeting cultural narratives. Bevan has commented that “as an organization, Daesh has inherited the Taliban and al Zarqawi's brutal way with heritage, demonstrating its keen understanding of the uses and abuses of architecture. The destruction of cultural sites can serve many purposes, terror, propaganda, conquest, genocide” (Bevan 2017, 12). In this

10 specific case, targeting cultural property achieves what Bevan calls “the pursuit of ethnic cleansing or genocide by other means, or the rewriting of history in the interests of a victor reinforcing his conquests” (Bevan 2006, 8). During the conflict in Syria over the past decade, the destruction of cultural property has been used by Daesh to facilitate cultural identity and narrative erasure, influencing cultural narratives by removing reminders of the historical narratives they hope to erase. Daesh’s destruction of cultural property and “violence against architecture in Syria and Iraq by Daesh is part of its effort to erase history and cast off memories of ancient rule in order to create a new historical memory" (Fisher 2017, v).

In World War II, the Third Reich exploited the link between cultural property and identity. The Third Reich used fine arts as propaganda and controlled “approved” art, confiscating art which it felt did not fit their narrative. The aim of the Third Reich was to “procure art for the ideology of racism” (Siebers 2000, 100) and “‘implement’ the ideology of the supremacy of the German spirit" (Georgopouloul, 2016). The Nazi’s focus on cultural property sought to alter evidence, and therefore historical memory. Parliamentary documents reflect the understanding that such physical acts of destruction are meant to target cultural identity. This is evident in Recommendation 1687 of the Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe, Combating Terrorism through Culture, Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe, 2004, which states that “beyond the physical damage or destruction of monuments, temples or symbols of a given culture and way of life, such terrorist acts target the very cultural identity of a people or a population" (2004). Interestingly, Recommendation 1687 of the Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe (hereafter Recommendation 1687), also indicates that “culture is... becoming increasingly a target of terrorism.”

Culture has long been a target of ideological domination and terrorism and, as discussed above, has occurred on a large scale in Europe as recently as WWII. Legislation outlining the protection of cultural property in armed conflict was in fact drafted in response to the targeting of cultural property during WWII. The belief of the Council that the cultural property destruction of the present is different and less acceptable today may be because

11 of the increased visibility of the targeting of cultural property. Smith et al. (2016, 181) argue that the contemporary communications environment has provided “the means through which destructive acts can have global impact.” Daesh’s viral videos of the destruction of cultural property have circulated widely, for example and Daesh’s use of social media is a part of their recruitment strategy as well as a method of creating an internationally recognized name. As Speckhard (2017, 80) has noted, “ISIS may be losing the ground war in Syria and Iraq but winning in the other areas, especially in the digital battle-space.” Further, Speckhard (2017, 84) argues that “unlike other jihadist terrorist organizations, its online campaign does not operate in the shadows; on the contrary, its content is outsourced and distributed to everyone willing to embrace it.” This is a part of Daesh’s concentrated effort to gain international recognition and attention. In this sense, terrorist groups have exploited the “visual, symbolic nature of cultural heritage [which] makes this heritage particularly vulnerable” (Smith et al. 2016, 181); its destruction is coupled with visual documentation and broadcasting of the destruction to make powerful statements.

As the visibility of the destruction of cultural property in Syria reaches its height due to the world wide web, concern regarding the implications of this destruction for the people of Syria has grown. Al-Azm (2015, para 7) highlights the importance of heritage in postwar periods in Time Magazine, saying that Once the current violence ends, the people of Syria will need to find ways to reconnect with symbols that once united them across religious and political lines. The country’s ancient past, represented in its rich cultural heritage, is key to this. Protecting and preserving Syria’s history and heritage is thus also about safeguarding its future.

Given that Daesh’s destruction intends to alter cultural narratives to focus on “the oneness of god” and is used to further cultural violence, the implications of heritage restoration practises on these narratives may have complex motivations and repercussions.

1.2.4 Heritage Responses

1.2.4.1 3D Printing Technology Applications in Heritage

In the wake of this destruction, heritage professionals have turned to recent technologies in 3D printing in an attempt to preserve heritage that has been destroyed in armed conflict. This reflects a broader adoption of 3D printing technologies within heritage institutions for their own purposes of education, preservation and access (Bearman, 2011). Institutions have begun to share 3D digital models of cultural property through online databases, use 3D printed models in educational collections, feature 3D printed contemporary arts for tactile tours and educational workshops, or even use 3D digital reconstructions as virtual reality. Heritage organizations employing 3D technologies often draw from their own collections, whereas this study addresses projects using 3D technologies to "protect" or "preserve" cultural heritage outside their collections from wartime destruction.

1.2.4.2. Preservation as Resistance

The preservation of cultural property by memory institutions may be seen as a form of resistance (Ashley, 2006; Robertson, 2008; De Cesari, 2010; Cheng, 2014; Davenport, 2015). By reversing the damage to cultural property, heritage organizations feel that they have negated the effects of the destruction, preserving not just the physical item, but also the narrative and cultural identities which are under attack. Writing about digitized archives in post-apartheid South Africa, Pickover (2014, 1) posits that within archives, preservation is seen as resistance; what is deliberately chosen to be preserved plays a “powerful role in framing and controlling our understanding of the past, in constructing the national psyche.” Heritage and memory institutions preserve physical items for a multitude of reasons including aesthetic, documentary, and scientific reasons (Alexander 2008, 188). Interventions are meant to document; by preserving the material trace of something, heritage institutions can ensure that a certain narrative is also preserved. This resonates with Derrida’s position that the archive is about the future rather than the past (Derrida 1995, 27). The acts of preservation in the case studies examined in this thesis were undertaken with the specifically stated aim of preserving cultural narratives and

13 identities which are under attack. These interventions are not within an organization, but initiated by a third-party who is aware of their ability to preserve both cultural narratives as well as their physical manifestations. However, by preserving physical objects, extant narratives are not automatically preserved and memory institutions can also influence narrative. Ivan Gaskell (2012) discusses the ways in which museums influence knowledge construction and narrative, highlighting selection for preservation, physical arrangement and texts, and the status of objects within the museum. By choosing what to preserve or display and how, memory institutions influence how knowledge and narratives are constructed. Pickover (2014, 1) notes that archives “are not just simply housing but constructing and burying memory.” In this way heritage institutions take an active role as memory institutions. Pickover (2014, 1) observes: In some cases these institutions are running projects where they are actively producing knowledge and adding to contested and conflicted memory and meaning as opposed to the perception that they are merely inert recipients, keepers and custodians.

As contributors to the process of cultural knowledge creation, heritage institutions may approach preservation as an act of resistance. Heritage institutions may use their influence to support a narrative which counters a dominant narrative. In this way, “heritage institutions potentially serve not just as communicators of ideological knowledge, but as fora for negotiation and resistance” (Ashley 2006, 643). Memory institutions like archives and museums have political power and are not impartial. Memory institutions use their physical manifestations of memory in the process of “creating, preserving, controlling, altering, reinventing and reinterpreting” narratives (Pickover 2014, 2). Through deliberate preservation of certain physical items, certain narratives may also be preserved which may resist or counter a dominant or enforced narrative. In this sense, with the preservation of physical items, the narratives which are made accessible by the memory institution will be influenced by the institution itself. This type of project may be viewed as a form of activism, especially in cases which seek to resist “cultural cleansing.” By supporting a narrative which has been targeted for erasure through display, interpretation, and preservation, these interventions acknowledge

14 the power of memory institutions in resistance and cultural property’s role in knowledge creation.

1.2.4.3. Reproductions and Replicas in Museology

This thesis explores heritage interventions which have used 3D technologies to create reproductions of cultural property which was targeted by Daesh. Replicas and reproductions have a long history of use in a museological context and reproductions of objects have been common throughout museological history (Wallach, 1998; Isaac, 2011; Wilson, 2017). Reproductions were used by ethnographers and commissioned by museums such as the Smithsonian and the Pitt Rivers in Oxford in the early 1900’s (Isaac 2011, 214). Reproductions of paleontological specimens are still highly valued, however, reproductions of fine art and archaeologically recovered objects are often considered to be inferior to originals. With regard to the fine arts, reproductions were used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by American and European artists as an educational tool (Isaac 2011, 214). Reproductions of works of art became more common with the rise of lithography and photography (Verhoogt, 2007). Verhoogt (2007, 24) considers the history of reproduction and comments that works by both old masters and living masters were reproduced on a large scale, and that some of these reproducers “almost matched these old masters in terms of popularity.” However, fine art institutions shifted from collecting casts and reproductions in the early 1900’s to collecting originals (Wallach, 1998). One of the main supporters of originality and authenticity in the American museum community was Metropolitan Museum of Art director Matthew Prichard, who once commented that he believed that casts and reproductions in museums were nothing but data mechanically produced, and that “only our originals are works of art" (Wallach 1998, 52). The tensions between the use of reproductions and the high value placed on originality in art are detailed by Verhoogt (2007, 18), who summarizes that in “the nineteenth century the phenomenon of art reproduction seems to have been diametrically at odds with the dominant views on art” which praised originality and authenticity.

While the the replica did not always have negative connotations (Isaac, 2011), the rise of mechanical reproduction has raised questions surrounding authenticity and aura

(Benjamin, 1936). Benjamin (1936, 6) argues that “the unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value.” However, with the rise of mechanical reproductions of art, Benjamin (1936, 4) observes that “the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition.” Benjamin (1936, 4) states that aura, like authenticity derives from “the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.” Detachment from context, then, strips reproductions of their aura and authenticity. For mediums like photography and film, the concept of the original print is far less meaningful, and concepts of originality and authenticity were considered less valid. The museological world has begun to question their focus on collecting original works. MacDonald & Alsford (1991, 306) offer that “the centrality to that role of collections of original objects has been put to question” by institutions such as as science museums, which are “more interested in processes than objects”; children's museums, which rely largely on replicas; and ecomuseums, which are a blend of space, activities, tangible and intangible heritage. These types of museums do not emphasize the importance and value of original works. This shift has caused professionals to consider authenticity as a relationship between people and things and “no longer exclusively considered to be a quality inherent in a monument or artifact” (Silberman 2014, 370). Moreover, Cronin (2016, 731) argues that “3D scan and print technologies hold the potential to undermine the value placed on original cultural artifacts based upon their rarity and aura.” With this in mind, this thesis aligns most with Thompson (2017, 170) who summarizes that “rather than worrying about the aura of cultural artifacts, I am worried about their interpretation.”

Given this shift in the museological paradigm, this research considers replicas as a valuable part of museological work and acknowledges the use of replicas in museological history. This research positions both originals and reproductions as potential sources of information within a museological context, and in particular explores the potential of reproductions created using 3D digital technologies. 3D printing technology is intended to provide scientifically exact reproductions. Aygen (2013, 133) investigates replicas of historic architecture in public spaces in Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth

16 centuries and defines postmodern simulacrum3 as something which can “replicate the past with a claim that the replica is as close to the authentic original as it can be.” This resonates with twentieth and twenty-first century 3D printed replicas which claim exactitude. Han (2017) distinguishes between two types of replicas, positing that visually dissimilar copies (fangzhipin) are not authentic, whereas exact replicas (fuzhipin) do not have less value than originals and can retain concepts of authenticity. However, I question the emphasis of materiality in discussions of authenticity and have considered authenticity as a process stemming from pragmatics, context, meanings, and stories associated with an object. Ideas of “exactitude” are discussed further in chapters 3 and 5, while the conservation philosophy to make known replicated components is addressed in chapter 4.

1.2.4.4. Meta-Cultural Property

Critical to this study is that in each case study the originals no longer materially exist in their entirety; reproductions (in whole or in part) are the only existing physical representations.4 Visual representations such as photographs of these objects exist, and were crucial to the 3D modelling process. Thus, there exists both digital models as well as physical reproductions. Such digital cultural property data has been called “meta- cultural property” by Silberman (2014). According to Silberman, meta-cultural property that exists when the original is destroyed can act as “stand-ins for the lost cultural property” (Silberman 2014, 367). Silberman (2014, 368) elaborates, saying meta-cultural property, like scans of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas, have highlighted the significance of “their own preservation, not as superfluous or supplementary data, but as cultural property in its own right.” He further states that despite [meta-cultural property’s] obvious vulnerability, impermanence, and unequal access by digital heritage source nations and digital heritage consuming nations, the economic value of information about cultural property has become enormously greater than the value of the cultural property itself. (Silberman 2014, 368)

3 Simulacrum has been defined by Baudrillard (1994: 1) as representations without originals, such as digital representations of things that have not existed as an original. 4 It is common practise for reproductions to exist where originals also exist i.e: the Rosetta Stone, or Paleontological casts.

Though digital representations of cultural property have been presented by Silberman as “stand-ins” for the original, others have considered reproductions as representing ideas and not the original object. As Abbott (2017, 12) notes, “models can be used to represent ideas, but not artifacts themselves.” Verhoogt (2007, 25) also defines reproductions as a representation of “the original work in another guise, technique, format and context, at the same time presenting itself as an independent work in its own right, with its own specific qualities.” It is the interaction between the reproduction and the original that connects the biographies of both objects. Given that reproductions represent ideas and narratives, meta-cultural property, like material cultural property, “can be degraded, ideologically weaponized, and withheld from public scrutiny" (Silberman 2014, 368). As this thesis has considered cultural property as information, digitized 3D reproductions are viable resources with which memory institutions construct, preserve, alter, or reinvent narratives.

1.2.4.5. Third-Party Intervention

Scholarship has been critical of the international focus on heritage initiatives rather than humanitarian projects to prevent the loss of civilian life (Bevan, 2006; Bauer, 2015; Williams, 2015; Munawar, 2017). Many individuals who have been victims of the Syrian conflict have turned to digging for antiquities in order to make money to survive (Reichel, 2017). Sensibly, people care more for their lives than for the protection of cultural property and would rather efforts and resources be spent saving lives and families rather than cultural property projects. There have also been accounts of individuals risking their lives to protect Syrian cultural heritage (Cuncliffe et. al 2016; DGAM, 2013). These two efforts, one towards saving human life and one towards saving cultural heritage, are seen as being in conflict with one being more significant, timely, and essential, than the other. Munawar (2017, 43) argues that“rebuilding, recreating, restoring or even reconstructing must not be carried out when a war is still ongoing.” In his discussion of what legitimizes international heritage interventions, Frigerio (2018, 111) states, the fair treatment of the civilian population would be the priority issue, even with respect to an intervention originally aimed at protecting cultural heritage from acts of intentional destruction. A situation whereby the destruction of cultural heritage

is terminated, but individuals are still persecuted, would be illogical and indefensible.

It would follow that the international interventions considered in this thesis, which resist Daesh’s destruction of cultural property while not attempting to address the loss of life, would be deemed illegitimate by Frigerio.

Though these two priorities are seen as being in conflict, other scholars suggest holistic humanitarian and heritage interventions, arguing for an approach to humanitarian aid rooted in an understanding of culture and heritage (Ruhe, 2017). Further, Bakarat (2007) suggests cultural property should be essential to a holistic approach to heritage reconstruction, emphasizing recovery scenarios in which local groups lead construction efforts as readily as external actors. Munawar (2017, 43), who believes heritage interventions should not occur during ongoing conflict, nevertheless argues for the need of heritage restoration, stating that “the post-conflict reconstruction of Palmyra should be incorporated into the reconciliation of Syrian society with all its divisions, ethnicities, sectors and religions.” Archaeologist Eric Kansa noted in an interview discussing the replica arch by the IDA that to function as an act of resistance, these projects should “focus on the humanity connected to cultural objects -- not just the object itself -- if they truly wish to use 3D printing as an ‘act of solidarity’" (quoted in Bond, 2016).

1.2.4.6. Narrative

When the destruction of cultural property is used as a tool of violence, re-creating that cultural property may have ramifications which differ from the initial intended resistance. Viejo Rose (2013, 138) outlines this attitude, stating that: ingrained in the discourse that calls to protect cultural heritage and safeguard diversity is a positive moral vernacular which suggests that heritage is inherently ‘good’. Yet, heritage can be made to convey violent and exclusionary messages and a society entrenched in its diversities might not be disposed to dialogue or open to multiple readings of that heritage. Ignoring the less benign interpretations of heritage neither addresses the factors that make it a target in the first place nor the possible messages that its reconstruction might send.

