Civilizational Memory: the Transformation of Palmyra As a Cultural Patrimony of the West

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CIVILIZATIONAL MEMORY: THE TRANSFORMATION OF PALMYRA AS A CULTURAL PATRIMONY OF THE WEST

Bincy Abdul Samad

A Dissertation

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

May 2020

Committee:

Sridevi Menon, Advisor

Kenneth W. Borland Graduate Faculty Representative

Andrew Schocket

Sara Khorshidifard

Bincy Abdul Samad

Sridevi Menon, Advisor

A UNESCO-listed world heritage site located in the Syrian desert, Palmyra has been an ancient global crossroads of trade and culture. It has drawn tourists and scholars from all over the world and represented a palimpsest of eastern and western histories and cultures. In August

2015, the advance of ISIS into Palmyra and its calculated destruction of ancient monuments in

Palmyra shocked the global community and led to an outpouring of grief. This dissertation examines the ways in which institutions and scholars in Europe and the United States responded to this sense of intense loss and argues that the international effort to rescue and preserve

Palmyra has made Palmyra a cultural patrimony of the West. Focusing on digital and physical recuperations of Palmyrene monuments by various Western-based digital initiatives, I argue that

Palmyra has been appropriated into an archive of Western civilizational memory. Edward Said’s scholarship on the east/west binary and colonial discourse provides a framework for my analysis of the West’s appropriation of Palmyra as its cultural heritage and the visual colonialism that is exemplified in the recreations of Palmyrene artifacts and monuments. I engage the scholarship of

Maurice Halbwachs and Astrid Erll, among others, to explore the role of memory in transforming the significance of Palmyra and the perceived threat to Western civilizational memory. Virtual collaborative projects on Palmyra such as the #New Palmyra project, The

Palmyra Portrait Project, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” and the Institute for Digital

Archaeology serve as key sources in this dissertation. These efforts to reclaim Palmyra by the

West as a patrimony of the West must be juxtaposed against the reality that Palmyra’s antiquities have always remained present in the lives of Syrians and people living in the region. Therefore, iv the real Palmyra that once stood majestically in the Syrian desert is lost in translation and transference.

Keywords: Palmyra, memory theory, cultural patrimony, virtual projects, cultural heritage, visual colonialism, antiquities, civilizational memory, east/west binary.

For Khaled al-Asaad, the Syrian archaeologist who sacrificed his life for Palmyra

vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation would never have been completed without the unconditional support and guidance of my dissertation committee members: Dr. Sridevi Menon, Dr. Andrew

Schocket, Dr. Sara Khorshidifard, and Dr. Kenneth W Borland. Words cannot express how grateful I am for their immense help, support, and mentorship throughout my graduate career and the entire dissertation writing process. Dr. Menon, my advisor, is an intellectually demanding person to work with as she often does not “mince words.” She challenged me constantly to bring out the best in me. I have been very fortunate to work with her and have greatly benefitted from her professional and personal guidance to complete this dissertation. I truly appreciate her words of wisdom, feedback, and guidance. I am forever grateful for her diligent attention towards my dissertation, right from the beginning, in terms of its conceptualization and materialization. I very much appreciate the immense amount of time, effort, and patience that she has dedicated toward myself as her advisee and also in helping me enhance my writing and researching skills. Dr. Schocket, who was ACS program director when I was taking classes in the program, has been a God-sent mentor to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude for his guidance, encouragement, and support whilst I completed my graduate studies.

Dr. Khorshidifard was always willing to resolve my professional concerns and agreed to work with me even after she had moved to another university. Dr. Borland, the graduate representative faculty, was very prompt with his responses throughout and I am deeply indebted to his guidance as well.

Rebekah J Patterson, our ACS graduate secretary, made me feel welcome in the graduate program at BGSU and has always been a wonderful source of guidance and inspiration. I could not have successfully finished the program without her enthusiastic support and help, both professional and personal. vii A million thanks to my very supportive family, my husband Sreehari, and my kids, Aadu and Aadya, who always encouraged me throughout my journey towards a doctoral degree and were very patient and understanding. Aju, my office-mate and friend, has always been a source of support and made himself available whenever I needed professional guidance and support. I am forever thankful to my parents who have always supported me with their prayers and extended their emotional, moral, and financial support. My parents in-laws have been supportive as well, and I am especially thankful to them for coming over and being with us while I was preparing for my comprehensive exams. While my time as a graduate student has been like a rather rough journey, I truly believe that I could not have pursued my dreams and accomplished my goals in life without divine intervention. I owe a debt of gratitude to the forever kind and caring father, the almighty God. Last but not least, I would like to thank all my near and dear ones who have always stood by me through thick and thin.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION. THE TEMPLE OF BEL, PALMYRA ...... 1

Introduction ...... 1

Specialized Terms or Concepts ...... 8

Civilizational Memory: ...... 8

Cultural Patrimony: ...... 8

Transformation: ...... 12

East/West Binary: ...... 13

Background to the Project ...... 17

Theoretical Framework ...... 22

Digital Memory Studies ...... 27

Methodology and Data Sites ...... 31

Chapters ...... 35

CHAPTER ONE. PALMYRA: THE PLACE ...... 38

Mapping Palmyra in the Present ...... …………………………………………. 40

Spatial Geography, Religion, Language, and Culture of Palmyra ...... 42

ISIS in Palmyra ...... 52

Ruins of Palmyra: what ISIS destroyed and what remains ...... 56

The Place of Palmyra in the Western Historical Imagination ...... 57

Conclusion ...... 63

CHAPTER TWO. PALMYRA RECREATED : PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL

RESTORATIONS ...... ………………………. 66 vii

Memorialization and Recreation .…………………………………………………... 68

The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) ...... 82

The process of building the Arc ...... 83

The Online Exhibition by the Getty Research Institute, “The Legacy of Ancient

Palmyra” ...... 88

Palmyra Portrait Project based in Aarhus University ...... 93

#NEWPALMYRA PROJECT ...... 98

Palmyra and Digital Archaeology ...... 103

Digital Archaeology, Palmyra, and Visual Colonialism ...... 113

CHAPTER THREE. CIVILIZATIONAL MEMORY: THE TRANSFORMATION OF

PALMYRA ...... 128

Memory and Remembering Palmyra ...... 130

Cultural Memory: Individual and Collective ...... 136

Collective Memory and Spatial Geography ...... 138

Palmyra and its Deadly Geography: The Place has been Transformed ...... 147

Conclusion ...... 156

CHAPTER FOUR. CONCLUSION: THE LOSS OF PALMYRA AND THE BAMIYAN

BUDDHAS ...... 158

Palmyra Now: Restoration Efforts ...... 174

Conclusion: Palmyra “Lost” in Translation and Transference ...... 175

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………… 178 viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1 Satellite image showing ancient city of Palmyra ...... 42

2 The unveiling of the replica of the Triumphal Arc at Trafalgar Square in London ... 83

3 Map of the city of Palmyra from the “City Plan and Monuments Section” ...... 91

4 Cross-section of the Tower Tomb of Elahbel (detail) ...... 96

5 Temple of Allat from the #New Palmyra website ...... 101

INTRODUCTION. THE TEMPLE OF BEL, PALMYRA

Palmyra was a mosaic which was composed through its colourful past, by Assyrians,

Parthians, Greeks and Romans. For centuries, the spectacular ruins and impressive

panorama of the antique city used to captivate and inspire the visitors as the witnesses of

its illustrious history. As a grim consequence of the horrific conflict that engulfed Syria,

since May 2015 they are no more to be seen. Palmyra has been purposely targeted and

obliterated, the ruins have been reduced to rubble. The immense beauty and rich heritage

of Palmyra which has been lost forever is reconstructed here as it was once was, at the

top of its glory, with the hope of preserving its memory.

- Denker, “Palmyra As It Once Was”

Introduction

On August 31, 2015, ISIS destroyed part of an ancient temple, the Temple of Bel, in

Syria’s UNESCO-listed Palmyra city. This was sensational news that grabbed the headlines in the international media (CNN, BBC, Reuters, and Al-Jazeera, etc.,). It was reported that the bombing and explosions carried out by ISIS had extensively damaged the 2,000-year-old

Temple. The Temple of Bel had been the center of religious life in Palmyra and was also considered “one of the most culturally significant pieces of architecture in the world” by the

United Nations.1 Palmyra was first mentioned in the archives of Mari in the second millennium

BC. It was an established caravan oasis when it came under Roman control in the mid-first century AD as part of the Roman province of Syria. It was also important as a city on the trade

1 Don Melvin, Shams Elwazer, and Joshua Berlinger, “ISIS destroys Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria, U.N. reports,” CNN, August 31, 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/31/middleeast/palmyra-temple-damaged/index.html.

2 route linking Persia, India, and China with the Roman Empire, marking the crossroads of several civilizations in the ancient world.

Palmyra as an ancient site of civilizational memory gained a lot of prominence after its demolition. The Temple of Bel, which was built in honor of the ancient “God of gods,” was a highly preserved monument and one of the largest in the region. Salam al-Kuntar, a Syrian archaeologist who works at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, describes the loss of the

Temple of Baal as very personal. “I have a special love for Palmyra because the Temple of Baal is where my mother was born.”2 Dhruthi Shah and Omayma El Zulafi in a story compiled for the

BBC, “Palmyra in Pictures: A Syrian Site Under Threat,” shared the voices of people from across the globe. Over a million people had visited this site and some contacted the BBC to speak of how much Palmyra means to them. Ozgun Ucar spent 15 days in 2010 hitchhiking across Syria when he visited Palmyra with his friend Hassan, a hotelkeeper. Ucar says: “If ISIS destroys

Palmyra, the world will lose its oldest cultural city of antiquity.” Andrew Hurst and William

Linsdell traveled to Palmyra in Syria in 2009. William says, “The human tragedy that has been unfolding in the country is horrific and if their heritage is also being destroyed, that is another huge blow.”3 Therefore, as scholars such as Holly Yan, Kevin Butcher, Andrea Kropp, and

Rubina Raja have pointed out, the destruction of the ancient site of Palmyra means a major chapter in Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman culture will be erased from the memory of not just

Syrians but also numerous people across the world.4 Sites of archaeological and historical

2 Dhruthi Shah and Omayma El Zulafi, “Palmyra in Pictures: A Syrian Site Under Threat,” BBC, August 24, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-32824052.

3 Shah and Zulafi, 2015.

4 Holly Yan, “How ISIS’ demolition of a Syrian temple impacts the world,” CNN, September 1, 2015, https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/01/middleeast/syria-palmyra-temple- 3 significance such as Palmyra are the heritage of not just this generation of Syrians or just belong to the Syrians themselves, but multiple generations across the world.

The United Nations has described the desecrations of ISIS, including the Temple of Bel as a “war crime.” Yan in a CNN feature discusses how ISIS as a terrorist organization did much more than just blow up a 2,000-year-old Temple. According to Yan, ISIS annihilated a significant piece of religious and cultural history, not just for Syria but also for the entire world.

Yan further reports how “ISIS is on a murderous campaign to wipe out the histories of Iraq and

Syria and replace them with an Islamist state and its brand of Sharia law.”5 In ISIS’s own publication, the Dabiq magazine, ISIS declares how it sees this ancient cultural heritage as a challenge for the loyalties of Iraqi or Syrian people to ISIS and destroying such a heritage thus becomes a part of their duty. ISIS considers “pre-Islamic religious objects or structures sacrilegious,” and “seeks to destroy diversity and enforce narrow uniformity. Evidence of a tolerant, diverse past is anathema,” writes Sturt Manning for CNN.6 ISIS rejects a “nationalist agenda” that these temples and cities represent the cultural and national identity of a place.

Moreover, ISIS’s radical Islamic ideology rejects polytheism wherever it is found. ISIS, whose principles are invested in the most radical form of Islam, is insensitive to the histories, values, and memories attached to these monuments. Thus, as most scholars would argue, it is not only

consequences/index.html; Kevin Butcher, “Palmyra: IS threat to ‘Venice of the Sands,’” BBC, May 15, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32748392; Andreas Kropp and Rubina Raja, eds., The World of Palmyra (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2016), 20.

5 Holly Yan, “How ISIS’ demolition of a Syrian temple impacts the world,” 2015.

6 Sturt Manning, “Why ISIS wants to erase Palmyra’s history,” Cornell University, The College of Arts & Sciences, August 30, 2015, https://classics.cornell.edu/why-isis-wants-erase- palmyras-history.

4 the architecture or the artifacts in Palmyra that represent the history of the city, but it is also the memories that are attached to them and the ancestral connection to that place.

The demolition of Palmyra by ISIS has led to an intense sense of loss around the world.