As noted by both Burch (2017, 73) and Bevan (2006), meaning is contextual; cultural property and connote different meanings through time and changing physical environments. In this study, not only did Daesh influence narrative change, but the institutions coordinating these three international intervention projects did as well.

This research considers heritage organizations as memory institutions which have the power to alter narratives; as 3D technologies become more popular in heritage work, the implications of interventions that use this technology should be considered. Recent international heritage interventions such as those in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, East Timor, and Afghanistan have raised questions surrounding international heritage interventions during armed conflict (Viejo-Rose 2013, 126-127). Given that third-party heritage intervention has been shown to be problematic (Viejo-Rose, 2013; Viejo-Rose, 2015; Walasek, 2015), explorations such as this study are vital to understand the implications of international heritage interventions. Though these interventions may be well intentioned, Viejo-Rose (2013, 137) points out that “iconic sites may provide attractive photo opportunities [but] they are also complex in the meanings and memories that they convey and their reconstruction can send messages that the international bodies involved in the process did not intend.”

Most international heritage organizations follow the conventions and regulations outlined by UNESCO, ICCROM, or other parliamentary practises. When a heritage organization seeks to intervene to preserve cultural property in a different country, it may be because they believe that that cultural property belongs to, and is the responsibility of, all humankind, not just its culture of origin. Such preservation efforts may have self-serving motives as third-parties believe that they are preserving or protecting something that they believe they have a stake in, or a claim to. If this is the case, then the “third parties” may be viewed as not external parties. In contrast, Munawar (2017, 38) asserts that “the immediate stakeholders in Palmyra are the local people – the Syrians - who were born in, and lived, and participated in constructing Palmyra’s fame throughout history.” In this thesis, “third party” is considered to be neither source nation nor destructive party, however, through the lens of internationalism, these organizations may consider

20 themselves as carrying responsibility to preserve cultural property. Viejo-Rose (2013, 125) cautions that international heritage interventions often “impress their particular code of values on fragile societies.” At the heart of this thesis is an exploration of how codes of values are enforced, resisted, affirmed, and undermined.

1.2.5. Findings and Thesis Chapter Outline

Daesh’s destruction of cultural property is a method to erase extant narratives of cultural pluralism and impose an external narrative of the “oneness of god”, perpetrated through the destruction and removal of cultural property, as well as the re-narration of historical narratives. The findings of this research indicate that international heritage interventions, motivated by the urge to resist the erasure and imposition of narrative, may actually contribute to narrative erasure through the imposition of their own external narrative. Through the examination of three case studies, of artist Morehshin Allahyari’s work Material Speculation: ISIS, the restoration of Palmyrene funerary busts by the ISCR in Italy, and the replica Triumphal Arch by the Institute of Digital archaeology, this thesis asks to what degree third-party heritage interventions using 3D technologies resist and/or (unintentionally) contribute to Daesh’s aims of physical and narrative erasure. Chapter 2 describes the selection of case studies, the method of data collection, and analysis process. Chapter 3 offers an in-depth examination of the first case study, examining Morehshin Allahyari’s body of work titled Material Speculation: ISIS, and its exhibition at Trinity Square Video in Toronto. Chapter 4 considers the second case study of two busts exported from Syria and restored in Italy by the ISCR and exhibited at the Colosseum. Chapter 5 investigates the third case study of the Institute for Digital Archaeology’s reproduction of the Arch of Palmyra and its display in London, New York, Dubai, and Italy. Chapter 6 provides a comparative look across the case studies to determine whether the previously extant narrative targeted by Daesh was erased, if a new narrative from an external group was imposed, and if the physical or intellectual property was removed from the location. This final chapter also proposes avenues for future study, raising issues of secularism in third party interventions and authenticity of 3D reproductions.

2. Methods

2.1. Methodology

This qualitative research uses a collective or multiple case study approach, as this design is effective for studying contemporaneous phenomenon over which the investigator has little control (Yin, 2009). This research uses these three case studies to ask the following questions. I. How can third-party interventions using digital technologies resist the ideological aims of Daesh? II. How can third-party interventions using digital technologies support the ideological aims of Daesh?

Cases were considered for inclusion if they met four criteria: they 1) involve portable or monumental cultural property, 2) that has been destroyed by Daesh during the current war in Syria, and 3) have been recreated using 3D technologies, 4) involving the efforts of at least one third-party. From the available cases that met all four criteria, I then purposefully selected three cases that represent distinct positions: 1) an artistic practice intended for public exhibition, 2) museological conservation and diplomatic heritage relations, and 3) an academic and business partnership. The chosen cases have all had international media coverage in mainstream media sources and the results of the interventions have all been publicly exhibited. While the destruction occurred in Syria, the 3D reproductions have occurred globally. The three case studies are:

1. Material Speculation: ISIS by the artist Morehshin Allahyari, a collection of 12 3D printed objects, originally exhibited at Trinity Square Video in Toronto, Ontario and subsequently at John Jay College of Criminal Justice; 2. Two Busts destroyed in Palmyra, restored by the Italian Institute for Conservation and Restoration (ISCR) using 3D printing technologies and exhibited at the

Colosseum, with support from UNESCO, The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), Fondazione Terzo Pilastro, and Incontro di Civiltà; 3. The Arch of Palmyra, replicated on a smaller scale using 3D scanning and modelling technologies by The Institute for Digital Archaeology, as a collaboration between the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the Museum of the Future and exhibited in London, New York, Dubai, Florence, and Arona, Italy.

Within each case study, data was collected to answer a range of questions: For who and why was the destroyed cultural property significant? What were Daesh’s motivations for destroying these objects? What were the motivations behind the reconstruction project? Why was 3D replication essential and what influence did the kind of 3D techniques used have on the project? Who are the third parties involved in these cases, and what is their prior history of involvement with Syrian antiquities/cultural property? Does any person or group benefit from the 3D reproduction? Who are the target audiences of the reproductions? How was/is the project presented to the public and/or other groups? Who owns the physical representations or meta-cultural property? What was the project’s dominant narrative? What does the reproduction memorialize, commemorate, or represent? And, how and where is Daesh’s targeted narrative present?

2.2. Data collection

During my research, both descriptive and diagnostic data were collected to understand the case studies as well as answer the larger research questions. See Table 1 for a table detailing the materials used to collect data. Collected data was coded according to emergent and recurring themes both within the individual cases themselves as well as between the three cases during analysis.

Table 1

Case Study Press Visitor Scholarship Interviews Videos Exhibition Web Releases Statistics Material sources

1 X X X X X X

2 X X X X X X

3 X X X X X X

Prior to collecting data on the case studies, a literature and media review was undertaken to explore Daesh’s aims in destroying cultural property. Social media videos distributed by Daesh were analyzed to determine the ideological aims of Daesh when targeting cultural property. Videos which were posted by Daesh’s social media arm on their own websites and then circulated through YouTube and news media outlets were watched with English subtitles and transcripts, with translations provided and available to the public. I watched footage of destruction at Palmyra and the destruction of the Mosul Museum three times as these are objects involved in the case studies. Videos posted by Daesh of destruction of cultural property not from Palmyra or the Mosul Museum were also watched to determine if the destruction at Palmyra and Mosul aligned with Daesh’s other destructive acts, such as at Nimrud. Documents produced by Daesh and used internally which have been leaked to the public and circulated by media outlets as well as the Centre for Analysis of Terrorism were examined, as well as documents from third- parties or international organizations who have reported on Daesh’s interactions with cultural property such as UNESCO. Media reports from international outlets were used to contextualize the destruction of the objects in these case studies.

Next, I compiled data from each individual case study to ascertain recurring and emergent themes. As described further below, press releases, exhibition text, promotional materials, catalogue records, and/or web presences produced by the third-party

institutions or individuals (in the case of practicing artists) provide valuable insights into the assumptions, rationale, motivation, and desired outcomes for the 3D reproductions. Many of the cases represent sites of ongoing research across numerous disciplines, making it possible to include scholarly sources as data. Data was collected in English and Italian; Google Translate was used for a first pass and then refined through consultation with a fluent Italian speaker, though translations provided by the institution and translated in the original or provided by UNESCO/ICCROM were prioritized.

The first case study examines Allahyari’s artistic initiative, Material Speculation: ISIS, and information made available by the artist and curators of this project were collected and coded. This includes exhibition brochures and information made available on the websites of the exhibition spaces, creating a total of 16 pages of data produced by the exhibiting bodies of Material Speculation, Trinity Square Video and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Information which was shared online as a ZIP file by Allahyari as a part of Material Speculation: ISIS was also collected. Media coverage about Material Speculation was collected, as well as media coverage of Allahyari’s other projects, to aid understanding of her artistic practise. Video transcripts and notes on Allahyari’s lectures and interviews, as well as legal scholar Erin Thompson’s 2017 discussion of the ethical and legal implications of Material Speculation: ISIS were also coded. Data about the destruction of the Mosul Museum was collected from both videos and news reports circulated by media sources as well as from archaeological scholarship (Brusasco, 2016). Consistently across Allahyari’s lectures, exhibition material from the exhibition space and the brochure, and media sources, this art installation is described as an act of resistance.

A broad range of information was produced by the organizers of the Italian project to restore damaged busts from the museum in Palmyra. The many organizations involved each seemed to produce and make available their own information about the project demonstrating less central control -- a notable contrast from the third case study involving the IDA. A 16-page press release bearing the logos of the organizations involved was issued, with information in both English and Italian. The ICCROM and the ISCR, who

contributed to this project, also issued separate statements of 6 pages each. The ISCR also publicly released a detailed conservation treatment report. Despite the multiple authors of this information, there is a consistent message in the information provided by the different organizations involved in this project, with similar themes across data sources; both the ISCR and ICCROM’s separate press releases, a video interview with the president of the Incontro di Civiltà, Francesco Rutelli, an ISCR restoration team member quoted in a media article by Said Moorhaus, and the ISCR Conservation Treatment Report, use either the words “erase” or “cancellare” when discussing the aims of the restoration project, stating that this project intended to erase Daesh’s destructive aims. This case generated local and international media coverage, in both English and Italian, which was coded. The Incontro di Civiltà organization provided links to media reports, providing 29 articles in multiple languages about the restoration project (10 in English, 10 in Italian, 4 in Spanish, 4 in French, and 1 in German) and 33 articles in multiple languages about the exhibition at the Colosseum (12 in Italian, 6 in English, 6 in German, 4 in French, 3 in Spanish, 1 in Hungarian, and 1 in Russian). Articles in languages other than Italian and English were not coded. Videos and pictures posted online by audiences to the exhibition were not coded but were considered as a means of contextualizing the exhibitions curation. No scholarly sources researching this case study were found, as of June 2018.

A large amount of data that was collected and coded in the examination of the third case study of the replica arch by the IDA was produced by the institution itself. 67 pages of information about the arch was produced by the IDA and available online through their website. There is a separate web page for each of the 5 display locations of the replica arch and there is cohesion between the messages on each web page, as each web page invokes similar themes with four of the five display locations web pages (Dubai, Arona, London, New York) calling the arch a “symbol.” The pages for the Dubai and New York displays both compare the city of display to the city of Palmyra before its destruction in 273 A.D. Four of the five pages (New York, Dubai, London, Arona) mention a responsibility to protect shared cultural heritage. 50 of 67 pages of content about the arch produced by the IDA is from these 5 separate pages discussing the 5 different locations of

display. Of these 5 sites, 3 sites (London, Dubai, Florence) have 6 pages of information or less available. The New York display site page has the largest amount of content available, 20 pages, with Arona’s display site the next largest at 13 pages. Much of the content produced by the IDA contains links to media coverage or quotes from individuals indirectly related to the project, such as politicians. Data was also collected through media sources; the replica arch project was reported by multiple news organizations, mostly in English. Data from 4 videos uploaded to YouTube by both news sources such as The Guardian and individual audiences were collected transcribed, and coded. Comment from audiences at the arch’s unveiling ceremonies shared online was coded as well, including the experiences shared by hyperallergic journalist Claire Voon, Graduate Researcher Zena Kamash, YouTube user swilliamson, and tweets from visitors. Information provided about the replica arch project by heritage scholars has also been coded. This 3D replication project spanned 2015-2017 and information about what was to be reconstructed and where it was to be displayed changed over time, but general intentions, themes, and statements about the replication effort remained constant.

2.3. Coding and Analysis

This thesis began by looking for the following main themes: Motivations, Relationship History, Financial Benefits, Target Audience, Public Presentation, Narrative, Decontextualization, Ownership/Intellectual Property. These categories reflect Verhoogt’s (2007) outline of the five life phases of a reproduction5 which are: 1) proposal and initiation, 2) agreement of authorship, 3) process and creation, 4) distribution, and 5) public reception. The initiation of the proposal and idea is reflected in the category of motivations, the agreement of authorship and intellectual property rights was examined through both categories of relationships and ownership, and process and creation of the reproduction is reflected in the examination of how 3D printing technologies were employed in each case study. Distribution was reflected in the code of public presentation and target audiences, while public reception was reflected within outcomes and benefits. As the research progressed, these categories changed; I initially sought to code examples

5 Verhoogt considered reproductions of paintings historically and I have extended his categories to digital reproductions

of instances where the case study contributed to the decontextualization of cultural property, however, this evolved into a code which considered where and how the narrative targeted by Daesh was presented within each case study. I also initially sought to consider financial benefit only, but this category was redefined with the addition of the emergent codes of cultural capital, public image, and general benefit. Ultimately, the coding of data occurs 3 times, with the final coding including the categories: Motivations, Relationships, Benefit, Target Audiences & Public Presentation, Ownership & Intellectual Property, and Outcomes. These codes were represented across all case studies and analyzed to determine similarities, differences, and patterns across the data collected within each broad coding category. The dat was then coded for more specific emergent concepts. These emergent concepts included: universalism (represented by the synonyms: heritage of all humankind, universal heritage, shared heritage, common heritage, international responsibility, collaboration, cooperation); erasure (erase, censor); and resistance (resist, oppose, symbol, counter, activism). For a full list of codes and emergent concepts see Table 2 below. Table 2

Concept Terms

Universalism heritage of all humankind, universal heritage, shared heritage, common heritage, international responsibility, collaboration, cooperation,

Erasure Erase, censor

Resistance resist, oppose, symbol, counter

All codes appear across all three cases studies, and particular attention was given to codes occurs with greatest frequency. The next three chapters describe each third-party digital

intervention, and analyze the data to return to the questions of how such digital interventions may ultimately resist or affirm Daesh’s ideological aims.

3. Case Study #1: Material Speculation: ISIS by Morehshin Allahyari

3.1. Overview

The Mosul Cultural Museum in Iraq was ransacked by Daesh during the Syrian Conflict in early 2015. Members of Daesh toppled statues over and used sledgehammers and jackhammers to irreparably damage cultural property that was housed in the museum. This museum was the second largest museum in Iraq and the areas of the museum which were the most damaged were Assyrian and Hatrene areas of the museum (Brusasco 2016, 206). A video documenting the destruction of cultural property housed in the museum was posted online on February 26, 2015, and it soon gained global attention (Brusasco, 2016). The video was posted on a Twitter account known to be used by Daesh and the video featured the logo of Daesh’s media arm. This footage was played by news outlets around the globe. In this video, Daesh states their motivations clearly to the viewer: they felt compelled, or “ordered by [their] prophet to take down idols and destroy them” (New York Times, n.d.). This religious motivation to destroy cultural property they deemed "idolatrous" is the most actively stated aim of Daesh in this video and is an example of what Isakhan and Zarandona (2017) call “Symbolic Sectarianism”: the cultural property housed in the museum represented a narrative that Daesh sought to destroy, as it was a symbol of an idolatrous past, materially and symbolically representing the region’s polytheistic past. Daesh destroyed cultural property in the Mosul Cultural Museum in an effort to erase cultural narratives and identities, and then impose their own. Daesh wishes to impose their own strict version of Islam, one which emphasizes tawhid, and the “oneness of God.” In order to impose this narrative of the oneness of god, evidence of anything anything other than Allah, for example idols, symbols, or saints, which do not align with this narrative Daesh wishes to impose, must be removed. Daesh destroyed the artifacts in the Mosul museum, such as a statue of a Hatrene king holding an eagle, symbolizing the ancient near eastern sun god Shamash, and statues of Aphrodite/Venus and Nike (Jones, 2015), as it did not fit into the narrative Daesh imposes. Daesh imposes

30 a narrative of the oneness of god and therefore destroyed evidence of other deities and cultural pluralism.

Cultural property destroyed by Daesh at the Mosul museum was significant to its creators, those who preserved them over time, communities of origin, and to the greater international community. These physical manifestations of heritage represented stories of cultural pluralism and a traditional of cultural identity. To the people of Mosul and Iraq, the meanings and stories which were physically manifested in these artifacts represented a cultural identity which they belonged to. To heritage professionals, these objects were evidence of a history of pluralism as evidence representing different cultures such as the Assyrian or Hatrene cultures.

Archaeologists who have analyzed the damage to the museum believe that portable cultural property was removed for export, while non-portable objects were attacked with tools (Brusasco, 2016). Much attention was given to the physical destruction of cultural property within the museum, however, I argue that Daesh’s export of what UNESCO deems illicitly trafficked antiquities is also a method and tool to further the erasure and subsequent imposition of cultural narrative. These factors indicate that cultural property at the Mosul Cultural Museum was targeted to erase cultural heritage narratives for the purposes of imposing another, especially through the removal of cultural property.

This case study examines the work of artist Morehshin Allahyari, who saw this video of Daesh’s destruction and was moved to reconstruct the destroyed items (Allahyari, 2015). For Iranian-born American resident Allahyari, this culminated in a body of work exhibited as Material Speculation: ISIS. Allahyari used 3D printing technologies to recreate 12 statues destroyed by Daesh6; some from the Roman-period city of Hatra as well as Assyrian artifacts from Nineveh (Avedisian & Khachiyan, 2016). The 3D printed reconstructions of these objects were recreated on a smaller scale, using clear resin, with flash drives and memory cards containing information about the objects visibly

6 The complete series of works by Allahyari are as follows: Lamassu; King Uthal; Unknown King of Hatra; Ebu; The Romanian Goddess of Beauty Venus; Barmaren; Maren; Marten; Nergal; The Eagle King; Gorgon; Nike, Greek Goddess of Victory (Avedisian & Khachiyan 2016).

31 embedded inside of the bodies of the statues. The clear resin has to be scraped away to access the information stored inside the objects, but the same information stored inside the objects was also available to download by visitors to the Toronto exhibition through USB ports on the walls of the Trinity Square Video exhibition space (Pearson, 2016). The works were originally exhibited at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York in 2015, and then in Toronto at Trinity Square Video in March 2016. After these exhibitions, the 3D schematics and research compiled by Allahyari for the reconstruction of the King Uthal statue was made public and open-access on the website of Rhiozome, a digital art and culture organization. This case study analyzes Allahyari’s artistic initiative Material Speculation: ISIS as a resistive act, in light of Daesh’s goals to erase pre- existing cultural narratives, impose their own cultural/religious narrative, and remove cultural property from its local setting.

3.2. Motivations

Morehshin Allahyari, describes her artistic project as a tool of resistance. In an interview posted online, Allahyari describes how the video documenting Daesh’s destruction motivated her: “the video of Isis destroying the artifacts in Mosul museum came out…. it just felt like a really right moment to do a project like this” (Allahyari, 2015). Allahyari’s lectures, material from the exhibition space and the exhibition brochure, as well as media sources (including the Rhiozome website that hosts the King Uthal download) all describe Allahyari’s project as an act of resistance. Allahyari’s project is framed as her form of political activism, and according to the Material Speculation: ISIS exhibition brochure, aims to offer “a practical and political archival methodology for endangered or destroyed artifacts” (Avedisian & Khachiyan, 2016). Further, according to the artist’s website, the project “intends to use 3D printing as a process for repairing history and memory" (Allahyari, 2017b). I understand these statements to indicate that Allahyari’s aims are to resist not just Daesh’s physical destruction, but also to resist Daesh’s narrative erasure, and Daesh’s destruction of memory and history. The artworks are her way of deploying “3D printing technology as a tool both for resistance and documentation" (Allahyari, 2017b), as the artworks preserve information about the

32 original destroyed objects through embedded USB sticks with archaeological and historical data inside.

Allahyari specifically employed 3D printing to provide social and artistic commentary on Daesh’s use of technologies like social media to further its aims and exert global influence. The exhibition brochure offers the idea that while technology can be used in negative ways, as it has been by Daesh, it may also provide an opportunity for resistance. The exhibition brochure further positions Allahyari’s art as an attempt at “repairing history and memory” (Avedisian & Khachiyan, 2016). In this sense, the project aims to counteract the erasure of narrative and imposition of Daesh’s narrative, in which there is no room for these objects of cultural pluralism. The data itself is therefore crucial to Allahyari’s work. Visibly embedded (See Figure 2) in each 3D printed reconstruction is a “flash drive and memory card containing data such as images, videos, maps, and pdf files,” that provide information on specifications and provenance for each piece (Avedisian & Khachiyan 2016, 3).

One of the replicas created by Allahyari was a statue of King Uthal and its schematics were made available online to everyone. The 570 MB ZIP file includes: 21 scholarly research articles; 35 screenshots of email correspondence with the Mosul Museum; 44 images of the destruction of the objects in the museum; a folder dedicated to information about the history of the objects; lists of objects that were destroyed at the museum; pictures and GIFs of the printing process; 3D printable scans of the King Uthal model; and the names of the objects in both English and Arabic. Allahyari hopes to make more 3D printable files available to the public to be downloaded and printed in the future. The ability to share the copy is crucial to the resistive aspect of this project; as Allahyari says, “the copy is actually making it more and more powerful every time you have a new 3D print of it" (Voon, 2016). This statement resonates with Benjamin’s (1969, 6) assertion that “to an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” 3D scanning and printing technologies were therefore critical to this project as they increase the ability to make replicas of an object publically available by sharing 3D designs through the internet.

As of April 2018, only the King Uthal files are available online as Allahyari says she is still looking to partner with a museum which is capable of archiving her files properly (O’Neal, 2016; Pearson, 2016). It is unclear why Allahyari is looking to collaborate with a museum to archive the files, given that they could be released online as the King Uthal information was.

Figure 2: http://www.morehshin.com/

3.3. Relationships

Allahyari was born and raised in Tehran, Iran,7 before moving to the United States in 2007 (Avedisian & Khachiyan 2016). She is currently the artist-in-residence at the non- profit art and technology center Eyebeam, in New York, where she engages with narratives surrounding female deities of Middle Eastern origin (Steinhauer, 2017). She had done previous artistic work which connects to her own Iranian culture, such as exhibiting spam emails from online underwear shops in Iran in "Like Pearls" (2014), and

7 Iran has been targeted with social media videos and propaganda by Daesh (Cunningham, 2017) though they have not been occupied by Daesh as areas in Iraq and Syria have been. Her hometown of Tehran is not far from the shared border between Iraq and Iran.

34 criticizing Iranian government in "Dark Matter (First Series)” (2014). Allahyari believes it is important that these projects involve members of communities of origin, and stated in an interview that “it’s different when Westerners or tech companies save cultural things compared to someone else who actually comes from the culture” (Voon, 2016a). Allahyari sees herself as someone who comes from these communities of origin, and adds that she believes that projects without involvement of people from communities of origin are not adding to the conversation (Voon, 2016a). Allahyari sourced information from the ground up and consulted with heritage professionals from Iraq, where the objects were destroyed, during the development of Material Speculation: ISIS. The exhibition emphasizes that the digital documents which are stored inside of the replica objects “were sourced through an intensive research process involving archaeologists, historians and museum specialists from Iraq and Iran” (Avedisian & Khachiyan 2016, 3). Allahyari contacted staff from the Mosul Cultural Museum which used to house these objects and included documents in “multiple languages including English, Farsi, and Arabic” (Thompson 2017, 161). Allahyari has provided detailed information about who was consulted and how and in a transparent manner. This email correspondence between Allahyari and heritage professionals from Iraq was included in the King Uthal ZIP file; Allahyari took screenshots of email correspondence includes dates and names with the permission of the individual. Many of the scholarly research articles suggested to Allahyari in these emails by heritage professionals are included as PDFs in the ZIP file as well. Allahyari considers the consultation of professionals from the area of origin and the transparent provision of her research and process as a way of navigating a main concern of hers -- that of heritage projects being controlled by people without direct connections to that heritage.

3.4. Benefits

Material Speculation: ISIS was exhibited in Toronto in 2016 at Trinity Square Video and as a part of a group exhibition at the John Jay School of Criminology in NY. Located in downtown Toronto, Trinity Square Video is an artist-run centre, and is one of Canada’s oldest media arts centres (Trinity Square Video. n.d). Like most museums, they are a not- for-profit organization, and are also a charitable organization. This specific exhibition

35 could have been financially beneficial to individuals or organizations if the project had been more commercially oriented. For example, US-based digital archiver CyARK charges for access to their 3D scans of cultural heritage. However, to Allahyari, CyARK’s practise of selling access to digitized cultural heritage is a form of "digital colonialism" (Allahyari 2017a; Pearson 2016). Allahyari discussed these types of practises as negative for the public in a Wired interview: “If ISIS takes over this ownership of cultural heritage by destruction, the other side of it is this simplistic, utopian Silicon Valley [approach]. Their claim is, 'We are saving the cultural heritage of the world' - actually, you are selling a product” (Wallis, 2017).

In this interview, Allahyari seems to be aware that these type of heritage projects can be used for financial benefit, which she believes is unethical. Allahyari has also stated in interviews that “digital colonialism” occurs when a group “goes to cultural sites in [the] Middle East and attempts a reconstruction project, but doesn’t make the data available to the public” (Plaugic, 2018). To counter these potential outcomes, Allahyari announced that she would make her 3D schematics available for free and unrestricted use online and is not charging a fee for their download. Allahyari also intends to make all her data and research public, in a manner similar to the information released in the King Uthal ZIP file. The democratic ideals of 3D printing technologies are in line with open access philosophies, though in practise, the cost of 3D printers still curbs accessibility.

Though Allahyari’s public release of her data and research is an attempt to counter what she has called digital colonization by not selling her work or limiting access to her data, open-access and public domain ideals may still be problematic (Schneiter 2011; Christen 2012). By making her material available to anyone with internet access without charge, all kinds of people (not Syrians, not Iraqis, not Iranians) are able to control the reproduction and re-use of the materials Allahyari has made available. The control of the materials in this case study is therefore distributed to a wide audience. It is unclear whether such open access ideals reflect the values and desires of Iraqi citizens. Within ethnographic and indigenous museum collections, there has been a recent shift towards emphasis on what Morphy (2014, 90) calls the “rights of the producing community to

36 control access” of both objects in museum collections as well as with digital information. The agency of the immediate stakeholders in determining access to digital repositories of cultural information has become an important consideration in heritage practise (Anderson 2017; Christen 2012). Through this lens, the open access ideals Allahyari wishes to use to counter what she calls “digital colonialism” may still be problematic. I return to this discussion in relation to copyright and intellectual property rights later in this case study.

3.5. Target Audiences & Public Presentation

Material Speculation: ISIS targets both online audiences and visitors to the exhibition in both cases the emphasis for the is for it to be understood as a participatory act of resistance. With exhibition sites in two culturally diverse cities, as well as online audiences, the audiences of this project are international and global. There are no restrictions on who can download the scans and files of the King Uthal replica, or for what purpose (Maldonado, 2017). Allahyari’s statement that “the copy is actually making it more and more powerful every time you have a new 3D print of it” indicates that she believes that the continued existence of the representation of the destroyed object and the information she has provided will resist Daesh and stressed the fact that it is the project's participatory nature that allows it to function as an act of resistance. The object’s widespread availability is what counters Daesh’s attempts to destroy the physical object, “by making it live again in multiple iterations” (Maldonado, 2017). As a participatory act of resistance, the presentation of this work stresses that individuals can have significant influence. The exhibition at Trinity Square Video featured a panel discussion open to the public, inviting attendees to ask questions or contribute ideas. The panel was composed of Allahyari, Dr. Pamela Karimi, a professor of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth who researches contemporary art of the Middle East, and Dr. Dina Georgis, a professor in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto who focuses on postcolonial and sexuality studies. This panel was specifically advertised as an event that challenges potentially polarizing and Islamophobic responses to the work, while probing its aesthetic, radical and complicated insights. The goal is to offer artistic

contexts and theoretical readings of the exhibition while tying it to contemporary events of war, terrorism and the material/political worlds it implicates. (Trinity Square Video, 2016)

The public programming at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (JJCCJ) further supports the presentation of this project as a participatory act of resistance. At a symposium on the future of digital archaeology held in conjunction with the exhibition, Allahyari told the audience that “every time you save that file on your computer and keep it in a digital archive, you have somehow fought against the removal of that history” (Voon, 2016, Hyperallergic).

The public programming at both these exhibition sites reflects both Allahyari’s participatory aims and her belief that the more this object exists digitally, the more Daesh’s goals of destruction have been resisted. This project is able to include individuals across large distances and invite meaningful participation in the resistive goals of this project through technology. For online audiences, the Rhiozome website which hosts the King Uthal ZIP file states that “to download, share, and print these files is to participate in this additivist act of resistance” (Soulellis, 2016). The idea of participatory resistance was consistent across the presentation of this project at both exhibition sites and online websites and Allahyari’s personal statements. The project’s participatory aims have been responded to by audiences; one artist used the 3D schematics provided in Allahyari’s ZIP file to print aa reconstruction of the King Uthal statue in an exhibition in Mexico City (Maldonado 2017) and twitter users have posted pictures of their printed copies of the King Uthal Statue, using Allahyari’s 3D files. One twitter used tweeted “Getting a copy of a statue of King Uthal. thx! @Morehshin” (Kloiber, 2016). This individual participation follows the current museological paradigm, as outlined by Harrison (2012) which follows the history of heritage, detailing how heritage began as everyday cultural and memorial acts which was then professionalized and became exclusionary and is now in its current form again being taken up by individuals at the ground-level. This type of project also aligns with Schofield's (2016) ideas that heritage should not be controlled by state or international authorities and emphasizes the importance of the individual-as- expert in their own meaning-making. Allahyari’s work has come from an artistic

38 perspective, however, the objects in Material Speculation: ISIS were treated as professionalized heritage objects within the Mosul Museum before their destruction. The objects in Material Speculation: ISIS are exhibited as both art and heritage objects. I understand the participation of heritage professionals in Allahyari’s artistic practise as a bridge between the professional and the public/personal/collective.

Despite the open-access ideals of this project, access to information on Allahyari’s website about her projects has been limited; to view videos and more detailed information about her projects, Allahyari requires that an email be sent to her requesting a password, which can then be entered into the website and opens access to her videos. Allahyari herself responded to my personal inquiry and provided me with the password within 24 hours of my email. However, the imposition of passwords to prevent access to information on her website are at odds with the ideals promoted by this project and potentially narrow and limit target audiences, and minimize the number of “additivist acts of resistance.”

3.6. Ownership and Intellectual Property

Allahyari has actively waived copyright on these designs; making cultural knowledge a part of the public domain has complex implications. Christen (2012, 2879-2880) discusses the implications of cultural knowledge existing in the public domain with open access ideals and states that for many indigenous communities in settler societies, the public domain and an information commons are just another colonial mash-up where their cultural materials and knowledge are "open" for the profit and benefit of others, but remain separated from the sociocultural systems in which they were and continue to be used, circulated, and made meaningful.

Allahyari’s project has targeted international online audiences and encourages use of the information she has provided by anyone in any way, though Christen (2012) notes that it is the communities of origin which should control digital access to their cultural knowledge. Allahyari’s stated intent is that this international intervention aids the community of origin protect what is theirs. However, choice and control are crucial considerations in this scenario, even though true choice and control is extremely limited

39 due to the Syrian Conflict. Allahyari considers herself as able to speak for Iraqi heritage even though she is Iranian because she comes from the general geographic area of the Middle East. Though grassroots heritage may be re-emerging as noted by Harrison (2012) and Schofield (2016), issues surrounding voice and representation are still relevant and Allahyari may be viewed as a gatekeeper, though with a fairly low threshold for access. Though it is not uncommon for museums to still regulate access to public domain works from their collections (Gillespie 2015; Cronin 2016), it is interesting why that minimum threshold is desired given the open-access aims of Material Speculation: ISIS.