This dissertation draws from this intense sense of loss to explore how the loss of Palmyra has been negotiated by the West and the ways in which the West’s perception of a threat to its own civilizational memory has led to a concerted effort to recuperate and transform Palmyra by the

Western countries. This dissertation stems from the primary research question: How did the

“destruction” of Palmyra by ISIS lead to the transformation of memories attached to Palmyra as perceived by the West?

A number of scholars had predicted the destruction of this archaeological site by ISIS and its invasion of other ancient historical sites in its Syrian territories. Syria’s antiquities chief,

Maamoun Abdulkarim, called the site of Palmyra, “the most important Temple in Syria and one of the most important in the whole Middle East.”7 Abdulkarim had already expressed his concerns for the Temple of Bel in an earlier interview with Newsweek following the destruction of another temple in the city, Baal Shamin. “I am afraid for the destiny of the Temple Bel. It is very famous and the destiny of this building is threatened by the terrorist group,” he said. “I hope they respect this temple in its final state as a mosque and not as a church or shrine. I hope they do not touch this, it will be total destruction of our history in Palmyra.”8 The destruction of the

Temple of Bel was first reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that monitors the

7 Melvin, Elwazer, and Berlinger, “ISIS destroys Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria, U.N. reports,” 2015.

8 Jack Moore, “ISIS Blows Up Section of Palmyra’s Ancient Temple of Bel,” Newsweek, August 8, 2015, https://www.newsweek.com/isis-blows-section-palmyras-ancient-temple-bel- 367168.

5 war in Syria. The U.N. confirmed the destruction using satellite images published by UNOSAT

(a program of the U.N.) and posted them through Twitter. After the destruction was confirmed,

Abdulkarim said there was conflicting information about the extent of the damage because eyewitnesses were unable to approach the site. Another Palmyra scholar, Butcher had also warned about a possible attack on this site in his article (2015), “Palmyra: IS threat to ‘Venice of the Sands’” where he discusses how ISIS’s clash with Syrian government forces around this historic site would lead to the loss of this “Venice of the Sands.”9

Most of the early scholarship on this ancient site focus on its historical and cultural importance. Scholars like John Grout have been studying Syrian and Iraqi antiquities for five years from 2009 to 2014. “[The Temple of Bel] was the main temple for Palmyra, so it was like a cathedral,” Grout told Newsweek. “It would have been a spiritual home in both senses of the word … in the religious sense but also their sense of self-identity as Palmyrenes.”10 A review of the historiography of the scholarly conversation on the ISIS attacks on Palmyra reveals the sites’

“instructive” value for scholars and historians. To quote Julian Rabi, an archeologist working on the Palmyra ruins, “A place like Palmyra was full of people we can relate to. Syria is one of the cradles of civilization and it’s important that people get at least a tiny glimpse of that.”11

However, this conversation takes a new turn as David Roberts discusses how people might feel a certain sense of “unease” at the outpouring of grief and anguish over the desecration of these historical sites as compared to the huge loss of life and widespread humanitarian disaster

9 Butcher, “Palmyra: IS threat to ‘Venice of the Sands,’” 2015.

10 Moore, “ISIS Blows Up Section of Palmyra’s Ancient Temple of Bel,” 2015.

11 Jane O’Brien, “Palmyra: Ruins that inspired the architecture of power,” BBC, July 27, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33659376.

6 affecting the Syrian people.12 Nevertheless, Roberts clarifies and stresses the importance of cultural sites such as Palmyra and the role they often play to reunify the common “pasts” of the people around the world, despite their ethnic, tribal, linguistic, or cultural differences.

I use the term transformation to reflect the scope of this dissertation’s study, beginning with Palmyra’s fall to ISIS and the subsequent efforts to recover Palmyra and the memories surrounding it. Palmyra has been “transformed” as a war zone where its imperiled monuments have become the focus of a global effort of recovery. Initiatives worldwide have included efforts to reconstruct Palmyra both physically and virtually. Hence, the memories attached to Palmyra have also been transformed rather than entirely destroyed or lost. Numerous artifacts are available—books, websites, digital archives, artificial recreations, etc.—that physically and virtually resurrect the memories surrounding Palmyra. This is why I use the term transformation to describe civilizational memory in the aftermath of the invasion of Palmyra. It is significant to note that it is not the first time in history that Palmyra as an ancient site of civilization and historical prominence has been invaded, looted, and transformed. The history of the Roman invasion of Palmyra that ended the legacy of Queen Zenobia, Palmyra’s famous Queen, includes one of these transformations.

The secondary research questions that I explore in the next four chapters are: What is

Palmyra’s historical and regional significance as a place as juxtaposed with its relevance as a global site of memory and civilization as perceived by the West? What are the different ways by which the West recreates Palmyra (physically and virtually) especially through the use of digital media thereby promoting Palmyra as a “digital cultural heritage?” What is the role of memory in

12 David Roberts, “Palmyra and the logic of loss,” BBC, May 23, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32857404.

7 the forging of a civilizational memory rooted in the West’s imagination and the different ways in which Palmyra is being memorialized and by whom? What is the global impact of the transformation of the civilizational memory attached to Palmyra as perceived by the West?

These secondary research questions tie back to the primary research question, how did the destruction of Palmyra by ISIS lead to the transformation of memories attached to Palmyra as perceived by the West?

Chapter one introduces Palmyra’s historical and regional significance as a place as well as the place of Palmyra in the Western historical imagination. In chapter two, I focus on the digital memorialization of Palmyra by the West through the online resource projects that have been initiated by the West to recuperate the architecture and memory of Palmyra, especially in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks. Therefore, this chapter builds on the discussion in the dissertation’s introduction where I explore the impact of the destruction of the Palmyrene monuments by ISIS and how the West reacted to the ISIS attacks. Chapter three engages memory studies scholarship to examine the role of memory in the forging of a civilizational memory rooted in the West’s imagination and the ways in which Palmyra is being memorialized.

This theoretical analysis extends the analysis in chapter two of the digital memorialization of

Palmyra by the West. Here I examine the role of media, scholars/archaeologists, and public/tourists in forging a civilizational memory that displaces local memories and histories as a result of the digital memorialization of Palmyra by the West. The concluding chapter juxtaposes the West’s efforts to restore and preserve monuments destroyed by ISIS in Palmyra and the

West’s apparent indifference to the plight of the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban. It affirms the dissertation’s central argument that the transformation of Palmyra in the hands of the

West has made Palmyra a cultural patrimony of the West. 8

Specialized Terms or Concepts

Civilizational Memory: I borrow the term “civilizational memory” from Douglas

Robinson who uses it to emphasize a collective process of remembering but I extend its meaning to include a genealogy of memory of Western civilization.13 As the studies of postcolonial critics such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Robert J.C. Young, Homi Bhabha, and others have shown, historically the idea of civilization has a central place in colonial discourse whereby the West’s civilizational heritage served as a foil to the presumed lack of civilizational value of non-Western societies and cultures.14 Furthermore, the West’s civilizational heritage is located in a Judeo-

Christian world view while it traces its roots to ancient Greco-Roman histories. In using the term civilizational memory, I draw on this exclusive sense of civilization to denote the West’s historical archive of memory.

Cultural Patrimony: I use the term “cultural patrimony” in my dissertation to denote the sense of cultural ownership that Europe and the United States have over Palmyra. By claiming

Palmyra’s heritage as part of the archive of Western civilizational memory, these countries, I argue, feel entitled to reproduce and secure for posterity Palmyra’s destroyed monuments. What historically was Palmyra’s (and Syria’s) patrimony is now transferred to the West. As a gendered

13 Douglas Robinson, Exorcising translation: towards an intercivilizational turn (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2017), 111-15.

14 Edward W Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Sarah Harasym, The post-colonial critic: interviews, strategies, dialogues (New York, NY: Routledge, 1990); Robert Young, Empire, colony, postcolony (Chichester, West Sussex : John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2015); Homi K Bhabha, The location of culture (Brantford, Ont: W. Ross MacDonald School Resource Services Library, 2012).

9 term, “patrimony” reflects relations of inequality and an ideology that legitimizes certain forms of ownership. By asserting its control over the memorialization of Palmyra and Palmyra’s memory, the West asserts unequal and gendered relationships of power, identity, hierarchy, and culture that have historically shaped its relations with Asia.

I draw on James A.R. Nafziger’s discussion of cultural patrimony as a complex term that is vested in antonyms of ownership. It is both “tangible” and “intangible,” and denotes both

“tangible historic or archaeological sites and objects as well as intangible phenomena, such as folklore, rituals, language, and craft skills.” Nafziger defines cultural patrimony as “that part of a national, tribal, or other society’s culture, which is so fundamental to the society’s identity and character that people deem it inalienable.”15 Ownership, power, and heritage are staked out in the claims to a cultural patrimony. Cultural patrimony is complex as its meaning changes depending upon the contexts and relevance of subjects discussed. It represents an identity and serves as emotional and cultural markers that specifically belong to a group in a local context. It can also represent a national symbol or a global heritage.

Kwame Anthony Appiah points out that “On the one hand, cultural patrimony refers to cultural artifacts: works of art, religious relics, manuscripts, crafts, musical instruments, and the like. Here “culture” is whatever people make and invest with significance through the exercise of their human creativity. . . . On the other hand, “cultural patrimony” refers to the products of a culture: the group from whose conventions the object derives its significance. Here the objects

15 James A.R. Nafziger, Encyclopedia of Law & Society: American and Global Perspectives 33, ed. David S. Clark (London: Sage Publications, Inc., 2007), http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412952637.n155.

10 are understood to belong to a particular group, heirs to a trans-historical identity, whose patrimony they are.”16 UNESCO embraces both these aspects of cultural patrimony. UNESCO on its website states that “cultural heritage does not end at monuments and collections of objects.

It also includes traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts.”17 Understanding cultural patrimony entails examining who can claim a specific cultural heritage. Whereas UNESCO associates cultural heritage with a specific community and affirms a long-standing notion of cultural patrimony as rightfully belonging to a specific culture or community, Appiah presents a cosmopolitan and more ambiguous view of cultural patrimony. He argues that exclusive ownership/custody of artifacts should not always be traced to a group’s local and contemporaneous community. Artifacts of the past, for instance, belong to all of humanity since no one can claim exclusive ownership of the past. Appiah’s distinction between a cultural patrimony that is geographically and culturally limited and one that transcend borders acknowledges “connections to art through identity” as well as connections

“despite differences” that affirm our common humanity.18

The question of property rights is critical to a discussion of cultural patrimony, especially in the context of either those artifacts appropriated by colonial powers or looted cultural artifacts

16 Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?” in Cultural heritage issues: the legacy of conquest, colonization, and commerce, ed. Ann M. Nicgorski, and James A. R. Nafziger, (Leiden: M. Nijhoff, 2010), 213.

17 “What is Intangible Cultural Heritage?” UNESCO (website), Accessed April 9, 2020, https://ich.unesco.org/en/what-is-intangible-heritage-00003.

18 Appiah, “Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?” 221. 11 in the illegal international antiquities market. While Appiah decries the contemporary theft of cultural artifacts that find its way into private homes in the West, he promotes a “spirit of cosmopolitanism” that acknowledges the colonial transference of cultural artifacts to museums in foreign places but does not reject its trusteeship.19 For instance, he argues, “However self-serving it may seem, the British Museum’s claim to be a repository of the heritage not of Britain but of the world seems to me exactly right. Part of the obligation, though, will be to make those collections ever more widely available not just in London but elsewhere, through traveling collections, through publications, and through the World Wide Web.”20

Appiah’s idea of entrusting cultural heritage to foreign museums in metropolitan sites that are capable of protecting it and sharing it with a global audience asserts neocolonial notions of cultural difference. In examining the transformation of Palmyra as a cultural patrimony of the

West, this dissertation directly engages Appiah’s endorsement of the West’s role as protector of cultural patrimonies of foreign and native societies. Besides assuming that countries that lack the facilities or power to protect cultural heritage should transfer their exclusive right of ownership to a country that has the resources and interest to do so, Appiah elides the affective nature/emotional aspect of cultural heritage sites. Specific cultural groups construe meaning out of their cultural heritage as cultural heritage sites are markers of emotional identity and memorialization.

In this dissertation, I define cultural patrimony as the exclusive rights of property of a group or community to cultural artifacts and cultural traditions that genealogically and historically signify their collective identities. Cultural patrimony is specific to a particular sense

19 Appiah, 220.

20 Appiah, 218. 12 of peoplehood. It is constituted through lived experiences—ritual, tradition, and social norms— and material culture. Cultural patrimony embodies ideological and gendered notions of culture and identity as well as a group’s sense of its exclusivity. When a society’s cultural artifacts are removed or stolen, its people often experience a deep sense of loss. This sense of loss is possible only if there is a shared assumption of ownership of culture. Cultural patrimony rests on such notions of collective ownership of culture.