3.7. Outcomes

Allahyari’s project has resisted Daesh’s aim of physical destruction of the targeted objects, however, the other significant stated aim of Material Speculation: ISIS was to resist not just Daesh’s physical destruction, but also their attempted erasure of cultural narratives. As discussed in Chapter 1, Pickover’s (2014) research supports the idea that memory institutions have the power to influence historical and cultural narratives. While Allahari has no institutional power the way a museum might, as an artist she possesses a certain artistic license and her decision to preserve cultural property allowed her a certain modicum of control over what narrative she chose to support. As Pickover (2014, 1) writes, “the decisions about what to digitise for long term preservation, why and also how this information is made accessible, speaks to notions of information control.” The main narrative contained within media coverage and press releases provided by the organizing bodies of Material Speculation: ISIS is one of resistance and activism, proposing new types of documentation that function as a tool of political resistance. As discussed, this narrative was consistent across the project’s presentation to target audiences.

In contrast, the information actually contained within the artworks and provided by Allahyari at the exhibition sites and on the Rhiozome website, provides access to the historical and cultural narrative targeted by Daesh for erasure. Allahyari considers the preservation of narrative as important as the preservation of objects. Allahyari is vocal about her discomfort with the lack of information provided by other heritage initiatives in her statements about digital colonialism. As discussed earlier, to counter this she has

40 made available more information than just a 3D schematic. The very artworks themselves anticipate and respond to their decontextualization, holding within them maps, interviews, and archaeological reports that remember and record contextual details of the originating object. The King Uthal replica’s meta-cultural property includes information in both English and Arabic, including 21 essays and articles such as scholarly overviews of banquet scenes in archaeological evidence from Hatra, the introductory chapter of a collection of papers presented on culture and politics in Hatra during a 2009 academic colloquium, an article called “Everything you always wanted to know about Babylonian women (*but were afraid to ask)” and “Iconoclasm in the ‘Islamic State’” by Lucinda Dirven of University of Amsterdam, which examines the iconoclastic aims of Daesh. The information in this file also directly addresses the conflict in Syria through the inclusion of files like the article titled “Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS” by Nafeez Ahmed. The ZIP file also contained a video of the destruction by Daesh at the Mosul Museum and the names of the objects in both English and Arabic. Within the files provided by Allahyari, the narrative which had been targeted by Daesh was accessible and in this sense, Allahyari was able to resist Daesh’s aim of narrative erasure.

However, the other 11 replica objects which have not yet been shared online and the previously extant narratives that were supported within their previous heritage contexts are not very accessible; without being uploaded online, the information is only accessible if resin is scraped off of the objects in a certain area in order to retrieve the flash drive and memory card inside or by visiting the exhibition (Allahyari 2017a, 32:31). However, Allahyari’s work as an artist should not be isolated and her later artistic works should be considered. The inaccessibility of the data inside the objects was remedied in her next project, The Dead Drops (2017), which included cords that hung down from her 3D printed reconstructions of sculptures destroyed by Daesh. If you can physically access these objects, the cords can be used to connect a device and retrieve the files. This responsiveness and re-thinking of her artistic choices shows an ongoing engagement with ideas about access and preservation. Further, Allahyari has encouraged visitors to interact with her files and data and share and discuss them these ideas, and hopefully influence

41 individual thought. In comparison with Daesh's modes of limiting access (by physical and narrative destruction and singularizing narrative), Allahyari may be seen as resisting Daesh.

3.8. Conclusions

As discussed in Chapter 1, Daesh’s destructive acts are often filmed and shared online; as Daesh uses technology to further its aims, so to do projects like Allahyari’s Material Speculation: ISIS. Allahyari’s use of 3D technologies are part of a broader use of digital technologies and interventions within memory institutions. Allahyari has provided a large amount of information and has been transparent about the aims and process of Material Speculation: ISIS. Allahyari’s reproductions do not claim to be exact replicas and are impossible to confuse with an original. Allahyari is an individual and an artist who sourced material from the ground up and made that information available to the public. Allahyari’s project has laudable aims and does not seek to control or monopolize information however, the open-access goals of this project have not yet been realized and its potential has not yet been fulfilled. Material Speculation: ISIS functions as an act of participatory resistance and raises probing questions about the use of 3D technologies. Allahyari’s artistic practise can be seen as being in progress, with her progression to adding drop-down cords to the 3D printed reproductions in her next project a promising sign.

To examine whether this project has resisted or supported Daesh’s aims, this study considers whether this case study has contributed to 1) the erasure of the narratives targeted by Daesh, 2) the imposition of a new and external narrative, and 3) the physical removal of cultural property from its local setting. In this case study, Allahyari has stated that she is aware that reconstruction projects may inadvertently support narratives which stand in contrast to stated aims; Allahyari's own tension with this has caused her to add information in USBs and flash drives in order to ensure that the narrative targeted by Daesh is preserved and shared with a broad public. The addition of the contextualizing information and data resists Daesh’s erasure of narrative, as the information Allahyari has included through flash drives and uploading the King Uthal ZIP file in her 3D

reproduction project maintains and preserves the narrative Daesh sought to remove. Allahyari has further resisted Daesh’s goal of physical destruction of the object through her reproductions, and by encouraging public audiences to further reproduce the statues. In this case study, Allahyari resisted Daesh’s aims of physical destruction, the erasure of extant narrative, and the imposition of Daesh’s narrative. Allahyari’s project opens up questions about intellectual property and ownership and who “represents” and can speak for a cultural history. It further draws attention to the careful consideration any use of open access philosophies require in order to be effective acts of resistance.

4. Case Study #2: Busts Restored by the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro

4.1. Overview

In April 2015, two funerary busts held in the Palmyra Museum were smashed with hammers by members of Daesh. These two marble busts dating to the 2nd-3rd century A.D depict a man and woman who were likely to be a part of the Palmyran elite and feature inscriptions in both Aramaic and Greek (Associated Press Archive, 2017). The busts were severely damaged, especially on the faces. Daesh targeted Palmyra in 2015 and, according to a spokesperson (Frances Pinnock) of the project to restore these busts, Palmyra was “chosen because it was symbolic” (Povoledo, 2016). Summarizing Palmyra’s destruction, Nour Munawar, a researcher at the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory, and Material Culture specializing in conflict archaeology, writes: “Daesh were attempting to erase the extraordinary collective identity and memory of Palmyra in a way that would facilitate creating a new identity and memory of the place to represent the new population of Daesh” (2017, 39).

In line with Daesh’s will to eliminate symbols of polytheism (shirk), the busts--which materially and symbolically represent the region’s pluralistic past--were targeted. The cultural property housed in the museum does not align with the religious narrative of the “the oneness of god” which Daesh wishes to impose, as the busts at the museum of palmyra were tangible evidence of stories of cultural and historical pluralism. In order to impose a narrative of the the oneness of god, cultural property which threatens the idea of the oneness of god is destroyed. Evidence of cultural pluralism was destroyed as this pluralism threatens the imposed narrative of oneness of god as a culture who connects to traditions of pluralism can not follow Daesh’s narrative. The objects destroyed at the

Palmyra museum were significant to the people who lived in Palmyra and who have now been displaced. To these communities, these objects represented a collective past and identity of pluralism as tangible representations of the blending of artistic styles of the east and the roman empire. To heritage professionals who worked with these objects, both from Syria as well as internationally, these objects represented a similar story of pluralism through their representation of the merging of two art styles, representing different cultures and historical pluralism in the area of Palmyra. To the greater population of Syria, the cultural property in the museum is a marker of cultural identity informing heritage processes and identity building. To the international community these busts were symbols of the cultures which created them. While these archaeological artifacts are historically significant in their own right as a part of the museum’s collections, they have come to stand for the larger destruction at Palmyra. These busts were damaged during Daesh’s first occupation of Palmyra, which lasted 10 months. During that time, the Triumphal Arch was also destroyed.

Following the damage to these objects of cultural property, an Italian association headed by former mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli, called Incontro di Civiltà (Encounter of Civilizations), decided to intervene in order to restore the damaged objects. As many fragments of the objects as possible were collected in situ by Assad’s Syrian government troops, and then Incontro di Civiltà worked with director-general of Syrian antiquities and heritage Maamoun Abdulkarim to negotiate the movement of these two busts to Beirut and then to Italy. This movement was organized through both Abdulkarim and the Department of Antiquities as well as “members of the opposition” (ICCROM, 2017). As discussed in Chapter 1, the Syrian Conflict is marked by 4 main factions - Bashar Al- Assad’s Syrian Government, The Syrian Opposition, the Kurds, and Daesh; it is noteworthy that this effort was coordinated between the factions of the Syrian government troops and Opposition groups.

Once the Syrian busts were in Italy, but prior to their restoration, the busts were featured in an exhibit sponsored by UNESCO called “Rinascere Dalle Distruzioni: Ebla, Nimrud, Palmyra” which is translated to English on exhibition signs as “Rising from Destruction.”

A translation of the exhibition title was also available in Arabic at the exhibition site. Curated by Francesco Rutelli and Paolo Matthiae, an archaeologist who has worked at the site of Ebla, the objects were exhibited from October 7 to December 11, 2016, at the Colosseum in Rome. The exhibition was supported by the Italian Culture Minister, Dario Franceschini, and the exhibition drew more than 300,000 visitors (European Heritage Awards, 2018). This exhibition featured 3D printed reconstructions of artifacts destroyed by Daesh such as the Lamassu (a statue of a human-headed winged bull) from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, as well as cultural property from Ebla and the busts from Palmyra. An external vendor, Arte Idea, that uses digital design techniques to construct film sets, recreated the Royal Archive room of the Palace of Ebla, while the ceiling from the Temple of Bel/Baal was recreated by another 3D technology company, TryeCo (Scott, 2016). The damaged busts were exhibited with the fragments collected by Assad’s government troops displayed below (See figure 3)

Figure 3: Screenshot by author from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6l9SU6ohCs

Following their exhibition at the Colosseum, the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro (ISCR, Higher Institute for Conservation and Restoration) stabilized the sculptures and under the direction of the ISCR Director, Gisela Capponi, a team of five restorers at the ISCR’s Stone Materials Restoration Laboratory reconstructed the damaged and missing parts of the busts. The restoration strategically used 3D printing and scanning in their treatment plan to “ensure authenticity through mathematical symmetry”

(ICCROM, 2017). Both the ICCROM and the ISCR conservation report state that the restorers at the ISCR used 3D technologies and mirroring to reduce interpretation and the role of human judgement in an attempt to create an objective reproduction (ICCROM, 2017; ISCR 2017b). However, they found that human judgement was required, as they still had to “adjust for small anatomical anomalies – one ear higher than the other, for example” (ICCROM, 2017). The bust of the male was more severely damaged than the other, so to create 3D scans which they could then use to 3D print the missing and damaged pieces, the team at the ISCR decided to mirror the facial features of the right side of the bust onto the left side. (ICCROM, 2017). These one-to-one reconstructions were printed from 3D scans which, according to the ICCROM press release were “based on extensive documentation of various kinds” and were created from “high-definition photographs taken by United States military officers” (Povoledo, 2016). From these scans, 3D printed pieces were created using nylon powder and then treated with a mixture of stone-dust which was was layered on top of the 3D print fill and hand finished (Povoledo, 2016). As most of the damage to the busts was on the faces of the sculptures, nylon powder was 3D printed into pieces replicating the missing parts of the busts’ faces. The ISCR felt that the addition of this surface layer containing stone dust would create a texture and look that was more compatible with the original marble surface (ICCROM, 2017).

One team member, Antonio Iaccarino, who came to the project through another conservation and restoration organization, Equilibrarte, noted that the conservation treatment “did not modify the original part of the sculpture in any way” (Di Donato & Said-Moorhous, 2017). Following conservation principles of reversibility, the 3D printed pieces were attached to the damaged sculptures by magnets, and can therefore be removed at any time (ICCROM, 2017). Although the 3D printed pieces fit into the bust seamlessly, the intentional difference in colour makes these new additions recognizable: the new additions are white, while the original stone is more yellow in colour (See Figure 4).

Figure 4: from Belfast Telegraph

Following a month of restoration and re-construction done by the ISCR, the ISCR publically released a Conservation and Treatment report and revealed the busts at a press conference held by the ISCR on February 16, 2017. Following the display and conservation treatment in Rome, the busts were returned to Syria on February 27, 2017, eleven days after the press conference unveiling the new 3D printed additions. The return of these objects to the National Museum of Damascus coincided with the recapture of Palmyra by Assad’s government forces, and marked the end of the second occupation of Palmyra (ICCROM, 2017).

4.2. Motivations

The motivations of this restoration project and exhibition have been described though the Incontro di Civiltà’s press release as an attempt to oppose the cultural violence of Daesh as enacted through the destruction of cultural property and erasure of cultural histories Rutelli, representing Incontro di Civiltà, stated that he was motivated to use modern sciences as a way of resisting Daesh’s destruction and cultural violence. A member of the team of restorers in Italy, Daria Montemaggiori, remarked that they were distressed when they saw the destruction done to the busts and that in the destruction she saw a “wickedness to eliminate” (Di Donato, 2017). Gisela Capponi, the director of the ISCR and leader of the team of restorers in this project, noted during a press conference that “the restoration set out to erase this brutal act, while leaving the additions recognizable”

(Di Donato, 2017; Associated Press Archive, 2017). In her statement, Capponi uses the word “cancellare” in Italian, which is translated to “erase” in English. Montemaggiori also uses the same language when discussing the motivations of the project saying in an interview at the press conference that their restoration work allowed them to “cancellare,” or erase, the act of violence (Di Donato, 2017; Associated Press Archive, 2017). In another press release from ICCROM, Rutelli, tuses the word erase but in the context of Daesh seeking to erase memory. Rutelli calls for the scientific community to mobilize in order to resist this erasure as a form of cultural violence (ICCROM, 2017).

Both the ISCR and ICCROM’s separate press releases, statements in interviews by ISCR team members and Rutelli, and the ISCR Conservation Treatment Report use the words “erase” or “cancellare” when discussing the aims of the restoration project. As the addition of the 3D printed pieces to the busts does not physically erase anything (in fact, it is an addition), I understand these statements as indicating that their goal is to “erase” Daesh’s destruction. Another statement at the opening of the exhibition by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Paolo Gentiloni, said that this project and "the protection of archaeological property is a way of defending pluralism” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, 2016). I read these statements as an indication that the project is intended to counter not just the physical destruction, but simultaneously, also to counter Daesh’s attempt to alter heritage narratives. The restoration was dedicated to Khaled al Assad, a Syrian archaeologist killed for his attempts to preserve Syrian heritage (Abrams, 2017). This dedication furthers the narrative of resistance by dedicating itself to an activist (ICCROM, 2017).

4.3 Relationships The preservation of vulnerable or threatened cultural property has historically been a priority for the country of Italy. Their long history of formal cultural property laws date back to a 1646 Vatican edict (Rush 2015, 1). Italy also contributed to the international heritage reconstruction efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the late 1990’s (Walasek 2015, 215). Italy is globally situated as a leader in cultural property protection, championing what is viewed as the most effective cultural property protection agency in the world

(Rush 2015, 1). The project involved the coordination of many different organizations across borders, though the project was instigated by Rutelli individually, through the Italian Incontro di Civiltà organization of which he is the president. The exhibition and restoration of these busts was supported by UNESCO, ICCROM, Incontro di Civiltà, Fondazione Terzo Pilastro, Electa, Fouad Alghanim Industries, and the government of Italy. These organizations will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

Information was disseminated by many of the organizations involved in this project, with press releases issued by Incontro di Civiltà, ICCROM, and the ISCR. The press release from Incontro di Civiltà provided a large amount of information about both the organizations who contributed to this project as well as the individual people involved on committees. The information contributed to the transparency of the project, making it clear that experts studying the heritage targeted by Daesh were consulted. For the restoration, a scientific committee was created, including the Director of the Arab Regional Centre for World Heritage and the Director-General of ICCROM as members (Incontro di Civilta 2016, 3). This committee also included three archaeologists from Sapienza Università di Roma and Syria’s top antiquities official, Maamoun Abdulkarim (Incontro di Civilta 2016, 3). Rutelli’s co-curator for the exhibition at the Colosseum was Paolo Matthiae, an archaeologist who has worked at the site of Ebla. Like Allahyari’s artistic initiative in Case Study 1, this initiative involved consultation with experts in the heritage that had been targeted by Daesh, including heritage professionals from the region, and made information about who was consulted available to the public.

The intensive involvement of the Director-General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria, Dr. Maamoun Abdulkarim, is worth further attention. Italy’s Minister of Foreign affairs stated at the exhibitions opening that consent was given by “the authorities responsible for Syrian cultural property” which ultimately “allowed Italy to cater to the restoration of their damaged sites” and acknowledged that this project had to be undertaken with permissions and close discussion with Syrian cultural property authorities (Di Donato & Said-Moorhaus, 2017). Though Italy has condemned the actions of Assad’s government, the Italian organizations in this case study worked with Abdulkarim and Assad’s Syrian

government to coordinate the transport of the busts. Abdulkarim coordinated the transport of the damaged busts with rebel factions in Syria which oppose the government he represents, and through what is described as “a complicated diplomatic effort" these damaged busts were exported legally from Syria (Poggioli, 2016). This coordination suggests that Abdulkarim and Italy are able to work across party lines for the benefit of cultural heritage preservation.

The coordination is also significant as according to Rutelli, these busts “are the only pieces of art that have left the conflict areas of Syria and Iraq legally” (Di Donato & Said- Moorhaus, 2017). As noted in Chapter 1, many pieces of cultural property have left Syria and Iraq since the start of the conflict, though they were not exported legally according to UNESCO or Assad’s government. As Abdulkarim was able to negotiate with the groups in the Syrian Opposition, it appears the rebel forces composed of dissident groups consented to let the busts leave.

Statements made by Rutelli call this project’s international coordination uncommon, and he has said that it is “very rare” for this type of coordination to occur (Poggioli, 2016). The ICCROM press release emphasized this by stating that “despite ongoing sanctions and war, a way was found to permit the restoration of these damaged antiquities” (ICCROM, 2017). However, current cultural property conventions reflect a history of significant international efforts and coordination. The large international organizations affiliated with this project, such as UNESCO and the ICCROM, already have a history of working with cultural property during armed conflicts. Governmental cooperation has occured to preserve cultural property during armed conflict, for example the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (Monuments Men) which was initiated by the USA’s Roberts Commission and involved extensive coordination between the governments of the Allies in WWII. Further, after the destruction of the Stari Most bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina by Croatian military forces in 1993, a reconstruction project was coordinated between international organizations including The World Bank, UNESCO, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the World Monuments Fund, and was funded by Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Croatia, the Council of Europe Development Bank, and

the Bosnian government. International efforts and coordination to preserve cultural property are actually common, which stands in contrast with statements made that frame this intervention as unprecedented. It is true that this is the first instance of this type of coordination during the Syrian Conflict, but almost all of the participants come with prior experience of international cooperation.

4.4. Benefits

The exhibition of these busts benefited different audiences than the restoration of the busts. The restoration of the busts benefits the people of Syria as the busts were not exhibited after their restoration, and only 11 days elapsed between the restoration treatment and their return to Syria. The exact location has not been announced, as though the return of the busts to Syria coincided with the end of the second occupation of Palmyra, the Syrian Conflict is still ongoing as of June 2018.

The exhibition at the Colosseum was financially sponsored by UNESCO (ICCROM 2017). Admission to the Colosseum costs 12 euros and includes entrance to any special exhibition on display such as Rinascere della Distruzione (Incontro di Civilta, 2016). The exhibition received approximately 300,000 visitors while it was on display at the Colosseum between October and December of 2017 (Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo, 2017). Given that the Colosseum received 6.4 million visitors that year, averaging 1,599,999 over 3 months, then 300,000 visitors over the three months of the exhibitions display does not indicate a significant increase in visitors to this exhibition. However, the venue did provide a high traffic site with significant cultural capital for the exhibition and restoration project.

Many organizations contributed to both the restoration and exhibition of this project. A statement from the ICCROM notes that the project received “the high patronage of the Presidency of the Republic” of Italy, as well as “essential” contributions from Fondazione Terzo Pilastro and Fouad Alghanim & Sons Group of Companies (ICCROM 2017). Fondazione Terzo Pilastro is an Italian philanthropic organization, while Fouad Alghanim & Sons Group of Companies is a private corporation. According to a company overview,

Fouad Alghanim & Sons is a “multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporation operating from the Middle East” and is a conglomerate with many companies in a broad range of business, ranging from real estate, industrial, and defense businesses, to shipping and healthcare (Bloomberg, 2018). One shipping and transport company owned by Fouad Alghanim & Sons Group of Companies has recently worked on projects for US Embassies in Baghdad and Basrah, transporting British Military Vehicles through Iraq. In 2017, Alghanim Industries signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which pledged to “educate Syrian refugees” (Omar, 2017). With this memorandum, Alghanim Industries became involved in aiding Syrian refugees and also sponsored the International Conference "Documenting our Heritage at Risk"chaired by Rutelli and held in Rome that May. In an interview from 2015, the chairman and CEO of the group Fouad M.T. Alghanim stated that the company is looking to invest in new opportunities in Europe, and particularly Italy (Alghanim, 2015). A media release from Alghanim Industries stated that "private sector leaders in our region must play a role in helping to rebuild economies and societies affected by the refugee crisis” (Alghanim Industries, 2018). While corporations have become increasingly involved in heritage practises, especially with the emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility, Carrols’ 1991 hierarchy of corporate responsibility reminds us that economic responsibility is the base of corporate concern, while ethical and philanthropic responsibility is the top of the pyramid and is only considered after economic concerns (See Figure 5). The separation of these two ideas also highlights that corporations must first and foremost be profitable, while ethical and philanthropic concerns only considered after, potentially causing a conflict of interest. Discussions of corporate involvement in heritage practises is, however, outside of the scope of this research.

Figure 5: The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility, Carroll 1991

4.5. Target Audiences & Public Presentation

According to Francesco Prosperetti, the Special Superintendent for the Colosseum, the decision to exhibit this project at the Colosseum was specifically chosen as it is the most visited tourist site in Italy (Povoledo, 2016). In 2016, the year that this exhibition was held, over 6.4 million visitors attended the Colosseum (Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo, 2017). Visitors to the Colosseum and the audience for this project are mostly international tourists, and while on display in Rome, the project prioritized an international, tourist audience; while the main banner at the entrance to the exhibition featured the title in Italian, English, and Arabic, all other text panels contained information in only Italian and English. However, the return of these busts to a museum in Damascus after their conservation treatments by the ISCR indicates that the project also intended for there to be other audiences, specifically future audiences in Syria.

The restoration was presented and narrated to the public through press releases and many statements to media outlets. As discussed earlier, information about the the restoration and exhibition of these busts was released by multiple authors and organizations who contributed to this work. The presentation of the exhibition and restoration of these busts from institutional sources revealed clear themes across these sources of information, for example, the project’s motivations to resist and oppose Daesh’s aims in both restoration and exhibition are clear throughout information sources. The restoration process itself

was also presented as an act of resistance, with the conservation and treatment report from the ISCR describing the restoration of the busts as having a “strongly ideological meaning” (ISCR, 2017b). This exact phrasing (significato fortemente ideologico) is used twice in the conservation report.

The press release from Incontro di Civiltà states clearly that this restoration project was guided by three aims, “the respect for the sovereignty of the States where the works and monuments are located; the coordination, supervision and approval by UNESCO; the largest and most intense international cooperation” (Incontro di Civilta 2016, 13). In this sense, the project is an example of the two prominent conceptualizations of cultural property, cultural property internationalism and nationalism, co-existing. This clarity about the intentions of the reconstruction project is present in most of the sources of data collected in this case study, however, some public statements by Rutelli do not align with these ideas. Rutelli is quoted discussing the project and presenting it to the public as “an Italian story” (Povoledo, 2016). A February 9 tweet by Rutelli stated that “Italy restores what terrorists destroy” (ICCROM 2017; Rutelli, 2017) and said this project was possible thanks to “Italian know how” (Povoledo, 2016). Though most of the public presentation of this project and information released by the organizing bodies had a consistent and clear message about resisting Daesh through an international effort, at times appropriated the story in nationalist terms.

4.6. Ownership and Intellectual Property

Italy did not claim ownership of the objects and returned the busts to Syria As the Syrian Conflict is still ongoing, the busts were returned to the the National Museum in Damascus and then moved to an unknown location. Members of the press reported that they had seen the busts being transported in Syria, but given the ongoing conflict, their location has not been announced. The press release for the exhibition indicates a primary concern of this project as being “the respect for the sovereignty of the States where the works and monuments are located” (Incontro di Civilta 2016, 13). The project is clear about who the busts are preserved for and why.

4.7. Outcomes

The narrative surrounding these Palmyran busts as archaeologically-recovered evidence, and as funeral busts at the museum in Palmyra, were contextualized within the history of a regional pluralism. Zibawi describes the cultural property at Palmyra as a “blending of civilizations and cultures in the melting pot of the Roman Empire [which] infused a new spirit into art” (1997, 1). This pluralism is a key aspect of the narratives used to interpret heritage at Palmyra. Zibawi describes the site’s interpretation as incorporating “features that came from the Persian empire, while also displaying the influence of local Syrian and Mesopotamian traditions and of Oriental traditions in general” (Zibawi 1997, 1). In their previous museum context, the narratives that surrounded these busts focused on the style of art and its significance as a marker of pluralism shaping new forms of art in a shift from realism towards idealization in the 2nd century AD. In this way, the stylistic features of these funerary busts are striking, featuring “thin lips, sharp nose, inordinately enlarged eyes and open gaze” (Zibawi 1997, para. 4). The narrative of these specific busts further focused on understanding these as archaeological items, providing evidence of the ancient city’s role in a pluralistic society. Palmyra was an oasis and was used on trading routes like the Silk Road and imagery including camels reflected the city’s identity as the “capital of an independent trade empire” (Zarandona et al. 2017, 655).

The exhibition at the Colosseum attempted to provide this information about the history of Ebla, Nimrud, and Palmyra. A press release about the project, released the day before the exhibition opened at the Colosseum, spends 7 of its 15 pages discussing the history and significance of these sites and their role in our understanding of cultural history Each physical site has a dedicated page discussing the previously extant narratives surrounding cultural property located at those sites. A discussion of Palmyra specifically references the busts and their position as a representation of a specific style of funerary art (Incontro di Civilta 2016, 11). The information provided in the press release clearly worked against the historical erasure desired by Daesh.

Creating a conservation treatment which would be reversible, the 3D additions to reconstruct the Palmyrene busts resists Daesh’s physical destruction, without forgetting

or erasing the original act of violence. The outcome of this allows the busts to be displayed in multiple forms, either as damaged or reconstructed bust. The ISCR stated that their process prioritized scientific exactitude, while letting additions be plainly recognizable due to colour difference. This aligns with Bevan’s idea of “critical reconstruction” which suggests that an authentic reconstruction would feature “layers of wartime damage” (Bevan 2016). The ISCR was adamant in their decision that the additions be recognizable, and to some extent, reversible through the use of magnets. To Bevan, “layers of experience are incorporated as memories into the rebuilt fabric of a monument” which resonates with this case, wherein the destruction and reconstruction of the busts are presented as part of the narrative.

A recurrent theme in statements about this initiative invoked the idea of “erasing” Daesh’s destruction; however, I read these statements as a stated motivation to erase the narrative imposition of Daesh as opposed to erasing evidence of Daesh’s physical destruction. The outcome of this restoration project is in fact a physical addition, therefore despite stated motivations, the restorative actions undertaken by the ISCR and their outcomes in this case study repair, confront, and resist more than they erase. This would not be the first time in Palmyra’s history that its narrative included a discussion of cultural property damage; after a revolt in Palmyra while under Roman rule in 273 A.D., Emperor Aurelian sacked the city causing damage from which Palmyra “never recovered” (Zibawi, 1997). Munawar (2017, 34) has also posited that “damage and/or destruction is just another phase in the life-history of a monument.” This is true in the case of Palmyra as the events that led to the eventual end of the ancient city of Palmyra have been a large part of the narrative at the site of Palmyra, as the site is preserved ruins. Ironically, Italy now seeks to preserve Palmyra, when the Roman Empire was responsible for the destruction of Palmyra seventeen hundred years ago.

4.8. Conclusions

Daesh targeted the museum in Palmyra in order to 1) erase a narrative of pluralism, 2) impose their own narrative of monotheism, and 3) remove cultural property from its local setting. In this case study, Daesh’s aims were resisted as this project to restore two

Palmyrene busts 1) resisted the erasure of pluralism promulgated by Daesh 2) affirmed a historical narrative of pluralism at Palmyra, and 3) restored returned cultural property to its country of origin.

5. Case Study #3: The Arch of Palmyra by the Institute of Digital Archaeology

5.1. Overview

The Monumental Arch of Palmyra is also known as the Arch of Triumph and the Arch of Septimius Severus. This massive stone arch was built during the reign of Roman Emperor Septimus Severus in the 3rd century AD and was a major tourist attraction until its destruction. The destruction of this Arch was initially reported by an activist who reported the Arch as having been destroyed with explosives on October 4, 2015 by Daesh, following the capture of Palmyra by Daesh in May of that year (Mullen, 2015). The arch in this case study is listed by Google Maps as being an 8 minute walk from the Palmyra Museum, where the busts in Case Study 2 were targeted. As with the restoration of the busts by the ISCR in Italy, undertaking sought to reconstruct cultural property that was destroyed during Daesh’s first 10 month occupation of Palmyra.

As outlined earlier in this thesis, Daesh has multiple strategic motivations for their destruction of cultural property. Daesh's frequent reason for destroying cultural property is to rid the world of idols and religious monuments. However, in the case of Palmyra, Abdulkarim, the Chief of Syrian Antiquities, observed that Daesh's original position was that they would not destroy the non-religious structures of Palmyra (Mullen, 2015). The Triumphal Arch was not, afterall, a religious monument (Barnard, 2015). Palmyra was seen as a cultural crossroads and as a cosmopolitan and international place during its time as an ancient city as well as within archaeological scholarship. Daesh destroyed this Arch as part of their strategy of “cultural cleansing” by erasing physical evidence of multicultural and intercultural collaboration and co-existence (Turku, 2017). Daesh aims to erase physical evidence of cultural and historical narratives to eliminate opposition to the monotheistic narrative of “oneness of god” Daesh wishes to impose. Director-General

59 of UNESCO Irina Bokova addressed Daesh’s motivations in a statement condemning the destruction of the triumphal arch of Palmyra, stating that This new destruction [of the Triumphal Arch] shows how extremists are terrified by history and culture….Palmyra symbolizes everything that extremists abhor -- cultural diversity, dialogue between cultures, the encounter of peoples of all origins in this caravan city between Europe and Asia (UNESCO, 2015)

At the time of the Arch’s destruction in 2015, The Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA) was in the early stages of developing the Million Images Database Project, which collects images of vulnerable or threatened cultural property in the Middle East and North Africa, when the organization decided to initiate a project to restore the destroyed Arch. The IDA was conceived by its executive director, Roger Michel, as a joint venture between Harvard University, the University of Oxford and the government of the United Arab Emirates. They further partnered with companies who work with 3D technologies to replicate the Arch. The specific companies are discussed with greater detail in section 5.3. The IDA used 3D printing technologies to cut stone with a laser, and create a precise replica, albeit at a smaller scale. First, extremely detailed 3D scans of the Arch were created through photogrammetry from crowdsourced photographs from the Million Images initiative and previously existing data. Then, a laser guided by the 3D scans precisely etched details into marble sourced from Italy, in a process called subtractive manufacturing (Cronin 2016, 714).

The replica of the arch was unveiled in London before being displayed in New York, Dubai, Florence, and Arona. There were many changes in the plans for this project. The arch had been intended to be a full-scale replica, but the final product ended up as a ⅔ scale model. Further, the IDA also initially intended to create two replicas which would be unveiled simultaneously in different countries. Originally, one arch was planned to be unveiled in Trafalgar Square and the other in Times Square in New York City. Ultimately, the location was changed to City Hall Park in New York City (Burch, 2017). Moreover, after its international tour, the Arch was scheduled to return to Syria though its movement to Syria has not yet been announced as of July 2018. Since the recapture of Palmyra by Assad’s government forces, there have also been discussions for UNESCO

60 and the DGAM to rebuild the original and using the ruins, in a process called anastylosis. It is unclear how the 3D-reproduced arch would be displayed once it is transported to Syria and whether it would be displayed as intended, alongside the reconstruction of the original ruins.