In the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on Palmyra, there was an intense effort on the part of

European countries and the United States, especially through Western-funded virtual collaborative projects, to recuperate Palmyra outside Syria. The reproductions of physical and digital versions of the Palmyrene monuments in prominent cities of the West and also in

Western-based virtual media allowed the West to claim cultural ownership of these Palmyrene reproductions, replacing the monuments in Palmyra that are symbolic and representative of the identity and culture of the Syrians/Palmyrenes. This effort of the Western countries has entailed a transference of the trusteeship of Palmyrene cultural artifacts and led to the transformation of

Palmyra, originally an exclusive cultural heritage of the East/Syria, as the West’s cultural patrimony. Today it claims ownership of Palmyra as one of its cultural inheritances.

Transformation: This term is used in the sense of the overall physical change that happened to Palmyra and the Palmyrene monuments after the destruction and until December

2019. Transformation is also used to analyze the world’s change in perceptions—memories about Palmyra that have changed over time and after the destruction. My dissertation will also focus on the “loss” of Palmyra as a kind of transformation. In chapter three, “Civilizational

Memory: The Transformation of Palmyra,” I examine the loss of Palmyra in connection with the demolition of Palmyrene artifacts as a form of transformation and also as a form of recovery. 13

East/West Binary: One of the underlying arguments throughout my dissertation is how

Palmyra, as inherently belonging to the “Eastern” realm or as emblematic of the identity and culture of Syria, has been transformed, primarily by U.S., European, and British virtual projects on Palmyra, as the cultural patrimony of the West in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on the city.

European and American-based virtual and structural initiatives have successfully transformed

Palmyra as the cultural patrimony of the West by spatially transferring it to Western terrains

(museums in the West, international exhibits, and also virtual media). In my dissertation, I draw on and use these conceptualizations of “the West” and “the East” in understanding the remaking of Palmyra’s civilizational memory. I am mindful that these are huge generalizations of geographies, histories, and peoples. However, drawing on the scholarship of Edward Said, I argue that in the post-colonial world, the West and the East continue to serve as dyads that denote the ways in which Palmyra has been appropriated and remade as the heritage of the West.

This dissertation draws from Said’s theory of Orientalism in posing the East/West dialectic through markers of geographic, cultural, economic, and social difference. These conceptual categories—East and West—are embedded in relations of power and knowledge. The word “Orient” itself means the “East.” What is significant here is the recognition that historically this is a European mapping of the world, where the East is Europe’s “other.” Said defines

Orientalism as “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.”’ He describes Orientalism as

“a Western style for dominating restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” and argues that poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators

“have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate 14 accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny, and so on.”21 Said’s conception of Orientalism is summed up by Gyan Prakash as “a body of knowledge produced by texts and institutional practices.”22 Furthermore, Sridevi Menon explains how the demarcation of the Occident as the West is based on the concomitant identification of the Orient or the Other as

“the East.” “In territorializing the ‘Orient’ first as an imaginative space, and later as part of a colonial empire, Europe achieved a discursive coherence that enabled it to assert a shared cultural identity. The common ground that enabled Europe to name itself ‘the West’ rested on the concurrent identification of ‘the East.’”23 Therefore, in this dissertation, I position Orientalism as a Western mode of thought that perceives Asia as the East and its people as belonging to a specific cultural landscape. As Menon argues, while Asia maps a geographic region, the “Orient” represents “the cultural landscape of the East:”24

In Europe’s historical imagination, “Asia” is constituted of various archives of knowledge and fantasy. From the fables of antiquity, in which a marvelous Asia was located east of the river Indus, to the accounts produced through the circuits of Greek and Roman trade with India in the Middle Ages, the earliest representations of Asia were of a legendary place of fabulous riches inhabited by peoples of peculiar habits and odd or even monstrous physiognomies.25

21 Edward W Said, Orientalism, First ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 10-11.

22 Gyan Prakash, "Writing post-orientalist histories of the third world: perspectives from Indian historiography," Comparative Studies in Society and History: an International Quarterly 32, no. 2 (1990): 384.

23 Sridevi Menon, "Discursive Realms and Colonial Practice: Contrapuntal Studies of Race in Colonial India and the United States,” (PhD diss., University of Hawaii, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2000), 13.

24 Sridevi Menon, “Where is West Asia in Asian America?: Asia and the Politics of Space in Asian America,” Social Text 24, no. 1 (2006): 70.

25 Menon, “Where is West Asia in Asian America?: Asia and the Politics of Space in Asian America,” 59–60.

Seen as mysterious, inferior, primitive, and exotic, this landscape, a European fabrication, comes to justify European powers’ colonial conquest of and administration of territories in the East.

Thus, I use the terms East and West as significant geographical and cultural markers that categorize regions of the worlds in a conflictual relationship of Eastern versus Western cultural values, attitudes, and modes of thought. In my concluding chapter, I examine how the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan by the Taliban relates to my study of the recovery of place and memory by the West in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks. However, I argue that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas does not receive as much attention as what has happened with Palmyra. This is primarily because, as Buddhist sculptures, the Bamiyan Buddhas have been perceived as belonging to the East and Asian culture in a region historically associated with

South Asia.

In chapter two, I delineate Western-based initiatives on Palmyra such as the #New

Palmyra project, The Palmyra Portrait Project, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” and Institute for Digital Archaeology as my key sources. There are mainly three reasons by which I categorize them as Western-based initiatives: First of all, these projects may be seen as the cultural component of the Western coalition to rescue Palmyra from ISIS. Secondly, although Dubai has contributed to the restoration of Palmyra, these projects have been operated by and function under people mostly from Europe or those who work for European institutions. Thirdly, they are mostly funded by European or American organizations and promote Western values of life and culture.

It is also relevant to understand the relationship between ISIS and Palmyra and how the

Western gaze or perspectives about Palmyra have changed before and after the Syrian war. In chapter three of my dissertation, I discuss the impact of visual colonialism on Palmyra and the 16 interconnected relationships between Palmyra, digital archaeology, and visual colonialism. I also examine how museums and the practice of archaeology are inventions of the West and how they continue to perpetuate the colonial practice of collecting treasures from exotic realms around the world including the East. My argument in this dissertation retraces the fundamental principle of

Orientalism that the West is somehow incumbent on liberating the East from savage practices it follows. ISIS’s establishment of a caliphate in Palmyra and its iconoclastic mission of fighting against idolatry then becomes part of this Western discourse. Similarly, Prakash also discusses how “although colonial dominance produced the East-West construct, it looked as if this binary opposition not only pre-dated the colonial relationship but also accounted for it.”26 The rhetoric of world leaders such as Boris Johnson, the then-mayor of London, and Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, as well as the present director of IDA, Roger Michel after the liberation and protection of Palmyra from ISIS’s attacks irrefutably convey this message of “us and them,” “the

East and West” and “civilization and barbarity.” For instance, in appealing to Western countries for the restoration of Syria/Palmyra, Boris Johnson declared, “One day Syria’s future will be glorious, but that will partly depend on the world’s ability to enjoy its glorious past. British experts should and will be at the forefront of the project.”27 Therefore, the West’s urgent mission to liberate and protect Palmyra from the clutches of ISIS, in turn, transforms it as the

“civilizational” memory and legacy of the West.

26 Prakash, "Writing post-orientalist histories of the third world: perspectives from Indian historiography," 385.

27 Press Association, “British archaeologists should help rebuild Palmyra says Boris Johnson,” The Guardian, March 27, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/27/british-archaeologists-should-help-rebuild- palmyra-says-boris-johnson . 17

Background to the Project

My interest in this topic began after taking a graduate class on “Deadly Geographies” with Dr. Sridevi Menon in which we explored how both natural disasters and human forces led to the creation of deadly spaces around the world. I wrote a paper on how ISIS creates transnational deadly geographies across the world—a deadly physical geography through the physical destruction of spaces and human beings and also a deadly-cyber geography (through the use of mass media as a medium) for ISIS’s propaganda mission. I was also keeping track of the different deadly dimensions of ISIS and its global impact. I wanted to further explore and take the topic of the deadly dimensions of ISIS to a different level—how ISIS’s destruction of physical spaces such as Palmyra that has cultural, social, and religious values can impact people on a global scale. When I use the term “impact,” I am not merely analyzing the physical destruction/transformation of the archaeological site but also the economic, moral, religious, historical, and cultural dimensions of it as well.

An article published in 2015 by The Guardian discusses the archaeologist Mark

Altaweel’s hunt for blood antiquities in British shops and its outcome. “When Mark Altaweel agreed to hunt for ‘blood antiquities’ in London dealerships, he was expecting more of a challenge. But as the archaeologist discovered, relics from the ruins of Palmyra and Nimrud are now on display in British shops – and so far no-one has worked out how to stop it.”28 In an Al-

Jazeera news story, Suadad al-Salhy discusses that after analyzing the YouTube video of the destruction of the Mosul Museum posted by ISIS, Aamir Abdullah al-Jumaili (the advisor to the

28 Rachel Shabi, “Looted in Syria – and Sold in London: The British Antiques Shops Dealing in Artifacts Smuggled by Isis,” The Guardian, July 3, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/antiquities-looted-by-isis-end-up-in-london- shops.

Mosul Museum) does not believe that ISIS destroyed the artifacts. As Jumaili says, “ISIL deliberately filmed while they were destroying the pieces, but we [the museum officials] do not believe that they really did. They [ISIL] were breaking the big pieces, which would be difficult to transfer from one place to another. We believe that they have been smuggling these antiquities to Turkey and Syria.”29 Therefore, the sale of looted antiquities by ISIS also has a deep impact on my dissertation because I use memory theory to analyze how the vandalism of the Palmyrene artifacts, can lead to the transformation of civilizational memories attached to Palmyra.

The vandalized Palmyrene artifacts consists of various monuments of architectural significance, including the Funerary Temple, which is one of the unique monuments that housed elaborate and comprehensive corpora. They are large funerary portraits from the Roman period outside of Rome. These burial monuments are unique to Palmyra and these hypogea are extensive family galleries that can bury up to thirteen family members. The family histories of the members are engraved in these burial tombs.30 In chapter three, “Civilizational Memory: The

Transformation of Palmyra,” I examine how the appropriation of these burial tombs which are part of the funerary temple by ISIS’s invasion can lead to the transformation of collective memories attached to these family burial sites. Therefore, the destruction of Mosul museum and

Nimrud, and other recent devastations of archaeological sites of significance in Palmyra that are

29 Suadad al-Salhy, “The full story behind ISIL’s takeover of Mosul museum,” AlJazeera, March 9, 2015, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/03/full-story-isil-takeover- mosul-museum-150309053022129.html.

30 The Getty Research Institute, “The Palmyra Portrait Project: Preserving Cultural Heritage in a Time of Conflict,” YouTube video, 1:02:38, October 22, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkY2lA6wzkY.

19 symbolic of individual and collective memories further adds to my study on the interrelation between Palmyra and memory.

Numerous scholars have invested in various projects concerning the history of Palmyra and also the invasion of it. My dissertation enters into the conversation on Palmyra and its transformation in several ways. My study adds to the existing scholarship on Palmyra by scholars such as Sturt Manning, Rubina Raja, Abednego Seller, and Andrea Kropp, who have provided a detailed analysis of the site.31 I discuss the importance of Palmyra from a local to a global context and my discussion of the artifacts of Palmyra adds to the existing historical and visual scholarship on Palmyra, including the photographs and sketches (Abednego Sellner,

Louis-François Cassas, Robert Wood, and Louis Vignes.)32 My dissertation also contributes to the scholarly conversation on Palmyra by scholars such as Rubina Raja, Andrea Kropp, Rachel

Shabi, John Grout, Ted Kaizer, and David Roberts who have identified the relevance of Palmyra in a global context and the importance of preserving it for posterity through various means such as documentation.33 I build on the conversation about the importance of documentation in

31 Manning, “Why ISIS wants to erase Palmyra’s history;” Raja and Kropp, The World of Palmyra, 16; Abednego Seller, The Antiquities of Palmyra (London: Printed for S. Smith and B. Walford, 1696).

32 Seller, The Antiquities of Palmyra; Louis-François Cassas, Materials for Voyage Pittoresque De La Syrie, De La Phoenicie, De La Palaestine, Et De La Basse Aegypte, 1795- 1823, The Getty Research Institute, Accessed May 21, 2017, http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/city_plan.html; Louis Vignes, Louis Vignes Self-portrait and Portraits of Naval Officers., 1859.