This case study explores the motivations, history, financing, and intent of this project, as well as outcomes and how these factors may affect the narrative supported by this reconstruction. Ultimately, this case study demonstrates how the replica arch project resisted the effects of cultural property destruction and heritage cleansing by reconstructing the physical object, but also how it may have furthered the initial ideological violence perpetrated by Daesh against Syrian cultural heritage by contributing to the erasure of historical narratives which Daesh sought to eliminate, imposing an external narrative, and removing Syrian cultural property from its local setting.

5.2. Motivations

According to Michel, rebuilding the Arch of Palmyra was motivated by the urge to resist the effects of both the destruction of culture and cultural property promulgated by Daesh (Richardson, 2016). Michel said that he felt a personal need to help in this situation, and said that he recognized Daesh’s destruction of cultural property as a tactic in their attempts at “censoring history” (Daily Mail, 2016). Alexy Karenowska, the IDA’s Director of Technology, said in an interview that “we should not allow hostile groups of any kind to define the apparent cultural background of a nation of a country” (Guardian Culture, 2016). The creation of this replica arch was intended to counter both the physical destruction of the Arch as well as counter Daesh’s attack on Syrian cultural identity and narrative. These motivations are also reflected by individuals who are not members of the IDA but have spoken to the public and press in support of the replica arch. At the unveiling ceremony of the Monumental Arch in London, England, 2016, London mayor Boris Johnson also described this project as an act of resistance against Daesh, saying to the audience that "we are here in a spirit of defiance" (IDA n.d f). Johnson led this public unveiling event and in his speech called the replica arch a project which gives “two digits to Daesh” (Swilliamism 2016). Johnson’s public portrayal of the motivations of this

61 project also highlights how the arch functions as an act of resistance. Deputy Mayor of New York City Alicia Glen’s statement at the New York unveiling also refers to the replica Arch as a “symbol that we will not stand for acts of terrorists” (Jalabi, 2016). These statements indicate that the reproduction of the Triumphal Arch attempted to resist not just Daesh’s goal of eliminating the physical object, but also to resist Daesh’s ideological aim of historical narrative erasure as well.

The motivations stated by the executive director further reveal an attitude of cultural property internationalism. Michel stated that he views the destruction of cultural property as a loss to all of humankind, and believes third-party heritage intervention to be beneficial in this scenario (Richardson 2016). Johnson’s comments at Trafalgar Square also align with values of cultural property internationalism, as he is quoted by CNN saying “antiquities like this belong to all mankind and it is imperative that we all strive to safeguard our common heritage” (Eastaugh 2016). Four of the five web pages discussing each display site of the arch invoke ideas of a responsibility to protect shared common heritage.8 The implications of this language and motivations will be discussed further in this chapter in section 5.5.

5.3. Relationships

The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) is a joint venture between Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and the government of the United Arab Emirates, with offices at both Harvard and Oxford. The IDA was founded by Roger Michel and has 9 staff members listed on their website as well as an advisory board of academic archaeologists. Many professionals from partner organizations also contributed to this project; UNESCO; the Dubai Future Foundation; departments of archaeology and education from the universities of Oxford and Harvard. The IDA also partnered with companies who specialize in 3D technologies, such as torArt, Vertex Modelling, and D- Shape, for the construction of the replica arch.

8 Only the web page for the Florence display site did not use this language.

The Arch reconstruction was developed in conjunction with the IDA’s “signature” project, the Million Images Database, launched in 2014. It was from the Million Images project that the data needed to create the replica arch was sourced. The Million Images Project is a volunteer-run organization that documents cultural property by capturing footage using 3D cameras in the Middle East and North Africa where cultural property is vulnerable or threatened (IDA n.d h). The Million Images Database hosts about 275,000 open access images from sites around the world, and their website states that they are “always accepting crowd-sourced photographs of high quality” (IDA n.d f). A media source reported that Karenowska stated that these crowdsourced photographs came from multiple sources, such as “university students, people who take an interest in cultural heritage, people associated in a range of ways with the museums and antiquities scene” (Richardson, 2016). The names of individuals who contribute photographs and the dates that the photographs were taken are not released for safety reasons. Running the Million Images Project requires constant contact with people on the ground in Syria and Iraq, meaning that the IDA had experience working with Syrian people and Syrian cultural property at the time that the reconstruction project was developed.

Michel emphasizes that “local stakeholders must stand behind and participate in reconstructions” (Michel, n.d). However, there is little information available about the involvement of local stakeholders and their role in this project. The IDA website states that the arch was chosen for reconstruction by “people from the region” but there is no indication of who was consulted or how (IDA n.d e). The statement that the arch was chosen for reconstruction by “people from the region” also raises questions about when local groups were consulted, as the IDA had originally announced that the Temple of Baal would be reconstructed. After extreme religious groups raised concerns with the deity that the temple of Baal was dedicated to, the IDA decided to instead replicate the Triumphal Arch. Though the website indicates that the Arch was chosen for reproduction by “people from the region,” there is no further information about this consultation, or clarification of who selected the Temple of Baal originally. Though all three case studies indicate that individuals with connections to Syrian or Iraqi heritage were consulted, in

63 comparison to the detail provided by Case Studies 1 and 2, the IDA’s information is vague.

Further, the IDA prioritized input from Christian religious organizations based in the USA instead of “people from the region.” There were protests from religious groups against the replica arch when the replica was intended to be a reproduction of the arch of the temple of the semitic deity Baal (also known as Bel, but not to be confused with Baalshamin), which religious groups opposed as it is considered a pagan monument. This negative backlash caused the IDA to change their plans about what arch they were going to reconstruct, from the arch of Baal to the Roman Triumphal arch, in an attempt to appease religious groups. One article in a Christian online magazine reported on the change from reconstructing the arch of Baal to the triumphal arch by commenting “Christians to rejoice that this tribute to a pagan temple will not be erected” (Neffinger, 2016). However, these religious groups continued to protest the arch after the IDA announced that they were going to be unveiling a different arch and multiple videos posted to YouTube by religious groups after the unveiling have misnamed the replica of the Triumphal Arch as the arch of the temple of Baal. A protestor who arrived at the NYC unveiling carrying a giant wooden cross had been under the impression that the replica arch was of the temple of Baal and said he was protesting the project as he “had read about [the temple] as a historic site of child sacrifice” (Voon, 2016b). Though the interactive Arc/k Project did feature virtual representations of the temple of Baal/Bel, the arch was not of the temple of Baal. This is similar to Daesh’s actions, which originally stated that they disapproved of the religious nature of the Palmyrene monuments, but also opposed the secular Triumphal Arch. Following this outcry from Christian groups in the USA, the IDA decided to reconstruct the Triumphal Arch instead of the Arch of Baal. The IDA prioritized input on what was to be reconstructed from Christian religious organizations based in the USA instead of input from “people from the region;” These Christian groups were protesting the polytheistic meaning of the arch of Baal, which was also the motivation behind Daesh’s destruction. Both Daesh and these religious groups prevented the physical existence of the Arch of Baal because of its polytheistic implications. The IDA stated that it would resist the physical erasure of Daesh’s

64 destruction, but instead bent to the will of another religious organization with monotheistic aims and supported an outcome which is positive for both these christian religious groups as well as for Daesh.

Within the executive committee there was one direct connection with the Syrian heritage profession: Abdulkarim, Chief of Syrian Antiquities. This direct connection afforded the organization with the opportunity to develop the arch in “close consultation” with a key figure representing Syrian heritage (Voon, 2016b). Abdulkarim is an official representative of Assad’s government, yet Britain does not support Assad’s government and has provided military support for the Syrian opposition. Dubai and the US have also expressed support for the Syrian opposition. However, these types of international collaborations are often only possible through official government channels. Under normal circumstances, the director-general of antiquities and museums might be able to act as a voice for the people of Syria in making decisions for cultural property. In this situation, accusations of war crimes perpetrated by the government against its own people amidst the ongoing civil war, raise serious questions about whether Syrian people believe the government can appropriately speak for them and have the best interests of Syrian people in mind.

Abdulkarim was an archaeology professor at Damascus University and only took this position in 2012, after the Syrian Conflict began. A 2015 interview with Abdulkarim revealed that he does not unfailingly support Assad’s government, and would “support anybody who will help save Palmyra from ISIS: the Syrian Army, the Russians, the Americans, even the moderate Syrian opposition” (Cambanis, 2015) According to the interview, this attitude would be considered treasonous in the areas of Syria controlled by Assad's government. This further complicates the issue of whether or not Syrian government heritage officials may make these choices for Syrian people - a topic I return to in Chapter 6.

5.4. Benefit

Many individuals and organizations benefited from this project, both financially and in terms of cultural capital and prestige. Many organizations also invested heavily in the reconstruction. The project was “financed and created” by the IDA (Eastaugh 2016) and is estimated to have cost between £100,000 and £2.5 million (factumarte n.d). Karenowska confirmed to the press in 2016 that “most of the IDA’s money comes from private sources within the US” and that they have an “annual operating budget of about £2.5 million” (Richardson, 2016). The IDA also received a major three year grant from the British Council, valued at £109,445 GBP to train Syrian archaeologists in digital documentation techniques as a part of their Million Images Database and Preserving Syrian Heritage Projects (IDA n.d I; British Council n.d). There is significant benefit for heritage professionals and communities of origin through the Million Images project, as through this program the IDA “distributed 5000 low-cost 3D cameras to volunteer photographers in conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa to allow the imaging of threatened cultural objects and structures” (Thompson 2017, 160). These cameras automatically upload images to the Million Images project website (Thompson 2017, 160). Michel also hopes to donate two 3D printers to people in Syria so that they may be used to rebuild the site around the Arch, though this has not yet occured or been organized.

The social and cultural capital and prestige for the organizations involved is also pertinent. The Dubai Future Foundation was a partner in this project, as they are interested in cultural property. Dubai is currently cultivating a relationship with the Louvre Museum to advance their international involvement in cultural property projects. The replica arch was also presented at many prestigious events, such as the G7 and G8 summits in Florence and Dubai (IDA n.d. C and D). Further, the replica arch project was timely for Britain’s national/international image, as the arch was unveiled at a time when the United Kingdom had still not ratified the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two subsequent protocols. Though the UK finally passed the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act on February 20, 2017, as Blue Shield International (2016) notes, the UK was one of the only active

66 military world powers who had not yet ratified the convention at the time of this project.9 Among other provisions, when the UK ratified this convention, it became illegal for art dealers to deal in cultural property that may have been imported or exported illegally (Harwood, 2017). Maltreatment of cultural property during armed conflict became illegal, and in the case of military commanders, the failure to prevent damage was also criminalized (Harwood, 2017). Heritage professionals had been urging Britain to adopt this legislation for many years (Shaw, 2014) and were only successful in 2017, a year after the replica arch was unveiled. Burch (2017, 73) notes that in this sense this project served the interests of the UK by “conveniently giving the impression that Britain had always respected the tenets of the Hague Convention, despite decades of prevarication.” Britain had been under pressure to adopt this legislation and the reconstruction provided an opportunity to cultivate an image of Britain’s commitment to cultural property.

Many people not directly involved in the project used the reconstruction as a platform, attending events and making statements of support to the media. Pecht (2016) has noted that the international response to the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts has highlighted the ineffectiveness of the West in particular in dealing with cultural annihilation. The arch reconstruction has been taken up by both Johnson and Michel as a signal of the West efficacy. Johnson supports British involvement in preservation projects that seek to preserve cultural property from destruction during armed conflict in other countries and in these same media interviews Johnson claimed that he believed “British archaeologists [should] be in the forefront” of restoring archaeological heritage damaged by Daesh (The Guardian 2016). Michel is quoted in the Telegraph as saying that he views the replica arch as “proof of our competency to do these things” (Richardson, 2016). Bevan (2016: para 13) cautions that some restoration projects seeking to replicate cultural property targeted by Daesh “appear more about building institutional reputations” than about their stated motivations.

9 This convention had not been ratified in Britain for over 60 years and there were concerns over liability and the effect on London’s commercial art market (Garnier 2016; Slaughter and May 2017: 4).

5.5. Target Audiences & Public Presentation

Recreating the Arch was intended to act as a call to action to encourage heritage interventions; its target audiences are primarily other heritage organizations. At the installation of the arch in London, Abdulkarim said in a statement to reporters that he hoped this project would inspire the international community to “move to help us, through solidarity, feeling and technical help” (Eastaugh, 2016). In an open letter penned in The Guardian on March 26, 2016, Abdulkarim further called on the international community for support. William De Blasio, the Mayor of New York City, called the project a demonstration of “our collective resolve to protect our common heritage and humanity' (IDA n.d. F). Koosje Spitz from the Culture and Heritage in Crisis Situations Netherlands Commission for UNESCO also reflected that this project was a call to action that advocates for international heritage interventions, stating that “the significance of much of the cultural heritage worldwide stretches far beyond national borders. It is for that reason that we share a common responsibility to protect and preserve this heritage” (IDA n.d G). As discussed earlier, cultural property internationalism rhetorics are pervasive in accounts of the reconstruction. In order to incite other international heritage interventions, an international audience was targeted. The Arch’s international audience is not new since its reconstruction; before the destruction of the arch, the site of Palmyra also attracted mainly international visitors.10

There is a Syrian community in the UK as well as a refugee population in London, the first stop on the arch’s international tour. The reconstructed arch was physically accessible while in London, but there are no reliable records of visitor statistics at this event. Also, there is no evidence of specific efforts to connect Syrians in the UK with the project; websites and media coverage prioritize an international audience.

The public presentation of the replica Arch consistently focused on the replication as an act of symbolic resistance. The replica arch was first unveiled in London, England, on 19 April 2016 where it was was displayed at the bottom of the steps to the National Gallery

10 Domestic tourism in Syria before the war only accounted for about a quarter of overall tourism, with the coastal beaches and mountains accounting for 80% of that (Mouzahem 2016).

68 in Trafalgar Square. Michel stated that he sees Trafalgar Square as similar to Palmyra in that they are both spaces for diverse audiences and are “the crossroads of humanity” (Richardson ,2016). Further, Michel said in an interview that the choice to display the arch in Trafalgar Square was intentional and that “the reason we’re doing this on Trafalgar Square is that when you set the arch against the neoclassical columns of the National Gallery and Nelson’s Column, there’s a reason why they all look the same: our past is their past” (Richardson, 2016). The decision to display at this site is noteworthy, as there have been calls for the removal of Nelson’s Column, as Lord Nelson advocated for the slave trade and was a supporter of white supremacy and British colonialism (Hirsch, 2017). However, Trafalgar Square has also gained a reputation as a place of resistance, as many protests have occurred there, including activists climbing the Nelson Column. The day of the Arch’s unveiling, members of Greenpeace climbed the Nelson Column and placed a gas mask over Nelson’s face in protest of air pollution (swilliamism, 2016). The decision to display the arch at a site of resistance aligns with the presentation of the arch as an act of resistance. Nevertheless, tensions exist as without interpretative text, the site can equally be read as representing British imperialism and/or British resistance. Though the IDA may have intended to draw on this spirit of resistance, the lack of information for visitors to alert them to that potential intention was not available. In this way, the arch may be read more in sync with the statue of William Wilberforce in Trafalgar square, as a monument which does not acknowledge bottom-up contributions while celebrating top-down approaches, as the statue of Wilberforce celebrates his work as an abolitionist, but disregards and buries the activism of writers and slaves who fought to end Britain’s official role in the transatlantic slave trade (Hirsch, 2017),

After its 3 day display in London, it was transported to Oxford, where the IDA is based. Later that year, in September 2016, the arch then travelled to New York where it was the centrepiece during the opening of the exhibition “The Architecture of Identity, Celebrating History and a Shared Vision for Peace” with the New York Public Library. The exhibition marked the launch of a joint project between UK’s Royal National Institute for the Blind, the USA’s National Federation of the Blind, and the New York

Public Library. In this setting, the Arch was presented again as an act of resistance and a call to action for other heritage organizations “to develop and deploy 3D printing technology to help to make architectural cultural heritage more accessible” (IDA n.d G). This resonates with Bevan’s comments on how interventions can get co-opted. Michel made the same comparison between New York and Palmyra as he did between Trafalgar Square and Palmyra, saying to audiences at the unveiling ceremony that “Palmyra, like New York City, was this amazing crossroads where people from all around the region collected” (Voon, 2016b). The web page hosted by the IDA for the New York displays also compares New York to the city of Palmyra before its destruction in 273 A.D.