33 Raja and Kropp, The World of Palmyra, 16; Shabi, “Looted in Syria – and Sold in London: The British Antiques Shops Dealing in Artifacts Smuggled by Isis;” Ted Kaizer, The religious life of Palmyra: a study of the social patterns of worship in the Roman period. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002; David Roberts, “Palmyra and the logic of loss.”

20 chapter two titled “Palmyra Recreated—Physical and Virtual Restorations” in which, I have a section that examines the virtual and physical recreations of Palmyra outside Syria.

Scholars such as Raja, Kropp, Shabi, Grout, Kaizer, and Roberts have discussed at length how the demolition of the artifacts of Palmyra was a deplorable loss for the whole world. I step back and further analyze this “loss” from a slightly different direction: I read how the destruction of Palmyra has led to a transformation of Palmyra and its memories in the hands of the West rather than an erasure of Palmyra and the memories attached to them. In The World of Palmyra,

Raja writes that “the monuments and images of millennia of past civilizations are attacked and destroyed in an attempt to erase the ancient history of humanity altogether.”34 She further recommends the importance of stopping the madness and making our contributions towards it by deepening our understanding of Palmyra by “anchoring the world of Palmyra more firmly in the world of today.”35 As Raja explains, the destruction of Palmyra is a “loss” to humanity but I also analyze the many ways by which the West tries to transform the world of Palmyra by recreating and resurrecting it both digitally and virtually in a different space. This transformation will affect people in both ways. Both as a means of reconciliation and hope for many people, and also a great loss, as the memories surrounding Palmyra will be transformed because of the different ways people think about it before and after the destruction.

This dissertation builds on studies initiated by scholars such as Kaizer that focus on the religious life and ritual activities of Palmyra under the Romans and also examines the

34 Raja and Kropp, The World of Palmyra, 16.

35 Raja and Kropp, 16.

21 multicultural setting of Roman Palmyra.36 Palmyra is often perceived as a meeting point of different cultures. It is a mixture of Greco-Roman and Middle-Eastern cultures and aesthetic styles. Palmyra was a global center and considered as one of the cosmopolitan centers of the world with its unique Roman-Baroque style. I use memory theory to analyze the transformation of Palmyra and discuss it in terms of individual and collective memories. In that sense, my dissertation falls within the framework of American Culture Studies because I use memory theory to analyze the transformation of cultural memory surrounding this ancient global cultural center. Understanding its topicality and political nature in terms of East-West relationships, this dissertation also looks forward to provoking social commentary on how violent interactions, such as the destruction of memory and “illegal” border crossings (ISIS’s invasion of Palmyra) can be fatal in a multicultural world. This project envisions a broader approach as it is also oriented towards creating awareness about the global impact of the transformation of Palmyra by the West. My study thus introduces and reinforces these pertinent issues that are relevant to a transnational and postcolonial perspective, thus further widening its scope for other scholars to contribute.

There are challenges that I anticipated in terms of the accessibility of key sources. Some of the materials that I used for my study raised serious security concerns due to the political and serious nature of the topic. Palmyra is still under threat and considered as a World Heritage site in Danger and a contested war zone. Some of the articles on Palmyra are written in Arabic,

Greek, Roman, and Palmyrene scripts. Most of the inscriptions on Palmyra are either in

Palmyrene or Roman, which posed a problem for a researcher like me who is not familiar with

36 Kaizer, The religious life of Palmyra: a study of the social patterns of worship in the Roman period.

22 either of these languages. The Palmyra Portrait Project under the guidance of Raja based on

Aarhus University, Denmark, has numerous articles published in Danish. A great number of translations are available on the Internet and I also sought the help of the application Google

Translate to understand many of these non-English texts. My writing process was complex, as I was trying to understand the history of a space, Palmyra, that had undergone a drastic transformation throughout the course of its history. Nevertheless, these limitations did not deter me from further exploring the transformation of memories on Palmyra by the West in the aftermath of its invasion by ISIS.

Theoretical Framework

Over the course of the last two decades, the field of memory studies has become a critical area of study. French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’s (1877-1945) research on “memoire collective” has emerged as a foundational basis for memory studies. He coined the term collective memory and his contribution to cultural memory studies includes his concept of cadres sociaux de la mémoire (social frameworks of memory). Halbwachs articulated the idea that individual memories are inherently shaped and will often be triggered by socio-cultural contexts, or frameworks. Secondly, his study of family memory and other private practices of remembering have been an important influence on oral history. Third, his research on the memory of religious communities (in La topographie légendaire) stressed the topographical aspects of cultural memory, thus anticipating the notion of lieux de mémoire (Pierre Nora’s concept of places that remind us of the past). He also looked at communities whose memory reaches back thousands of years, thus laying the foundation for Jan Assmann’s and Aleida 23

Assmann’s Das kulturelles Gedächtnis.37

Halbwachs explores the social construction of memory to understand the nature of individual memories within families, social classes, and religions in his On Collective Memory, a compilation of interwar writings. He also addresses the question “How do we use our mental images of the present to reconstruct our past?” for the first time in this work to examine further the different aspects of collective memory. Halbwachs’s most important thesis on collective memory is that human memory can only function within a collective context such as in a family or a group.38 One of the problems Halbwachs discusses is the inability of humans to separate themselves from society to experience adult memory in a pure form. He examines this through dreams and aphasia. In both of these states, an individual framework for understanding memories

“is deformed, changed, or destroyed.”39 Halbwachs suggests that a person transplanted from one nation to another will not easily understand the frameworks of his new country without years of immersion in them. Such immersion is critical in sharing the collective memory of the general population. He characterizes knowledge “as a collective pursuit in which a scholar places his discoveries in the chronology of the history of knowledge.”40 Similarly in his The Social

Frameworks of Memory, Halbwachs states that studying memory is not a matter of reflecting on the properties of the subjective mind; rather, memory is a matter of how minds work together in society, how their operations are structured by social arrangements. He writes, “It is in society

37 Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, and Sara B. Young, Cultural memory studies an international and interdisciplinary handbook (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 1-11.

38 Maurice Halbwachs, and Lewis A Coser, trans., On Collective Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 173.

39 Halbwachs and Coser, 173.

40 Halbwachs and Coser, 176. 24 that people normally acquire their memories. It is also in society that they recall, recognize, and localize their memories.”41 Halbwachs argues in The Social Frameworks of Memory that what individuals remember is determined by their group memberships but this still takes place in their own minds. In contrast, in The Legendary Topography of the Holy Land and elsewhere,

Halbwachs focuses on publicly available commemorative symbols, rituals, and representations as markers of memory and how they can hold memory as opposed to his earlier thesis that memory is processed within human minds. This discussion, in turn, supports Halbwachs’s contrast between “history” and “collective memory” not as one between public and private but as one based on the relevance of the past to the present: Both history and collective memory are publicly available social facts—the former “dead,” the latter “living.”42 For Halbwachs, history is already “dead” as it relates to past events and collective memory is more organic as it is still

“living” in the present.

The concept of cultural memory was first introduced by the German Egyptologist Jan

Assmann in his book Das kulturelles Gedächtnis, which expanded on Halbwachs’s concept of collective memory. Since then cultural memory as a concept has been used in historiography and other disciplines by scholars such as Pierre Nora and Richard Terdiman, and in cultural studies by Susan Stewart, among others. Whereas Halbwachs, Nora, and others suggest that collective memory can be invested in objects, places, and rituals, Astrid Erll in the introduction to Media and Cultural Memory (2011) notes how a pre-cultural individual memory or a Collective or

Cultural memory that is detached from individuals and embodied only in media and institutions

41 Maurice Halbwachs and Gérard Namer, The Social Frameworks of Memory (Paris: Albin Michel, 2014), 38.

42 Halbwachs and Namer, 40. 25 does not exist. As Erll argues, “Just as socio-cultural contexts shape individual memories, a

“memory” which is represented by media and institutions must be actualized by individuals, by members of a community of remembrance, who may be conceived of as points de vue [the

French equivalent for viewpoint] (Maurice Halbwachs) on shared notions of the past.”43 Erll underlines “individuals” and their contribution towards Collective or Cultural memory and how they should be “actualized” by individuals as makers of memory. Erll adds, “Without such actualizations, monuments, rituals, and books are nothing but dead material, failing to have any impact in societies.”44 This is exactly where the individual and collective memory of individuals and groups of people play a crucial role—because the individual or the group assigns meaning to these “dead materials.” This phenomenon is delineated in my study of how the destruction of

Palmyra results in a transformation of civilizational memory. Indeed, the gap between the memorialization of Palmyra by the West and the memories of Palmyrenes points to the appropriation of Palmyra and its memories. Thus, my dissertation enters into a scholarly conversation with scholars such as Erll and Halbwachs, among others, to reaffirm the importance of the transformation and loss of memory, and how memory as such attains an expansive meaning through its association with people, or living “individuals,” who can add and redefine the value of the ancient historical site of Palmyra.

The concept of cultural memory has led scholars to further investigate various processes in connection with memory at both individual and collective levels. My dissertation on civilizational memory and the transformation of Palmyra approaches memory studies with the

43 Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 5-9. 44 Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture, 5-9.

26 presumption that our pasts are continuously regenerated. As Erll explains, our memories

(individual and collective) of past events can vary to a great degree depending upon the varying degree of experiences we have undergone. This applies not only for what is remembered but also for how it is remembered, that is, the quality and meaning the past acquires. As a result, there are different modes of remembering (Erll’s concept) identical past events. This idea of what is remembered and forgotten and how it is remembered is specifically important for my analysis of the value of Palmyra as a site of memory for both people and scholars across the world. I also examine “the how and what” of remembering Palmyra from a cross-cultural perspective (chapter one includes a section that discusses the place of Palmyra in the Western historical imagination) and the different modes of referring to the past—myth, religious memory, political history, trauma, family remembrance, or generational memory.

Memory studies often makes a distinction between history and memory. Erll points out that “Studies on ‘history vs. memory’ are usually loaded with emotionally charged binary oppositions: good vs. bad, organic vs. artificial, living vs. dead, from below vs. from above.” She further explains this distinction by addressing Halbwachs’s demarcation between history and memory. “Halbwachs conceives of the former [history] as abstract, totalizing, and ‘dead,’ and of the latter [memory] as particular, meaningful, and ‘lived.’”45 This duality of “dead” and “living” was taken up and popularized by Pierre Nora, who also distinguishes between history and memory, and positions his lieux de mémoire in between history and memory.46 In Spaces of

Identity (1996), David Morley and Kevin Robins explain that Nora tries to define the difference between milieu de mémoire and lieu de mémoire. “The sites of memory are the ‘milieu,’ the real

45 Erll, Nünning, and Young, 6.

46 Erll, Nünning, and Young, 6. 27 environments of memory, but today, with our lack of memory, we have to be content with lieux de mémoire, places which remind us of the past, of a (broken) memory.”47 Morley and Robins state that there is a normal assumption that you have to be fixed in space and time if you want to belong somewhere. “It is normally said that you have to be fixed in space and in time if you want to belong somewhere. The sites of memory are, in the proper sense of the word, crucial. They are crossroads. They are the points where space and time meet memory.” Thus, the ancient site of memory such as Palmyra becomes a meeting point between space and time, where space and time meet memory. Similar to what Morley, Robins, and Nora says, Palmyra can be conceived as

“a site of memory, the milieu” but unfortunately, with our lack of this site as a memory in the aftermath of the destruction of the site by ISIS, “we have to be content with lieux de memoire”

(physical and digital replicas of Palmyra/Palmyrene monuments) “which remind us of the past.”

Erll disrupts the idea of dissolving the opposition of history versus memory in favor of a notion of different modes of remembering in culture. Many other scholars from the field such as

Udo J. Hebel, Siegfried J. Schmidt, Elena Esposito, Gerald Echterhoff, and Harald Welzer, are characterized by their strong media perspective towards memory studies––from medial sites of memory to the role of communication technologies for social forgetting and to language as a basic medium of memory.48 Thus this dissertation seeks to bring together many different voices, such as Erll and Halbwachs primarily, from the interdisciplinary field of memory studies to help to further explore the concept of memory from diverse dimensions and to contribute to an emerging field.

47 David Morley and Robins Kevin, Spaces of Identity: Global media, electronic landscapes and cultural boundaries (London: Routledge, 1996), 87.

48 Erll, Nünning, and Young, 13.

Digital Memory Studies

Since I rely on numerous online resources as my primary and secondary sources, it is also important to trace the scholarly conversation related to memory and digital media. As my study indicates, digital media has a profound influence on the ways by which we perceive memory and also the content and communication of individual and collective memories. The Internet as a medium of easily accessible text has entailed revisiting the concept of both space and place geographically and metaphorically. With the advancements in digital technology, you can access data from any part of the world. This access to data further promotes transnational digital technology. Much research concerning memory and digital media that examines the possibilities and limitations of digital media and the ways by which they produce and distribute transcultural memory across the world.49 Digital memory as a discipline focuses on the role and scope of digital media in mediating memories across global borders and raises key questions: How do digitization, multimediatization and “googlization” (Jose van Dijck) affect the dynamics of

(trans) cultural memory? How do we use digital media in memory research? How do we deal with problems arising from the possibilities generated by digital technologies, such as

49 See articles that “address this tension between the production of remembrance through transnational processes and its grounding in concrete locations,” as Jenny Wustenburg points out: Augé, M, Non-places. An introduction to supermodernity, (London: Verso. 2008); Maier, C. S, “Being there”: place, territory, and identity. In S. Benhabib, I. Shapiro, & D. Petranovic Eds., Identities, affiliations, and allegiances. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Radstone, S. “What place is this? Transcultural memory and the locations of memory studies.” Parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 109–123; Nicholls, W., Miller, B., & Beaumont, J. Introduction: Conceptualizing the spatialities of social movements. In W. Nicholls, B. Miller, & J. Beaumont (Eds.), Spaces of contention. spatialities and social movements. Farnam: Ashgate Publishing, 2013.

29 information overload? These are some of the cardinal questions that dominate the discipline.50 In this dissertation, I address some of these questions. One of the most salient themes that I discuss throughout my dissertation is the prominence of digital archaeology in mediating memories across global borders and the inevitability of digital archaeology in documentation and preserving information for future use. Hence, my dissertation is very relevant to the discipline of digital archaeology/memory as it adds to the existing scholarship on the relationship between digital archaeology and memory.

Digital memory as a scholarly field emerged during the 2000s by intervening and collaborating with the established discipline of memory studies, particularly the study of collective and cultural memory. Similar to memory scholars who mainly focus on the present perceptions of the past rather than the history scholars who mainly focus on past proper, digital media memory scholars also examine how people perceived the past as a social process in relation to the present and also through public media.51 Digital memory scholars have been intrigued by the relation between (individual, collective, and cultural) memory and (old and new) media. As Andreas Huyssen in 2003 noted, “We cannot discuss personal, generational, or public memory separately from the enormous influence of new media as carriers of all forms of memory.”52 Similarly, Erll and Ann Rigney have also argued that cultural memory’s very

50 “Cfp: Digital Memories, Digital Methods: Transcultural Memory in Europe Beyond Web 2.0,” Humanities and Social Sciences Online (call for papers), March 5, 2014, https://networks.h-net.org/node/8054/discussions/12140/cfp-digital-memories- digital%20methods-transcultural-memory-europe.

51 Ellen Rutten, Julie Fedor, and Vera Zvereva, Memory, conflict and new media: web wars in post-socialist states (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2014).

52 Andreas Huyssen, Present pasts: urban palimpsests and the politics of memory (Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press, 2003), 18. 30 existence is dependent on new media: “It is always shared with the help of symbolic artifacts that mediate between individuals and, in the process, creates communality across both time and place time.”53 This notion is very important to my study because I analyze how Palmyra as a symbolic artifact that mediates between the West and the East can evoke cultural and collective memories across time and place.

Two monographs that discuss the relationship between new media and memory on various levels and in various disciplines such as neurology and literature are especially relevant to this dissertation. One notable text is Save as… Digital Memories, a collected volume published in 2009, examines in detail how we embody, create, and are emplaced within digital memories.54 It steered the conversation on digital memory studies in a slightly different direction by redefining the relationship between media and memory. This text addresses the concept of memory mediation, which argues that memory cannot stand by itself and always mediates through digital or other forms. Similar to Save as… Digital Memories, On Media Memory:

Collective Memory in a new media age offers a comprehensive discussion of media memory and brings media and mediation to the forefront of collective memory research. It explores a diversity of media technologies (television, radio, film, and new media), genres (news, fiction, documentaries) and contexts (US, UK, Spain, Nigeria, Germany, and the Middle East) and includes a discussion on the importance of transdisciplinary research in digital memory studies.55 In Mediated Memories in the Digital Age, Dijck proposes a conceptual tool for

53 Astrid Erll, and Ann Rigney, Mediation, remediation, and the dynamics of cultural memory, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009), 1.

54 Joanne Garde-Hansen, Andrew Hoskins, and Anna Reading, Save as... digital memories (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 1.

55 Mordechai Neiger, Oren Meyers, and Eyal Zandberg, On media memory: collective 31 theorizing emerging intersections among the fields of neuropsychology, media and technology studies, and critical cultural studies in terms of memory construction and (re)mediation.56 By proposing an interdisciplinary conceptual tool, Dijck argues for the necessity of transdisciplinary studies of the intersections of the brain, technologies, and cultures. However, in this dissertation,

I will be mostly adopting a social sciences/qualitative approach to analyze the interrelation between memory and digital media. This is mainly because my dissertation examines the transformation of memory of Palmyra by the West primarily through the sociological theories of

Halbwachs and Erll, among others.

I am also indebted to the scholarship on transcultural variations within digital memory studies. Italian scholars such as M. Cosenza (2012) have argued how the discipline is mostly centered on Western—Anglophone, European, and American-centered virtual space (Facebook,

Twitter, etc.)—thereby lacking cross-cultural variations of new media memory. As a response to

Cosenza’s argument, Memory, Conflict and New Media is the first book-length publication to analyze how new media serve as a site of political and national identity building in post-socialist states.57 Post-socialist memory’s digital mediations and digital memory’s transcultural scope expands the scholarship on both (post-socialist) memory theory and non-western digital-memory studies and is critical to my analysis of the virtual and physical recreation of Palmyra and the

West memorializing of Palmyra.

memory in a new media age (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

56 José van Dijick, Mediated memories in the digital age (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2007).

57 Ellen Rutten, Julie Fedor, and V. V. Zvereva, Memory, conflict and new media: Web wars in post-socialist states (London: Routledge), 2013.

Methodology and Data sites

This dissertation primarily employs textual analysis as its methodology since one of the challenges I encountered was that I did not have first-hand access to the physical site of Palmyra.

As a contested war zone I could not visit the physical site. Therefore, I had to rely on videos, news reports and editorials, photographs, and other multimedia sources to analyze the demolition of Palmyra and, specifically, the artifacts within it. I draw on historical accounts, ethnographies, and travelogues to explore the history of Palmyra, its location at the crossroads of West Asia and

Europe, and Palmyra’s historical and contemporary significance to both Syrians and the West.

Textual analysis of these sources are used to examine what has transpired in Palmyra as a result of the transformation of memories. Alongside these sources, I briefly analyze topics related to the history of ISIS and its relation to Palmyra in general to contextualize the impact of the destruction. While focusing on the textual analysis of news sources in the form of reports and interviews, I specifically trace the memories of people in connection with Palmyra, before and after the destruction. I accomplish this through a close reading of the texts and the rhetoric used to communicate the descriptions about Palmyra. This approach helped me focus on how the destruction of Palmyra has led to a transformation of memories attached to Palmyra. I also examine how the transformation of Palmyra affects people both as a means of reconciliation and recovery and also as a great loss as the memories surrounding Palmyra have been transformed because of the way people think about it before and after the destruction. I analyze the available sources to discern who is articulating this transformation—i.e. the role of the media, scholars/archaeologists, and public/tourists that contribute to this process. I have selected these sources to further examine how, even when remembering Palmyra’s legacy as a World Heritage center, people will also be reminded of the dark and gruesome memories attached to them. 33

Another important focus of my textual analysis is the recreation of Palmyra by the West in a global context. I specifically analyze the attempts by the West to memorialize Palmyra, and how the West in particular and the world in general, responded to these kinds of initiatives both on physical space and through digital media.

I use textual analysis of primary materials—sources that provide first-hand accounts— and secondary sources related to ISIS’s destruction of Palmyra and other topics that are relevant to Palmyra. I include textual and material analysis of available archival resources, news media, interviews of scholars and people, victims/supporters of ISIS, of relevant texts, literature, blogs,

Internet sites, and videos. Therefore, my primary data site is the Internet and texts serve as sources of information related to ISIS and Palmyra. A textual analysis was helpful to gain insights about how the world perceived ISIS’s destruction of Palmyra. I looked at a broad range of materials and media to collect information on ISIS and the destruction of Palmyra. These include but are not limited to media representations from “the West” and “the East” to understand how the world media reacted to the news of the destruction of Palmyra’s temples by analyzing representative media networks such as CNN and its coverage of the Palmyra loss, and also how ordinary people and scholars across the world responded to this information. I chose Al

Jazeera as a media network that represented the East and compared and contrasted it with CNN’s and the BBC’s representation of Palmyra’s destruction and also with other representative media outlets such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Guardian. Two important quantitative data analysis tools that I used to trace historically the importance of Palmyra across the years are Google Trends and Google Books Ngram Viewer. These search analysis applications helped to compare the relative popularity of search terms such as Palmyra or ISIS over the years. These applications were useful to get a better sense of when these topics were 34 discussed and used across the world within a specific time frame. I organized my data sites based on their thematic and visual content, which was helpful to assess the impact of destruction and the transformation of memories across borders.

Virtual collaborative projects on Palmyra such as the #New Palmyra project, The

Palmyra Portrait Project, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” and IDA are the resources that I relied on. I discuss in chapter two, “Palmyra Recreated: Physical and Virtual Restorations,” how these online resources expose the public to virtual collaborative projects that facilitate and consolidate a transformation of civilizational memory surrounding Palmyra. I examined various digital resources to find answers to questions such as: What are the different forms of documentation that they have which are accessible to everyone? Why its contributors are doing what they are doing? Who are the contributors? What are their audiences, where are their audiences, and where does their institutional support come from? Finding answers to these questions helped me to get a better idea about these Western-based virtual collaborative projects and their role in transforming Palmyra culturally as the patrimony of the West. I also analyze the transformation of memories in relation to Palmyra as a result of these virtual and physical recreations by the West. I designated a time frame between August 2015 to December 2019 to discuss the transformation of Palmyra after its destruction, because the political and geographical situation is continuously changing in Palmyra. I was specifically looking for three aspects in my key sources to get a better understanding of the transformation of memories attached to Palmyra.

These include the transformations of Palmyra—what was Palmyra before the destruction and what is it now (December 2019); memories of Palmyra, before and after the destruction (until

December 2019); and ISIS in Palmyra.

Chapters

Chapter 1: Palmyra: The Place

Palmyra’s historical and regional significance as a place is juxtaposed with its importance as a global site of memory and civilization. The first part of this chapter focuses on Palmyra as a

World Heritage Site. I then delineate the architectural significance of Palmyra. This section is followed by an overview of the state of contemporary Palmyra in the context of ISIS’s assault and capture of Palmyra. The second part of the chapter examines the place of Palmyra in the

Western historical imagination.

Chapter 2: Palmyra Recreated—Physical and Virtual Restorations

Chapter two explores the ways in which Palmyra is being recreated by the West and its significance as an ancient site of civilizational memory as perceived by the West. I analyze how the West has appropriated Palmyra and its artifacts by memorializing them through their recreations elsewhere: physically and virtually. Hence, I argue that the West has appropriated

Palmyrene artifacts and Palmyra becomes a legacy of the West through these physical and digital appropriations (specifically through the use of digital media as a powerful tool in their hands and thereby promoting a legacy of the digital cultural heritage.) In particular, I focus on the digital memorialization of Palmyra by the West through the online resource projects (Institute for

Digital Archaeology (IDA), Getty Online Exhibition’s “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” the

Palmyra Portrait Project, and #New Palmyra) that have been initiated by the West to recuperate the architecture and memory of Palmyra. The second part of the discussion focuses on how digital archaeology as an inevitable discipline and powerful tool in the hands of the West helped to accomplish this mission. Finally, the chapter concludes with the scholarly conversation concerning the charge of neocolonialism in the digitization of all sorts of sites and objects around 36 the world. Therefore, this chapter adds to the existing scholarship that questions the neocolonialism of digital media and public spaces by the West.