At the New York site, the presentation of the replica arch was paired with an experience called The Arc/k Project, which made an app available to download on visitor’s phones and provided an interactive experience with tile designs from archaeological sites at Palmyra like the Temple of Baal/Bel and the Amphitheatre.11 After its week long exhibition at City Hall Park, New York, the Arch was exhibited in Dubai and Florence. The web page for the Arch’s display in Dubai also compares the city of display to the city of Palmyra before its destruction in 273 A.D. In Florence, the Arch was presented as a part of the first G7 of Culture which discussed international heritage protection, and highlighted the same two ideas of resistance and encouraging international heritage interventions. Following these two displays, the Arch was incorporated into the G8 Summit events in Arona, Italy, as a joint project between the Dubai Future Foundation and the Arona Mayor's office. The main square in Arona featured the arch and an event with music and remarks and was reportedly attended by thousands of people (IDA n.d. A). Messaging about the arch frequently draws attention to the arch as a “symbol”. At the unveiling of the Replica Arch in Arona, Italy, the IDA dedicated the reconstruction to Khaled Al Assad. Khaled al-Asaad was beheaded by Daesh after refusing to divulge information regarding cultural property. The destruction of the arch in Palmyra was initially reported by activist Khaled as-Homsi, whose uncle was the late antiquities official Khaled al-Asaad (Barnard, 2015). The newly named Khaled al-Asaad Museum

11 The Arc/k Project is an organization which is separate from the IDA that seeks to document Syrian cultural property as an act of resistance against the iconoclasm of Daesh.

70 was unveiled in Arona at the same time as the exhibition of the Arch and the unveiling event honoured Asaad and hosted his family at the commemorative dinner (IDA n.d. A). The sons of the late Khaled al-Asaad spoke at this ceremony, and the IDA website described the Arona event as a “tribute to the men and women around the world who undertake the challenging and often dangerous work of preserving and celebrating our shared cultural heritage” (IDA n.d. A). This dedication inscribes the narrative of the arch as a symbol of resistance against Daesh by honouring Al-Asaad’s resistance. In an open letter on the IDA website, Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, the UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, addresses the narrative and message of the project and summarized this narrative of resistance when he said that “there is actually a message within the Million Image Database initiative for those who think you can wipe out our human heritage with acts of destruction. What you destroy, we can create again' (IDA n.d. C). This quote is provided on the IDA website three times, on the seperate pages for the Dubai site, the Arona site, and the page dedicated to a general overview of the arch project. The motivations to resist Daesh and the presentation of this project as an act of resistance dominates the narrative supported by the project.

During the installation of the Arch in Trafalgar Square, London, graduate student Zena Kamash asked visitors to write their opinion about the arch on a postcard. Feedback from Kamash’s visitor information study indicates that public perception features an awareness that the original arch and the replica arch are connected in their narrative and biography, as many responses to the arch included language like “‘replacement’....‘bring you back to life’; ‘rise again’; ‘immortalised’; ‘resurrect you’; ‘the resurrection’” (Kamash 2017, 612). This aligns with statements made by Alexy Karenowska, the IDA’s Director of Technology, who said in an interview that “I'm not sure that it necessarily has to be the original object for those [authentic] experiences to be had” between cultural property and audiences (Guardian Culture, 3:14).

5.6. Ownership and Intellectual Property

Given that this project created a replica of a monument that no longer stands, the question of ownership must be addressed. The IDA and its partners intend to send the 3D printed

71 arch back to its original site in Syria, however, if the destroyed arch is to be rebuilt using the remains and ruins on site, it is unclear what will happen to the replica arch or what need there will be for it in Syria. Who owns the 3D printed arch and its meta-data is unclear.

The replica Arch stem from the Million Images database. The IDA does not assert copyright over the images from the open-source Million Image Database and states that “photographs may be used by anyone for any lawful purpose without payment or attribution” (Million Images, 2018). Though pictures of the reconstructed Arch are available on their website, the 3D scans have not yet been released on the Million Images Database as of May 2018. Director of Technology Alexy Karenowska told a journalist in 2016 that "the file has not yet been released publicly but will be soon” (Bond, 2016). Though the IDA is not asserting copyright, withholding the 3D scans allows for greater control of information. This is not uncommon as heritage scholarship has noted that museums often regulate access to public domain works from their collections (Gillespie 2015; Cronin 2016). Further, the scans were created using existing photographs of the arch before its destruction. Gillespie (2015, 139) posits that “it should be possible to acquire copyright with scanning but a test case would be needed to test this hypothesis within the EU or UK.” The IDA has offices in both the US and the UK: In the US, copyright protection for 3D models of existing objects have been tested in court, such as in the case of Meshworks Inc. v. Toyota, where courts concluded that the 3D scans created by Meshwerks Inc. did not have copyright protection as exact reproductions of Toyotas design (Gillespie, 2015). Within both UK and US copyright law, photographs were formerly considered as exact reproductions without copyright protection. Now, copyright law considers the agency of the author and their artistic expression in photography (Gillespie, 2015). While the arch used 3D printing technologies specifically to ensure the exactitude of the replica, it is also on a significantly smaller scale. This may constitute an original enough modification to allow the IDA to retain copyright over their scans and replica, even though no one retains copyright of the original destroyed arch. As Thompson (2017, 172) notes, this has not been tested in courts but it is likely that “the creators of digital models of these non-copyrightable cultural heritage artifacts most

72 probably do have copyright protection” given the way courts have interpreted copyright laws in previous cases. In the UK, copyright law for 3D scans and printed objects of cultural property is still ambiguous (Gillespie, 2015).

5.7. Outcomes

The visitor response information research conducted by Kamash (2017, 611) reveals that audiences at the Trafalgar Square event interpreted the project as a narrative about symbolic resistance, as some visitors wrote on the postcards that they interpreted the project as one of international intervention and symbolic resistance: “10 mentioned defiance against terrorism, and seven solidarity with Syria, as a reason to support the arch” (Kamash 2017, 611). The impact of this project in bringing parties together and modeling a form of resistance was recognized through a 2015 award, when the replica arch project won Apollo Magazine’s Digital Innovation award for its ability to “galvanise an international community appalled by [Daesh’s] destruction and uncertain how to respond” (Gray, 2015).

Although this project is intended to counter the narrative asserted by Daesh, the IDA has largely imposed it’s own narrative of symbolic resistance and provides audiences with scant historical and cultural narratives about Palmyra as a city, the arch as a monument, or the region as an important site within world history. In this way, if the international heritage community is imposing external narratives on Syrian culture and heritage, then they may unknowingly or unintentionally achieve the opposite of their original goal of resistance. The project narrative is a story of the international community coming together in an act that resisted Daesh’s aims. As discussed above and reflected by Michel’s statements, the replica arch project was specifically motivated to resist not just the physical destruction, but also Daesh’s erasure of narrative and cultural identity. The BBC reported that Michel said the replica arch is “about censorship, in my opinion. If there are folks in the world who want to delete things from the historical record, they need to be restored. It's as simple as that. This is not any different from book-burning. This is an attempt by folks to exorcise portions of history” (Turner, 2016). However, the cultural narratives that Daesh wished to erase are not prevalent in the narrative inscribed

73 by this project and have not been “restored” as Michel stated they would be. The entire ancient city of Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and The Arch of Palmyra was a feature of the larger ruins of the ancient city.12 This heritage site’s narrative used to discuss the area’s ancient Roman history and the role of the art and architecture that was present. Narratives surrounding Palmyra as presented within the World Heritage Site before its destruction included a discussion of Muslim, Christian, and Druze religions, which is the pluralistic narrative Daesh targeted (Reichel, 2017). Of the 67 pages of content provided on the IDA website about this project, only 5 pages discuss this history of Palmyra and the targeted arch. The use of the word “crossroads” to describe the sites of public presentation invokes the pluralism that Daesh sought to erase through the destruction of the Triumphal Arch, however, this is very limited information discussing the targeted narratives, especially when compared to the detail which Case Study 1 and 2 were able to provide.13 There was limited information available at the display sites as well; according to Kamash, at the Arch’s installation in Trafalgar Square, there was no information about this cultural pluralism available for audiences (Kamash, 2017). In an interview with Hyperallergic, a graduate student who attended the unveiling of the Arch in New York said that, like the London event, there was not “a lot of didactic material” available for visitors (Voon, 2016). In this sense, the narrative targeted by Daesh has not been preserve in the restoration effort and intervention. The lack of information available to visitors at the Trafalgar Square event is even more concerning considering that the IDA set up “a large marquee for the event that was filled with tables and large banners, which advertised their company and associates” (Kamash 2017, 615). There were multiple signals that the public exhibition focused on providing information about the organizations involved in the replica arch project, rather than information about the Arch itself. According to Kamash, “the banners contained no information about the event, the arch, the conflict or Palmyra” (2017, 616). Tweets from visitors to the arch support

12 Old Palmyra is next to the modern city of Tadmur, which had a museum and catered to the thousands of tourists Palmyra received each year. The town is now empty, with most of the residents displaced 160km west to the town of Homs. 13 The press release for the restoration of the busts in case study 2 provided evidence of the targeted historical narratives in 7/15 pages of their release information (0.46%); The IDA provided 5 pages of information about the targeted cultural narratives out of 67 total pages, or 0.07%.

Kamash’s claims, with one twitter user @GabeMoshenska saying: “the publicity tent was very unclear!” (April 19, 2016). Moshenska also posted a photo to Twitter of the signage available to visitors, which neglects to even mention the name Palmyra (See Figure 6) (@GabeMoshenska, April 19, 2016). Videos taken by civilians on the day of the Arch’s unveiling in London and uploaded to YouTube support visitor observations that there was almost no signage available, expect for that identifying the IDA’s involvement (swilliamism, 2016).

Figure 6: Moshenska, Gabe, Twitter Post, April 19, 2016, 8:13am

Hyperallergic journalist Claire Voon’s (2016b) report of the unveiling ceremony in New York also indicates that there was a lack of information available about the Arch at its second unveiling event:

There are no plaques describing what it represents or even labeling it; no signs or pamphlets for visitors to read anything about Palmyra or even the destructive event that led to the replica’s creation. Not even in the event’s opening remarks, which lasted less than ten minutes, did [Deputy Mayor Alicia] Glen nor Roger Michel, the Institute’s executive director, provide any substantive background on the destroyed arch.

Voon goes on further to say that there were missed opportunities to provide further information to visitors, as she commented that the only supplement to this project was a mobile, augmented reality experience by The Arc/kProject, which invites you to download an app and scan specially designed tiles dedicated to the arch, the Temple of Bel, and Palmyra’s amphitheater. A 3D rendering of each structure pops up on your screen, allowing you to toggle between a black background and “live view,” which layers the model over the real world. …….I was hopeful the app also offered a section of valuable educational information; but when I asked a developer if it did, he said no.

This lack of information about the narrative targeted for erasure by Daesh is concerning given that visitor responses to the arch reflect that information about the Arch was not communicated effectively. As discussed earlier, this project changed many times; from size differences, to the type of technology used, to what was actually to be reconstructed. The IDA had originally planned to reconstruct the Archway leading to the Temple of Baal and visitors were misinformed about what had been reconstructed at both the London and New York unveilings: one postcard collected as a part of Kamash’s research at the Trafalgar Square unveiling “explicitly refers to the replica arch as ‘the Temple’, which suggests that the message over what was standing in the square had not been sufficiently transmitted to all visitors” (2017, 615). This misinformation could also be influenced by the Arc/k Project app experience which was presented at the same time and provided the chance to view tile designs from the Temple of Baal/Bel. However, as discussed earlier, at the New York unveiling a protestor arrived shouldering a wooden cross because he also believed the replica was of the arch to the Temple of Bel. Misinformation about the replica arch online is so rampant that there is a Snopes fact check page available, debunking the claim that “the Temple of Baal is being rebuilt in New York and London as an operable house of worship” (LaCapria, 2016). These multiple instances of audiences receiving different messages due to changes in the project

76 have contributed to public misinformation about the project. If visitors to the Arch are not able to identify what has been reconstructed, this suggests that the historical narratives surrounding what was reconstructed have not been communicated effectively by the IDA.

The multiple changes made to the project during the replica arch’s development and lack of information for visitors were not the only contributing factors to public misinformation surrounding the narrative outcomes of this project. Michel presented the replica arch in public statements as "completely indistinguishable from the original" which is untrue as the Arch is noticeably smaller in size. These tensions between statements and outcomes has been noted by other organizations: Factum Arte, a company that works with 3D technologies and who have also created reproductions of cultural property destroyed during the Syrian conflict, wrote in an open letter on its website that they believed the IDA’s stated aim of creating a detailed replica was disingenuous, as the replica is actually “a reduced size low resolution arch with very little detail” (Factum Arte, n.d.). These changes have contributed to confusion about the project, and inaccurate statements made about the replica arch have also been misleading for audiences. Bevan (2016, para 6) assessed the situation as an “expensive publicity stunt,” an idea supported by Burch (2017, 67) who observed that the public exhibition of the arch “seeks to grandstand the IDA and its flamboyant leader.” These critiques of the project note that this project’s narrative was focused on the IDA and not reinstating the narratives targeted for erasure by Daesh.

5.8. Conclusions

The motivations of this project were to resist both the physical and ideological violence of Daesh, with the right to do so stemming from internationalist cultural property values that understands cultural property as significant to, and the responsibility of, all humans. There is a connection to Syrian heritage and consent given from relevant authorities in Syrian heritage, but given the origins of the Syrian conflict in civil war, government authority may not be considered as an accurate representation of Syrian people. The finances provided by external groups and those external third party groups are likely to be the largest beneficiaries associated with these projects, though there is local benefit with

77 regards to the Million Images Database initiative which aims to train heritage professionals on the ground in Syria and provide them with technology. This project was shaped and presented as an international initiative, with international audiences, and raised complex issues of both digital and physical ownership. The project presents itself as a symbol of, and memorial to, resistance and supports a narrative which is dominated by the story of the project itself. While it can be expected that narratives surrounding the Arch would change following its destruction by Daesh, the narrative which now surrounds the Arch has been created by and is about the IDA and their heritage initiatives. Though the replica arch resists Daesh’s aim of physical destruction, this narrative in fact furthers Daesh’s goals of physical removal from its location, erasure of previous narratives, and imposition of an external narrative.

6. Findings

This study examines the way that both heritage institutions and Daesh have been active contributors to the alteration of cultural narratives surrounding cultural property that has been destroyed during the Syrian Conflict. This is an important consideration as Munawar (2017, 43) notes that “the aftermath of reconstruction of cultural heritage can be as destructive as the destruction itself and has the power to prolong violence even after the civil war ends.” This chapter describes a summary of each case and an analysis across all cases and describes: 1) the ways that Daesh erases the established, locally developed and inconvenient narratives by replacing them with their own narratives and by the physical removal or destruction of cultural property, and 2) the power and influence that heritage practices have on the alteration, construction and suppression of cultural narratives and memory.

The aims of Daesh hinge on the erasure and imposition of narrative, especially through physical removal of cultural property from its local setting. Across all three case studies, cultural property was targeted by Daesh because it represented cultural heritage narratives that were in conflict with Daesh’s ideological aims. This thesis analyzed these three case studies to determine whether or not these projects resisted or furthered Daesh’s aims. The data collected from these three case studies was examined and identified six themes: 1. Motivations 2. Relationships 3. Benefits 4. Target Audiences & Public Presentation 5. Ownership & Intellectual Property 6. Outcomes

The motivations of each project were analyzed by examining statements made by the organization to determine why the organization wanted to undertake the specific project. The relationship history was analyzed to determine whether or not this third-party is external, has connections to Syria, or incorporated input from communities of origin.