Chapter 3: Civilizational Memory: The Transformation of Palmyra

Chapter three examines the transformation of civilizational memories on Palmyra, individual and collective memories and how they are situated in a local and global context. Here, an in-depth analysis of memory theory helps explore the myriad ways by which the world, and the West in particular, memorialize Palmyra. This chapter examines the digital re-inscription of

Palmyra as a transference of meaning and memory whereby Palmyra, no longer a local site or the exotic locale, comes to signify the recuperation of the West’s civilizational memory. I argue that Palmyra is now a memory of an imagined place in a narrative of the West’s cultural genealogy. Hence, Palmyra has been transformed as a Western memory, that is the patrimony of the West and the inheritance of “civilized” nations. Drawing on memory studies scholarship, I examine the role of memory in the forging of a civilizational memory rooted in the West’s imagination and the ways in which Palmyra is being memorialized. Who articulates this transformation of Palmyra into digital space and the memories now embedded in it? I examine the role of media, scholars/archaeologists, and public/tourists in forging a civilizational memory that displaces local memories and histories.

Chapter 4: Conclusion: The loss of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas

Chapter four takes a broader approach to the research I have presented in the previous chapters and summarizes the main conclusions that I have reached in response to my research questions. It analyses how the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas is relevant to an understanding of the asymmetrical responses of the West to the destruction of two cultural heritage sites in Asia and the singular focus on Palmyra that results in a transformation of 37 memory on Palmyra in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks. However, I argue that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas does not receive as much attention as what has happened with Palmyra.

This is primarily because the Bamiyan Buddhas have been inherently perceived as belonging to the Eastern realm or culture. When the West claimed custodianship of Palmyra, there was also an intense effort to reconstruct the spatial geography and architectural forms of Palmyra. It became a means of recovering place rather than the memory of the ancient and local culture of Palmyra.

This section further discusses why the transformation of Palmyra in the hands of the West has a global impact. It also reassesses the prominence of Palmyra as a center of civilizational memory as reimagined by the West and how Palmyra became a patrimony of the West in the process. I conclude my dissertation with the discussion that, these efforts to reclaim Palmyra by the West as a patrimony of the West must be juxtaposed against the reality that Palmyra’s antiquities have always remained present in the lives of Syrians and people living in the region. Therefore, the real Palmyra where it once stood majestically is lost somewhere in translation and transference.

CHAPTER ONE. PALMYRA: THE PLACE

What remains is there to remind us of what has vanished.

- Iain Browning, Palmyra, 1979

Does not even this silence of history carry with it instruction, and teach us how much we

are in the dark with regard to some periods of antiquity?

- Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra Otherwise Tedmor, in the Desart, 1753

Palmyra was a magnificent city of ruins in the Syrian desert before it was attacked and some of its structures destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Known as Tadmor, “the place of Palm trees,”

Palmyra’s existence can be traced back to the early second millennium BCE.58 By the first century CE, under the Roman Empire, Palmyra became a prominent crossroads in the trade routes between East and West. Water from the sulfurous spring Efqa, which bubbled up through a limestone cave to irrigate the surrounding land via a series of natural canals, made Palmyra an oasis of date palms.59 Positioned geographically in the middle of the Syrian desert, it developed into a major Syrian desert town and renowned watering-place and, under Roman rule, emerged as a major trading site linking the Mediterranean to China and India. As a meeting point for traders arriving from different parts of the world, Palmyra was a cosmopolitan city with a global caravan of cultures.

58 Jeffrey Becker, “Temple of Bel, Palmyra,” Khan Academy, Accessed May 20, 2018, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/palmyra/a/temple-of-bel- palmyra.

59 James Crawford, Fallen glory: the lives and deaths of history's greatest buildings (New York: Picador, 2019), 544.

In the 3rd Century AD, Palmyra became a center of political power when the Palmyrene

Empire, under Queen Zenobia, extended its rule to the eastern frontiers of the Roman Empire, carving out an empire for itself that extended from Turkey to Egypt.60 James Crawford points out that the rise of the Palmyrene Empire was directly spurred by the spectacular growth of the oasis city as a center of trade:

Palmyra was in danger of buckling under the weight of its own spectacular wealth. Or rather ambition. It has risen so far and so fast, and had acquired such broad horizons through its trade, that it began to look out from the oasis and beyond the desert. Perhaps it was inevitable that a city built on money and the market would be unable to check its forward momentum. For a time the Palmyrenes believed that there was nothing that they could not do—including becoming an Empire.61

Ironically due to a number of political conflicts within and outside of Palmyra during the second half of the 3rd Century CE, the long-distance trading system of Palmyra declined. There were several efforts to establish Palmyra’s independence from Rome under the leadership of Queen

Zenobia who led forces into Egypt and Asia Minor before she was taken captive and forced to surrender by Emperor Aurelian. Palmyra thus came under the control of Rome and was fortified for military purposes by Emperor Diocletian. During the Byzantine and Islamic periods that followed, there was continued occupation and expansion in Palmyra, and the city reached its height of glory during the Roman rule. However, despite its political decline beginning in the 3rd

Century CE, Palmyra remained an important city in the global crossroads of trade and cultures.

In this chapter, Palmyra’s historical and regional significance as a place is juxtaposed with its importance as a global site of memory and civilization. The first part of the chapter focuses on Palmyra as a World Heritage site. I then delineate the architectural significance of

60 Butcher, 2015.

61 Crawford, 549. 40

Palmyra. This section is followed by an overview of the state of contemporary Palmyra in the context of ISIS’s assault and capture of Palmyra. In the second part of the chapter, I examine the place of Palmyra in the Western historical imagination.

Mapping Palmyra in the Present

The ruins of Palmyra can be traced back to the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. Today it is situated in the middle of the Syrian desert, approximately 146 miles (235 km) northeast of

Damascus and 130 miles (210 km) southwest of Deir ez-Zor. The Roman Emperor Diocletian (r.

284–305 CE) built a wall around the city of Palmyra, which was later reconstructed by the

Byzantine emperor Justinian (r. 527–565 CE). The Temple of Bel is located in the southeastern part of the walled city and is housed within a walled compound that was built in a series of stages from the Hellenistic period through the late 2nd century CE and was later fortified during the 12th century CE. The main shrine dedicated to the Semitic god Bel lies near the center of the compound. This is bordered by a sacrificial altar and a ritual basin and surrounded by a colonnaded portico. From the Temple of Bel, a colonnaded street (the Cardo Maximus) runs to the northwest for approximately 1.2 km. The street was lined on each side with massive columns, many of which are still standing, and it forms the main axis of the city. The street makes a slight bend at two points: the first passing through a Monumental Arc and the second passing through an oval square containing the Tetrapylon, a massive stepped platform surmounted by four plinths, each of which supported four columns and, originally, a statue. Three structures stand out to the south of the Colonnaded Street. The Temple of Nabu, similar to the Temple of Bel but smaller, was built in the later part of the 1st century CE. To the west of the Temple of Nabu lies a large, semicircular theater, built during the first half of the 2nd century CE following the layout of Roman theaters. To the southwest of the theater is a large rectangular enclosure that 41 functioned as the marketplace. On the northern side of the Colonnaded Street, two structures can be singled out. As part of a series of civic improvements initiated during the period following the defeat of Queen Zenobia, Diocletian built a bathhouse (Baths of Diocletian) near the Temple of

Nabu and the theatre. The Temple of Baal-Shamin is located some distance to the northwest.

This temple was bordered in the north and south by colonnaded courtyards and was built in a series of phases from the 1st century CE through the mid-2nd century CE. At the far western end of the Colonnaded Street lies an area known as Diocletian’s Camp, where the city plan was expanded during the later 3rd century CE to include a military camp to house the Roman legion.

Outside the walled boundaries of Palmyra are three areas containing tombs: the Valley of the Tombs (or Western Necropolis), the Southwest Necropolis (or Southwest Cemetery), and the

Southeast Necropolis (or Southeast Cemetery). The Qalaat Shirkuh (also known as the Arab

Castle, Palmyra Castle, or Palmyra Citadel), a castle built during the Ayyubid period

(approximately 1230 CE), and then later reoccupied by the Lebanese Emir Fakhr al-Din during the early 17th century CE, stands on a hill two kilometers north of the city. The Palmyra

Archaeological Museum is located to the north of the ancient site at the entrance to the modern town of Tadmor. It housed numerous ancient artifacts from the site, including ethnographic artifacts, jewelry, and traditional Bedouin costumes, most of them found during excavations from the site and from the citadel, Qalaat Shirkuh. There is also a vast collection of funerary and religious art and a series of mosaics exemplifying the unique and hybrid quality of Palmyrene art and architecture that brings together the Western and Eastern aesthetics. The museum is thus 42 internationally renowned for its diverse collection of artistic materials representing the artistic styles and architecture of this magnificent cosmopolitan city. 62

Figure 1. Satellite image showing ancient city of Palmyra with key monuments labeled (October 26, 2014) ASOR http://www.asor.org/chi/reports/special-reports/on-the-Importance-of-Palmyra.

Spatial Geography, Religion, Language, and Culture of Palmyra

The spatial geography of Palmyra is comprised of many buildings that are renowned for its artistic splendor. Le Strange explains: “There are wonderful buildings erected here on pillars.

The people say they were built by the Jinns [spirits] at the order of Solomon, the son of David.

62 The mapping of the place and the descriptions of the ruins are based on information from the ASOR website and reproduced here with the permission of ASOR. 43

At the present day, the people there live in a castle surrounded by a stone wall.”63 The architecture of Palmyra demonstrates the plurality of architectural styles that borrows from both the West (Hellenistic and Roman) and the East (Parthian and Sassanian).

As Becker notes, “Palmyra today is known as a unique and resplendent ruined city that preserves remarkable examples of monumental, hybrid architecture that blends the canon of

Greco-Roman architecture with Near Eastern elements.”64 One of the unique architectural projects from the 1st century CE, The Temple of Bel, also referred to as the Temple of the Sun or of the Palmyrene gods, is a huge complex that has a courtyard stretching 200 meters on each side that accommodates thousands of people during religious festivals.65 Mainly dedicated to the god

Bel, the Temple also pays homage to the divine triad of Bel, the sun god Yarhibol, and the moon god Aglibol. While derived from the canon of Hellenistic Greek and Western in appearance, the ground architectural plan of the Temple comes from traditions of Eastern ritual architecture, including independent shrines for distinct divinities and, notably, the bent-axis approach to the cult. This means that the structure requires the celebrant to enter the temple and turn 90 degrees in order to view the offering table and cult area. However, the architectural elements employed in the temple’s elevation are borrowed from the Greco-Roman canon, including the use of the

Corinthian order as well as various architectural elements that adorn the frieze and roofline. The

63 Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems: a description of Syria and the Holy Land from A.D. 650 To 1500 (New York: Cosimo Classics (2010), quoted in Michael Greenhalgh, Syria's monuments: their survival and destruction (Leiden [etc.]: Brill, 2017), 276.

64 Becker, “Temple of Bel, Palmyra,” Khan Academy.

65 Frances Terpak, Bonfitto, and Peter Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra, City Plan & Monuments, Temple of Bel,” The Getty Research Institute, Accessed May 10, 2018, http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/city_plan.html.

44 cella, the inner area of the temple, is designed according to the Near Eastern tradition of the bent- axis approach and incorporates two separate shrines (thalamoi). A ramp and central stair, with an off-center doorway, grants access to the cella. It can be inferred that a mixed community of craftsmen, including Greeks and Romans along with the Palmyrenes, built the temple as is evident from the graffiti and mason’s marks found on the site. Terpak, therefore, concludes, “The hybridity of the Temple of Bel further demonstrates that ancient Palmyra was a multi-cultural community and that while the cult and its function adhered to Semitic practice, the execution of the temple in the Graeco-Roman style spoke the architectural lingua franca of the expansive

Roman Empire.”66 The Temple of Bel once symbolized the height of Palmyra’s splendor and as an architectural edifice is representative of Palmyra’s identity.

Another significant monument is the Temple of Baalshamin, built during the 1st century

CE and dedicated to the Semitic deity of Baalshamin, “Lord of Heaven and God of Fertility and of Storms and Rain.” It is also hybrid in design, having Greco-Roman and the Near Eastern elements and an exterior of Hellenistic or Roman design, similar to the Temple of Bel. The interior design demonstrates Near Eastern or regional influences as it has windows in the cella’s flanks that reflected the belief that the god resided inside the Temple. Borrowing from the

Roman provincial architecture, the Temple uses the Roman architectural design to frame sanctuaries.

The Arc of Triumph, a monumental structure, was built around the 3rd century CE during the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus to connect the main street of the Colonnade and the

66 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra, City Plan & Monuments;” Becker, “Temple of Bel, Palmyra,” Khan Academy.