Benefits and their beneficiaries in each case study were also examined in the context of economic and social capital, with a specific focus on whether or not these beneficiaries were people affected by the Syrian conflict. Target audiences and public presentation were also considered. The fifth category addressed the implications and issues of ownership and intellectual property ownership. The sixth category, outcomes, considered the narrative supported by the reconstruction projects and the narrative promulgated in each case was then analyzed with specific attention paid to where, when, and how the previously extant heritage narratives exist within the project. These 6 main themes were used to answer this thesis’ research questions.

6.2. Analysis

In each case study, project members stated that they would attempt to preserve both the narratives and the physical objects which were targeted by Daesh. This research determined that case study one and two, Allahyari’s artistic initiative and the restoration of the Palmyrene busts in Italy, resisted both of Daesh’s main goals of erasing the existence of both physical objects of cultural property and cultural historical narratives. However, the third case study of the replica arch by the IDA resisted solely Daesh’s physical erasure and did not resist Daesh’s aim of erasing cultural narratives. This study further considered similarities and differences between cases; the case studies examining the busts restored in Italy and the replica arch by the IDA both set out to reconstruct cultural property destroyed during the 10 month occupation of Palmyra by Daesh in 2015. Both the replica arch project and the busts restored in Italy were dedicated to the late archaeologist Khaled Al-Asaad and were supported by UNESCO. There are many similarities between these two cases: they both intended to resist physical and narrative erasure, they both can claim to have consulted individuals with connections to Syrian heritage, they both can claim to generate benefit for Syrian heritage directly. However, despite these similarities, these two cases achieved disparate outcomes due to the differences between these two cases.

Given that a key motivation across all three case studies was to resist Daesh’s narrative erasure, how and where the narrative targeted by Daesh was present is of crucial consideration. Allahyari’s exhibition made these targeted narratives available with minimal obstacles and primary evidence; downloading the ZIP file gives access to twenty-one different essays about the cultural items from art historical and archaeological perspectives, within a framework of cultural pluralism. The information provided in the ZIP file contextualizes the King Uthal sculpture within a narrative of historical and cultural pluralism, and provides information to audiences about Assyrian and Hatrene cultural property, as well as providing context for the destruction of the Mosul Museum. As noted in Chapter 3, this information was available in both English and Arabic. The second case study examining the busts restored in Italy made the narrative targeted by Daesh accessible through their public releases of information; the press release bearing the logos of the contributing organizations contained archaeological overviews of the objects in question and for the busts specifically, included a detailed discussion from an art history perspective of funerary art in Palmyra, emphasizing the cultural pluralism evident in the blending of artistic styles on Palmyrene funerary busts. This information was also available in multiple languages, with a variety of media sources in different languages, and exhibition texts in both English, Italian and Arabic. The third case study of the replica arch provided little to no evidence of Daesh’s targeted narratives; the information provided by the organizing bodies involved in the third case study of the replica arch in fact focused on the project itself. This information was provided almost entirely in one language, English. As discussed in Chapter 5, there was ample opportunity to resist Daesh’s narrative erasure by providing evidence of that narrative, especially at unveiling events, however, the IDA instead chose to provide information about their own organization and initiatives. Most egregiously, text panels at unveiling neglected to even name the city of Palmyra, but were able to provide the IDA’s twitter handle. Though these three projects all resisted the physical destruction of cultural property through their 3D printed interventions, the third case study of the replica arch did not actually resist Daesh’s narrative erasure as the project did not reinstate the information Daesh wished to erase. In this way, Daesh’s aim of erasing cultural narratives were actually supported and not resisted in the third case study. This aligns with Harrowell (2016, 2) who posits that

81 heritage destruction and reconstruction are two sides of the same coin, as they both have political goals and exercise powers through and over the space.

The objects reproduced in these case studies are significant as tangible representations of intangible heritage. Cultural property functions as a signifier of the meanings ascribed to it by different audiences. Given that authenticity is a process stemming from the meanings ascribed to it by different audiences, a reproduction may be considered to have elements of authenticity if the meanings and stories ascribed to it align with the meanings and stories ascribed to the original. In these cases, the meanings and stories ascribed to the reproductions were only similar to the stories ascribed to the original object pre- destruction in Case Studies 1 and 2; in the third case study, the stories connected to the objects were stories of the process of production and stories of science, as opposed to stories of cultural pluralism and cultural identity.

A key consideration for reproductions is outlined by Verhoogt (2007), whose 5 life stages of a reproduction highlight the importance of both authorship and public perception. The actors involved in reproductions and the interactions between these actors is crucial to the consideration of reproductions. In an examination of heritage reconstruction in Bosnia, Walasek (2015, 205) defined domains of restoration as both the actors involved in heritage initiatives during or post conflict and their interactions and engagement with heritage processes after experiencing ethnic cleaning. In line with this thinking, this thesis also examined the third parties involved in this case and their prior history of involvement with Syrian cultural property. The relationships between organizations and Syrian heritage in this case study have been examined to determine if they have a previous relationship with Syrian heritage, sought out or incorporated input from people with connections to Syrian heritage or communities of origin, or sought out or received consent from people with connections to Syrian heritage or communities of origin. The current museological paradigm acknowledges that the role of memory institutions has shifted to one that recognizes their role as guides and facilitators, rather than a singular voice of authority, in a shift towards public involvement in heritage discourses (Palmer 2009; Perkin 2010; Harrison 2012; Schofield 2014; Van der Auwera 2015; Schofield

2015). In this way, this analysis continues in the vein of what Ireland & Schofield (2015, 2) describe as “a departure from the tradition of external heritage ethics, to a broader approach underpinned by the turn to human rights, issues of social justice and the political economy of heritage, conceptualising ethical responsibilities not as pertaining to the past but to a future-focused domain of social action.” In this sense, “heritage processes must move beyond the preoccupations of the experts in government ministries and the managers of public institutions, and include the different publics who inhabit our cities, towns and villages” (Palmer 2009, 8). This study recognizes this global shift towards respecting the agency of cultural groups and in this analysis considers who has control over narrative in these three case studies.

Current heritage scholarship considers that “top-down approaches are not always conducive to building sustainable collaborative partnerships;” heritage projects should instead attempt to contribute to “bottom-up engagement work” (Perkin 2010, 112). Munawar (2017, 38) asserts that “the immediate stakeholders in Palmyra are the local people – the Syrians - who were born in, and lived, and participated in constructing Palmyra’s fame throughout history.” Munawar (2017, 43) also argues that “inclusion of local stakeholders – regardless of their political stances or geographical distribution – in making decisions as to whether or not to reconstruct” is essential. Many stakeholders have been displaced by the Syrian Conflict and communities have been fractured, which may make communication with, and consensus among, communities of origin difficult, however, these communities and their people still exist and can be consulted and involved in heritage projects. Case Studies 1 and 2 indicate that local stakeholders can be consulted and information about that consultation process can be provided to audiences. Though all three cases can claim to have consulted individuals with connections to Syrian heritage, the way that this information is provided is different across the three cases. Allahyari’s project, Case Study 1, was able to provide detailed information about who was consulted and how, including screenshots and unaltered evidence of consultation. The information provided by press releases in Case Study 2 of the busts is also detailed and explicit, including full lists of committee members, while the information provided by the IDA in Case Study 3 is vague; other than consultation with Abdulkarim and

83 mentions of “people from the region” there is no information about the consultation process. Of the replica arch, Karenowska said that “it would be very wrong for us in the West to try to enforce our will in this situation,” and that “it is not for any single organization to make a decision and play a major role in reconstruction” (Bond 2016). However, when I compared the replica arch project’s information about who was consulted and how, the comparison reveals that the IDA’s replica arch was the most centrally controlled and lacked important details (especially about what was chosen for reconstruction by “people from the region”). The lack of information and transparency about their process raises significant doubt about IDA’s role as facilitators; instead, the available evidence indicates that, contrary to Karenowska's statement, the IDA's interests dominated the reconstruction. Rather than a bottom-up approach, the IDA’s replica arch project appears to be top down. The implications of heritage reconstruction projects involving top-down international collaboration but without the inclusion of local stakeholders has been examined in post-conflict Bosnia by Walasek (2015). In the post- conflict reconstruction, perpetrators of violence were still in power in the government and did not consult local stakeholders which caused tensions in the heritage reconstruction projects (Walasek 2015, 191) as surviving victims of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia signed petitions opposed to the reconstructions undertaken by both the government and the international community (Walasek 2015, 253).

Though the busts in Case Study 2 were returned to Syria and the objects reproduced by Allahyari in Material Speculation: ISIS are available globally (and have the potential to exist in its original setting in Syria, a topic I return to below), in the other case study of the replica arch, the arch continues to exist outside of its original setting. As noted earlier, when Daesh targets cultural property, their ideological aim is to erase and impose narratives. This research has shown that Daesh also exports cultural property, instead of destroying it as a tool to further their ideological aims, as it still removes the physical cultural property from the geographic regions. Given that a method employed by Daesh to further their goals is to rid the physical cultural property from the geographic region in any way, whether through destruction or exportation, the IDA’s physical ownership of the arch, and their non-involvement in the anastylosis process with the ruins of the

84 original arch in situ, has the capacity to support Daesh’s aims instead of resisting them. In this sense, cultural evidence continues to not exist in its local setting.

Another key difference between the case studies is that neither the busts nor Allahyari’s reconstructions claim visually or through statements to be exact reproductions and can not be exact replicas; Allahyari’s works are clear plastic while the busts’ reconstructed additions were created in a noticeably different colour from the original stone. The IDA claimed that the arch was an exact replica, though it is clearly not as it is much smaller than the original triumphal arch. While 3D printing has been commonly employed in heritage practises in order to employ its capacity for exactitude, in these cases none of the reproductions were actually exact. This lack of exactitude would be categorized by Han (2017) as Fangzhipin, where the difference between the reproduction and the original is visually evident and therefore does not retain authenticity the way Fuzhipin (exact replicas) might. Further, the reproductions created in these three case studies are all outside of their context, which according to Benjamin (1936) strips them of their aura and authenticity. These tensions raise questions of authenticity and reproduction which require further research; for example, given that authenticity and aura are derived from the life cycle of the object, and the destruction or damage of these objects is a crucial part of life cycle, then the destruction and damage experienced by the object should be physically represented in reproductions in order to retain an authentic aura (Benjamin 1936). Bevan (2006) has called this incorporation of damage into reproductions “critical reconstruction.” However, reproductions which neglect to physically represent the destruction experienced by the object within its life cycle, may have potential for the reproduction to be considered inauthentic and without aura, though this is outside the scope of this research. This tension raises questions of what point in the life cycle of an object the reproduction represents. Another noteworthy feature raised by this research is that Allahyari’s artistic intitivate and the replica arch have completely rebuilt the destroyed objects, while case study 2 restored the original busts, incorporating their reconstruction into the original artefact, raising questions of replication and representation. Further, another question regarding authenticity and reproduction is raised by the findings of this research, while the busts and the arch only exist in one place,

Allahyari’s works can exist in multiple places simultaneously and could concurrently exist in both Syria as well as in North America, Europe, Africa, or Asia. The simultaneous existence of these destroyed objects in different locations provides an opportunity for further study about reproduction and authenticity.

Perhaps most importantly, these projects all undertook to recreate pre-Islamic heritage sites which were targeted by Daesh in the Syrian conflict. The majority of the sites destroyed by Daesh since the Syrian Conflict began in 2011 are actually “shrines, mosques, churches, cemeteries, and other sacred sites important to Christian, Yazidi, and branches of Islam” (Thompson 2017,169); however, international heritage intervention and reconstruction projects “overwhelmingly focus on pre-Islamic heritage: sites like Palmyra or Nimrud that were created by Romans or the empires of the Ancient Near East. In reality, only a small percentage of the cultural sites destroyed by IS are this ancient” (Thompson 2017,169). The choice to reconstruct cultural property destroyed as a part of Daesh’s Pre-Monotheistic Iconoclasm, yet not cultural property that came from the most targeted group, Symbolic Sectarianism, is noteworthy as it can be read as indicating that international definitions of “universal heritage” extend primarily to pre-Islamic cultural property but excludes Islamic cultural property. Other case studies which qualified for inclusion in this research all also sought to reconstruct pre-Islamic cultural property14.

Further, these case studies have chosen to reconstruct cultural property destroyed by Daesh but not cultural property destroyed by Assad’s government forces. This includes the iconic colonnaded streets of Apamea which were destroyed on March 15, 2012 by shelling attacks by Assad’s troops (Reichel 2017). UNESCO condemned the actions of Assad’s government forces and their role in the damage to Palmyra in 2012, before Daesh’s destruction of the archaeological site (UNESCO, 2012). According to UNESCO (2012; 2014), Cuncliffe (2012), and Munawar (2017), the use of Palmyra by Syrian

14 This includes the Lamassu by Factum Arte, the other 3D printed reconstructions featured in Rincesere della Distruzione at the Colosseum, works by Rekrei (formerly Project Mosul), and works featured in the 2016 exhibition “The Missing: Rebuilding the Past.” Projects which are in progress include: World’s Advances Saving Project (WASP) with UNESCO, the IDA’s most recent 3D printing initiative to reconstruct the Lion of al-Lāt, and a 3D scanning and printing initiative organized by Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism Organization.

86 government troops is still a violation of the 1954 Hague Convention, which Syria became a signatory of in 1958. As damage to cultural property is also being perpetuated by factions of this conflict who are not Daesh, it is noteworthy that projects have not sought to reconstruct cultural property destroyed by other factions.

Third-parties often impose their own values and narratives in heritage projects (Viejo Rose 2013; Viejo Rose 2015), which is also evidenced here. The motivations and public presentation of the replica arch in Case Study 3 reflected ideas of cultural property internationalism. This valuation of cultural property assumes that responsibility for cultural property belongs to all humankind instead of solely the nation or communities of origin. It is likely that views aligning more with cultural property internationalism are prevalent among the motivations in this case because if an external/third-party organization is intervening to preserve heritage, they likely support external interventions and follow ideals of cultural property internationalism. However, as Buijs (2016, 553) notes, “when the West takes over their possessions and relabels them as ‘world culture’, indigenous peoples feel the necessity of claiming and protecting their heritage. The process of globalization created a counter movement of localization.”

Universal valuations of cultural property have been criticized for their subjectivity, malleability and vulnerability to manipulation (Viejo Rose 2013,139; Munawar 2016; Munawar 2017). Viejo-Rose (2013, 139) states that these valuations “cannot simply be imposed from above or used as rhetoric in which to package reconstruction projects.” When I compared valuations of cultural property responsibility between cases, it became apparent that the IDA’s valuations of cultural property consider heritage preservation as the responsibility of the international community. However, in Case 2, the busts were restored through international intervention but returned to Syria within 11 days of their restoration. This is an example of both cultural property internationalism and cultural property nationalism co-existing; while the restoration was undertaken by international organizations, a key guiding factor in the project to restore the busts was respecting the sovereignty of states. The efforts of global actors to preserve and restore Syrian cultural heritage makes tangible theories of nationalism and internationalism, and the possibility

87 for them to co-exist. Further research into ideas of universalism in third-party cultural property interventions is needed and I am interested in further examining universalism within heritage studies.

6.3. Conclusions

The findings of this study indicate that further research into third-party heritage interventions that seek to preserve cultural property should be conducted to determine how the specific value systems of these international interventions influence their practises, as such interventions can intentionally resist, or unintentionally support, the original violence and destruction of cultural property.

Third-party interventions commonly use 3D technologies to restore or reconstruct cultural property, just as museums and heritage sites globally are including 3D technologies in their regular operations. Given the dual fold violence enacted against Syrian culture, heritage, and identity, 3D technologies may provide an opportunity to resist that violence on both levels. The meta-cultural property which is produced by 3D technologies may provide an opportunity to resist cultural narrative and identity erasure as seen in Allahyari’s work Material Speculation. Further, the physical presence of cultural property can be manipulated; changes in materiality are more easily made, such as changes in scale or colouring or even full virtual reconstructions of aspects of the object. 3D technologies also allow multiple people to control production and provides the opportunity for an object to exist in multiple locations. Ultimately, none of the aspects of 3D technologies are inherent, and third-parties still make choices based on their value systems.

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