Temple of Bel.67 It was built to celebrate the victory of the Romans over the Parthians but it is also unique structurally. The Arc is situated three hundred meters northwest of the Temple of Bel and is visible from the main road connecting the city. Lavishly adorned with stone carvings of relief and geometric patterns, the Arc is considered one of the foremost marvels of Palmyrene art.68

The Tetrapylon, literally meaning four gates or fronts, is an enormous gateway along the

Colonnade Street. It would have been an important public space as it is located towards the north of the agora or market place. The Palmyrene Colonnade Street is similar to the Roman

Colonnade. It provided relief from the desert heat for travelers traversing the Palmyrene desert. It featured a row of brackets projecting from the columns on either side that originally held hundreds of life-size bronze statues. According to the inscriptions found on the brackets, the earliest western transverse section was erected by the Bene Zabdibol and the western section of the main axis by the Bene Mathabol, two of the city’s prominent civic tribes, while the last section near the theater held 40 inscriptions honoring individuals or incorporated groups, 11 of which refer to the reign of Odainat and Zenobia (263–272 CE).69 Terpak et al explain:

Besides functioning as a major artery in the ancient city, the Colonnade was a place for trade and commerce, a function that continued into the Islamic period, as excavations have revealed. Twentieth-century restoration campaigns re-erected some 80 Corinthian columns that once flanked the street. Though Cassas’s prints and Vignes’s photographs capture the impressive linear expanse of the colonnade, what is impossible to grasp from these images is how, in the first centuries CE, this covered passageway represented the pinnacle of refinement in urban architecture, shading and articulating the street with

67 Richard Stoneman, Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt Against Rome (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1995), 192.

68 The Arc is also significant as an iconic symbol and that is why its image is stamped on Syria’s 10-pound coin.

69 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra, City Plan & Monuments.” 46

moving patterns of light while the endless line of statues towering above on both sides visually set the tempo for official processions and reminded citizens and visitors of the city’s civic underpinnings.70

As the Getty online exhibition highlights, the Great Colonnade is significant not just as a structural artifact but also as a site of civic life.71

The Valley of the Tombs is another structurally significant building that is situated to the

West of the city and built by the patrons or family members to bury their dead. Architecturally heterogeneous, the tombs were usually for private burials. There were four kinds of tombs: tower tombs, house tombs, the underground tomb or hypogeum, and the tower hypogeum. Tombs contained multiple burials, usually associated with one family or clan. The deceased were placed in loculi (rectangular burial spaces) and sealed by stone slabs bearing the portrait of the deceased.72 The Funerary Temple is the only existing Palmyrene Temple Tomb whose exterior is similar to the Greek canonical temple. In contrast, the interiors of Palmyrene temple tombs were more like those of the earlier tower tombs, resembling a mausoleum or ancestral crypt—richly adorned with Palmyra’s customary funeral busts or massive sarcophagi topped with large sculptured figures, as seen throughout the Eastern Roman Empire.73 What is most extraordinary about the Funerary Temple is that it is housed inside the city and towards the western end of the necropolis rather than outside the city walls, which is usually where they lay in most planned

70 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

71 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

72 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

73 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

47 cities. Experts on archaeology infer that this is mostly because of the high rank, wealth, and social status of the people buried in these tombs.

Ian Browning, in his 1979 book on Palmyra, notes that, “To the west of Damascus Street lies one of the most important archaeological sites in the whole of Palmyra. This is the so-called camp of Dio-Cletian.”74As one of the most important archaeological sites in Palmyra, this is the

Western part of Palmyra and one of oldest parts of the city that was converted into a Roman military camp, also referred to as the Temple of Standards during the reign of Emperor Dio-

Cletian (r. 284-305):

Housing the insignias of the victorious legions, the Temple of the Standards was the focal point of this new architectural enclave. Symbolizing Roman dominance, the “camp” was constructed on top of and with materials from earlier structures, possibly razed to underscore imperial control of the city. This massive space, culminating in the Temple of the Standards, opened off the transverse colonnade with a series of processional areas articulating the Roman complex.75

Other structurally and symbolically significant buildings include the Roman Theater and the ancient city’s Damascus Gate, which is an entrance to the walled community, facing toward the

Syrian capital. It is also believed to have been used for other purposes such as a senate meeting house and as a court building.76 There is evidence of other monuments that are still hidden in the ruins, unexcavated, and buried underneath. Like the ancient Greek and Roman cities, the architectural splendor of Palmyra attests to the magnificence and the progress of the city during its heyday. It is evident that the Palmyrene elites invested heavily in the city’s urban landscape following the Roman and Mediterranean concept of planned cities.

74 Ian Browning, Palmyra (Park Ridge, N.J.: Noyes, 1980), 184.

75 Browning, Palmyra, 184.

76 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.” 48

Palmyra is a multi-religious city with a “diverse overlay of belief systems.”77 Scholars such as Kaizer have examined the religious life and ritual activities of Palmyra under the

Romans and also discussed the different cultural and religious practices within Palmyra. As many scholars would argue, Palmyrene monuments, including the great temples of Baalshamin and Bel, survived into modern times most likely due to their conversion into churches and mosques. Twentieth-century excavations throughout the city have uncovered sanctuaries to indigenous and “foreign” gods such as Yarhibol, Aglibol, Allat, Shamash, and Nabu.78 Scholars have inferred, through historical and linguistic evidence, that these sites had more connections to

Babylonian, Phoenician, Canaanite, and Greek religions rather than Roman—attesting to their

Eastward-looking orientation and the cosmopolitan and pluralistic nature of the city’s inhabitants.79 Although a synagogue has yet to be found at the site, Hellenistic sources confirm the presence and importance of a large Jewish population that contributed to Palmyra’s multiethnic and multi-religious society.80 Thus, it is possible to trace a trajectory of memorialization of Palmyra from a local to a global scale thus extending its significance beyond the local.

Palmyra is also quite distinct for its diverse and distinct language. About three thousand dedicatory, commemorative, and sepulchral inscriptions, written in Palmyrene script, have been found scattered among the ruins. From these inscriptions we can infer that the early socio-

77 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

78 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

79 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

80 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

49 political organization of the city was based on four tribes settled in four different parts of the city: a sacerdotal tribe, the Bene Komare (Kohenite); an Arab tribe, the Bene Maazin or

Ma'zyân; the Bene Mattabol, also of western origin; and a fourth whose name is indeterminate.

Each had its own temple, but that of the god Bel represented all of Palmyra.81 What is unique about Palmyrene’s mode of worship is that the people of Palmyra honored both the gods and men alike and it was more of a community-funded project, a display of civic munificence. When the merchants of Palmyra transformed their urban environment, they also made sure that they inscribed into the architecture of the city the stories of people who helped them to become prosperous.82 The inscriptions are the primary documents that attest to Palmyra’s cultural, social, and economic position in the ancient world. A few hundred of these inscriptions are bilingual,

Palmyrene and Greek, used in both civic and funerary contexts. A few are also trilingual, incorporating Latin, and thus signify the Roman presence in the city. These inscriptions provide a glimpse of the overall trade system as they reveal how the local merchants administered trade within the city and across the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia:

Palmyrene merchants grew wealthy through taxing and protecting caravans that made their way across the Syrian desert to the Euphrates River and down to the Persian Gulf, ferrying gems and spices to the markets of the Mediterranean in return for precious metals, glass, and other luxury materials that have been found as far away as India. Along with the caravans came a wealth of cultural influences, and among the thousands Of inscriptions recorded at Palmyra are dedications to gods and goddesses from Phoenician, Babylonian, Arab and Canaanite traditions.83

81 Daniel Schlumberger, "Les Quatre Tribus De Palmyre," Syria 48, no. 1/2 (1971): 121- 33. 82 Crawford, 547.

83 Kristin Romney, “How Ancient Palmyra, Now in ISIS’s Grip, Grew Rich and Powerful,” National Geographic, August 26, 2015, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150826-syria-palmyra-islamic-state-isis- archaeology-history/.

As Daniel Schlumberger notes here, the main source of income for local merchants was through the control of trade.

A multiethnic population of Aramaeans, Arabs, Greeks, and Persians who spoke primarily Greek and Palmyrene (a dialect of Aramaic) and practiced a variety of different religions, including Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and a cult dedicated to the Semitic god Bel lived in Palmyra during the ancient times.84 Palmyrene is an Aramaic language, related to Hebrew and Nabataean, that was actively in use from the 1st century BCE to the decline of the city-state in the later 3rd century. The disappearance of the language in the late 3rd century coincided with Emperor Aurelian’s conquest of the city in 273 CE. Palmyra’s vast cemeteries, with multistoried tower tombs and expansive house tombs, holding as many as 400 bodies each, bear witness to the identity of the Palmyrenes— people of Aramaic descent with strong Arab ties. These tombs are modeled on Greco-Roman naturalistic traditions of portraiture but often draped in native Parthian garments with eyebrows more stylized and incised, as in the Assyrian tradition. These funerary busts are signifiers of a wealthy multicultural society within Palmyra.

Drawing inspiration from East (Parthian and Sassanian) and West (Hellenistic and Roman),

Palmyrene artists created a distinctive, hybrid style that is visible in the architecture of the city and also in the sculptures that decorated the tombs of the elite. However, there are also arguments that challenge the assertion of Roman and Greek influences on Palmyrene funerary portraits. Scholars such as Raja and Norwich explain that the Palmyrene portraits are “de- individualized.” “Its unique ‘de-individualized’ character defies the tools that scholars of Greek

84 Michael Danti et al., “Special Report: On the Importance of Palmyra,” ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives, June 2, 2015, http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/special-report-on-the- importance-of-palmyra/.

51 and Roman portraiture have developed and fine-tuned over centuries. Though Palmyrene portraiture appropriated and subsumed outside influences, it was largely indifferent towards both

Roman imperial fashions and Greco-Roman tendencies towards life-likeness, and instead constantly created its own distinct style.”85 Similarly, Norwich argues that even though

Palmyrene sculptures show Greco-Roman influences, its most striking feature is a frontal formality rare in contemporary Mediterranean art.86

The cosmopolitan culture of Palmyra was forged by its exposure to trade and tourism and the overlapping cultures that shaped the the city. “Its civic institutions included a council, popular assembly, and magistrates such as archons, echoing those of the Greek city-states, and eventually it was awarded the Roman status of colonia (‘colony’),” writes Norwich.87 As a meeting point of different cultural traditions and histories, Palmyra is one of the cosmopolitan centers of the world with its own distinct Roman-Baroque style. Scholars such as Andrade argues that Palmyra is unique because of the different civilizations it has given birth to and also the numerous varieties of deities it has worshipped at the same time, both from the West and the East:

While exhibiting substantive continuities in Near Eastern material culture and epigraphic formulae, [Palmyra] also housed cults to numerous Near Eastern divinities. It is convincing, if hypothetical, that it maintained dimorphic social structures. Its uniqueness, in part engendered by its remote and dry location, has triggered debate over whether it constituted a Greek polis. Palmyra’s cultural complexity among its other traits, has in fact recently prompted scholars to regard it as “oriental,” as exemplifying unique local cult practice, as reflecting “creolization,” or as epitomizing “mestizaje” and movement between parallel cultural universes.88

85 Kropp and Raja, The world of Palmyra, 8.

86 John Julius Norwich, Cities that shaped the ancient world (New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2015), 73.

87 Norwich, 73.

Palmyra’s importance as a historically, culturally, and economically significant place has been recorded throughout history and discussed by scholars around the world. As a great civilization, cosmopolitan global cultural center, and ancient crossroads of civilizations, Palmyra in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries emerged as a popular tourist site bringing people from all over the world. While locally, Palmyra has come to represent the national identity of Syria, it is today considered as the heritage of the world. In 1980 the United Nations designated Palmyra as a World Heritage site based on the criteria that included the magnificence of the ruins of

Palmyra, its unique aesthetic architecture, and its significance as a wealthy caravan oasis under the Roman empire. The rediscovery of the splendor of the ruins in the 17th and 18th centuries led to the revival of classical and urban architectural styles in the West. Major architectural remains within the site of Palmyra such as The Temple of Bel, The grand monumental colonnaded street, the funerary monuments, the Valley of the Tomb, etc., are representative of unique Palmyrene art.89 Because of the Syrian conflict and Palmyra’s precarious geographic location within Syria,

Palmyra was categorized in the UNESCO’S List of World Heritage in Danger in the year 2013.

In the aftermath of ISIS’s invasion of Palmyra, Palmyra is now no longer the old enchanting tourist spot that once existed. It is a contested war zone and accessibility to this place is restricted. Therefore, traveling to Palmyra itself is life-threatening.

ISIS in Palmyra

The Lion of Al-Lat (also known as the Lion Statue of Athena) once stood at the front of the entrance to the temple of Al-Lat to guard and protect its deity. Since its discovery in 1977 by

88 Nathaniel. J Andrade, Syrian Identity in the Greco Roman World (Cambridge [u.a.] Cambridge University Press, 2018),173.

89 “Site of Palmyra,” UNESCO, Accessed October 26, 2018, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/23.

53 a Polish archaeological excavation team, it has graced the entrance to the Palmyra Museum. It is a massive wide-eyed lion made of limestone that measures over 11 feet, weighs15 tons, and is nine feet tall. Between its massive paws, it shields a horned antelope, which is “symbolic of the protection that the strong owes to the weak.”90 As the guardian of the temple of Al-Lat, a female deity from the pre-Islamic era, an inscription in Palmyrene dialect on its left paw warns, “May

Al-Lat bless whoever does not shed blood in this sanctuary.”91 This iconic statue is one of

Palmyra’s most treasured symbols and was one of the first antiquities that ISIS demolished in

May 2015. The destruction of the Lion of Al-Lat was the beginning of a period of deliberate destruction and terror in Palmyra. In May 2015, twenty-four Syrian Arab Army soldiers were murdered by ISIS at the Roman theater of Palmyra. A video of the murder was posted online drawing worldwide condemnation. On August 8, 2015, the mutilated body of Khaled Assad strung up from a column in the ancient city of Palmyra shocked the world. A renowned scholar and pioneer of Syrian antiquities, Assad was taken by ISIS militants and tortured for weeks before being beheaded because he refused to divulge the location of antiquities hidden away before the ISIS invasion of Palmyra.

Assad’s murder and the destruction of Palmyra and its antiquities represent a loss of knowledge and the desecration of invaluable sites of historical memory. The grief and outrage that followed news of Assad’s death pivoted Palmyra into the global imagination as a place in

90 “Restoration Completed on Lion of Al-lāt Statue from Ancient City of Palmyra, Damaged by ISIL,” UNESCO, October 5, 2017, https://en.unesco.org/news/restoration- completed-lion-al-lat-statue-ancient-city-palmyra-damaged-isil.

91 Patrick J. McDonnell, “ISIS Militants Battered Syria’s Ancient Palmyra, but Signs of Splendor Still Stand,” Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-palmyra-ruins-2017-story.html.

54 peril. The events that subsequently followed irrevocably erased Palmyra as a physical place that had stood at a historical crossroad of culture and peoples. With the loss of the Lion of Al-Lat, its guardian angel, Palmyra, once the “Venice of the Sands,” now stood unguarded in the advance of

ISIS’s caliphate.

ISIS embarked on the destruction of the temples of Palmyra in a deliberate effort to cleanse its caliphate of idolatry and Western culture. As an extremist organization, ISIS had not just limited its deadly operations to a “spatial geography” and the people inhabiting these spaces.

It had also started a “jihad” (holy war) on the cultural heritages that its leaders perceived as un-

Islamic. Ancient archaeological sites were reduced to rubble with bulldozers and explosives.

ISIS seized large areas of Syria and northern and western Iraq, and there was nothing stopping its militants from plundering and destroying sites within and outside of Iraq and Syria. The

Guardian reported on how in late February, ISIS released a video that showed militants rampaging through the Mosul Museum with pickaxes and sledgehammers, toppling and defacing millennia-old statues. In the video released on February 25, ISIS claimed that the Mosul Museum destruction was motivated by their goal of removing all unIslamic icons from its caliphate:

The five-minute video, which was released by the “press office of the province of Nineveh [the region around Mosul]”, begins with a Qur’anic verse on idol worship. An Isis representative then speaks to the camera, condemning Assyrians and Akkadians as polytheists, justifying the destruction of the artefacts and statues. The man describes the prophet Muhammad’s destruction of idols in Mecca as an example. “These statues and idols, these artifacts, if God has ordered its removal, they became worthless to us even if they are worth billions of dollars,” the man said.92

Curry reports that when the Syrian forces secured the house of a dead ISIS commander they seized more than 160 computer flash drives containing detailed financial records of the

92 Kareem Shaheen, “Isis Fighters Destroy Ancient Artefacts at Mosul Museum,” The Guardian, February 26, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/isis-fighters- destroy-ancient-artefacts-mosul-museum-iraq.

55 insurgents. Listed among ISIS’s key financial transactions were records of illicit antiquity trafficking. In one region of Syria alone, the group reportedly accounted for up to thirty-six million dollars from activities that included the smuggling of plundered artifacts.93 Lynfield explains that, ISIS by “detonating of the treasures” of Palmyra “is targeting the antithesis of its purist identity as the self-designated restorer of the caliphate: an ancient city that during the first to third centuries CE was a multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual society whose architecture uniquely fused classical with Persian and Mesopotamian influences.”94 This is relevant in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on Palmyra and other ancient sites of cultural and archaeological significance, as the caliphate that ISIS envisions does not have any place for a multireligious or diverse cultural polity.

On August 31, 2015, ISIS destroyed part of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra city (province of Holms within the Syrian Arab Republic). As McDonnell notes, “The once-resplendent Temple of Bel, dedicated to the principal deity of this ancient metropolis, has been reduced to a single sculpted arch rising gracefully from a jagged pile of tumbled columns and monumental stone blocks etched with grape vines and acanthus leaves.”95 This was sensational news that reverberated around the world. ISIS arrived in Palmyra in May 2015, and in just ten days between the last week of August and the first week of September, the smaller temple of Baal

93 Andrew Curry, “On ISIS's Path of Ruin, Many Sites of Global Importance,” National Geographic, March 12, 2015, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150312-isis- destruction-looting-ancient-sites-iraq-syria-archaeology/.

94 Ben Lynfield, “ISIS Continues Destruction at Palmyra,” Architectural Record, October 2, 2015, https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/9125-isis-continues-destruction-at- palmyra.

95 McDonnell, “ISIS Militants Battered Syria’s Ancient Palmyra, but Signs of Splendor Still Stand,” 2017. 56

Shamin, the grand temple of Bel, and three funerary towers from the necropolis “were blown up in what has become the hallmark signature of ISIS’s destruction of cultural heritage sites.”96

After the attack of ISIS on Palmyra and the Syrian crisis, in 2016 UNESCO dispatched a rapid assessment mission to estimate the amount of damage to the site. The assessment team discovered that the Triumphal Arc, representative of Palmyra, was “smashed to smithereens.”97

Labeling the devastation of Palmyra as an “act of cultural cleansing” and “a war crime,”

UNESCO, while acknowledging the incredible loss, maintained that Palmyra still “retains a large part of its integrity and authenticity.”98 Designated as a national monument and added to the list of World Heritage sites in Danger, Palmyra served as an important cultural and historical site in both the local and global imagination.

Ruins of Palmyra: what ISIS destroyed and what remains

During the invasion of Palmyra by ISIS in 2015, many of its prominent buildings were damaged and the Temple of Bel largely destroyed. The Temple of Baalshamin, one of the greatest architectural monuments of the first century CE, had stood as one of the best-preserved monuments in Palmyra. Situated between two colonnaded courtyards on its north and south that formed part of its sanctuary, the temple was designed with a deep portico articulated with six figured columns wrapping around the eastern-facing entrance. The Monumental Arc and

Tetrapylon are the two enormous gateways along the Colonnade Street, that were destroyed by

96 Amr Al-Azm, “Why ISIS Wants to Destroy Syria’s Cultural Heritage,” TIME, Oct 8, 2015, https://time.com/4065290/syria-cultural-heritage/.

97 Erin Blakemore, “Unesco: Don't Worry, Palmyra Is Still Authentic,” Smithsonian Magazine, April 28, 2016, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/unesco-dont-worry- palmyra-still-authentic-180958944/.

98 McDonnell, “ISIS Militants Battered Syria's Ancient Palmyra, but Signs of Splendor Still Stand,” 2017.

ISIS—the arc in 2015 during the first occupation of the site and the Tetrapylon in early 2017 during the second occupation. Palmyrene tomb architecture (Valley of the Tombs) reflects the heterogeneity of Palmyrene oasis society. In 2015, ISIS destroyed some of the largest and best- preserved tower tombs, notably those of Elahbel, Iamlichus, and Kitot. During the second ISIS occupation, in 2017, more tower tombs were destroyed. Palmyra’s monumental colonnade, the

Colonnade Street, is similar to those in several major urban centers in the Eastern Roman

Empire, yet it stands apart in its scale and decoration. It still stands today even after the ISIS invasion. The best surviving example of a Palmyrene temple tomb is a building commonly referred to as the Funerary Temple. This also survived the ISIS occupation.99 No more a tourist spot, Palmyra has been transformed as a site of pillage and ruin and the memories attached to this place have also been transformed.

The Place of Palmyra in the Western Historical Imagination

Most of the early scholarly publications on Palmyra focus on the historical importance of the place and the descriptions of it include realistic and detailed sketches contributed by both

Eastern and Western scholars. As part of the historical expedition commissioned by the British

Levant Company in 1691, a group of Oxford-educated orientalists and antiquarians traveled to

Palmyra to explore this city of ruins. Based on their findings, a detailed report sent to the Royal

Society was later published with a 180-degree panorama that, when read from left to right, served as a virtual illustrated guide to their itinerary through Palmyra’s ruins. The panorama was subsequently reproduced by Abednego Seller in his 1696 book, The Antiquities of Palmyra.100

99 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

100 Seller, The Antiquities of Palmyra, 1696.

One of the earliest scholarly works on Palmyra, it contains the history of the city and its emperors from its foundation to the present time with an appendix of critical observations on the names, religion, and government of the country, and a commentary on the inscriptions.101

In 1750 and 1751, classical scholar Robert Wood, along with the draftsman Giovanni

Battista Borra, traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean regions, including Syria where they took careful measurements and drawings of Palmyra. The Ruins of Palmyra, Otherwise Tedmor, in the Desart (sic), published in London in 1753, was the first publication that systematically detailed the ancient structures of Palmyra.102 Published in both English and French, the book is an illustrative and informative text. Almost 30 years after the publication of The Ruins of Palmyra,

French artist and architect Louis-François Cassas (1756–1827) traveled to the Eastern

Mediterranean as part of a diplomatic mission to the Ottoman court in 1784. During this three-year expedition, Cassas produced hundreds of drawings that formed the basis of his 1799–1800 publication Voyage Pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoénicie, de la Palestine, et de la Basse

Egypte.103 This is also a report on Palmyra’s distinctive style blending Greco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences. Constantin-François de Chasseboeuf, comte de

Volney (1757–1820), in his political treatise, The Ruins, or Meditation on the Revolutions of

Empires (1791), used Palmyra as an example of the decline of great civilization.104

101 The book was printed in London by the publisher S. Smith and B. Walford.

102 Robert Wood, The ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tedmor, in the desart (London: 1753).

103 Louis-François Cassas, Proof plates and archive for Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoénicie, de la Palestine, et de la Basse Egypte (vol. I), 1795–1826. The Getty Research Institute, Online Resource.

104 Constantin-François de Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney, The Ruins, or Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires, n.p: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.

In the 18th century, Arabic and classical texts on Palmyra and its fabled Queen Zenobia became a source of inspiration for poets, novelists, and scholars to reinterpret the history of

Palmyra. Queen Zenobia was renowned for her beauty and intellect and was successful in raising an army against the Roman Empire in 269 CE. She is also considered as the embodiment of

Palmyra throughout the ages.105 Queen Zenobia has been portrayed in the works of Giovanni

Boccaccio (Concerning Famous Women), Chaucer (The Monk's Tale), Pedro Calderón de la Barca

(La gran Cenobia), French neoclassical tragedies (Crébillon's Rhadamiste et Zénobie), operas by

Handel (Radamisto) and Rossini (Aureliano in Palmira), romantic novels by William Ware

(Zenobia; or, The Fall of Palmyra) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Blithedale Romance), and many other literary works in diverse languages from the Middle Ages to the present day.106

There were also references to Palmyra in popular literature in the 19th century, especially when there was an increase in readership from the aristocratic readers to the literate public. For instance, Egyptian Sepulchres and Syrian Shrines, written in 1862 by Emily Anne Smythe, recounts her travel to Palmyra, for the benefit of those who could not visit Palmyra.107

An international scholarly exchange on Palmyra, especially from the 20th century onwards, points to the global interest in Palmyra. Several monographs on Palmyra were published around the world in English and other Western languages—Polish, French, Latin,

Greek, and Danish among others. This also marks the importance of Palmyra on a global scale

105 “Rediscovery of Palmyra,” The Photography of Ray K. Metzker and the Institute of Design (Getty Center Exhibitions), Accessed January 10, 2019, http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/rediscovery.html.

106 “Rediscovery of Palmyra,” The Photography of Ray K. Metzker and the Institute of Design (Getty Center Exhibitions).

107 Emily Anne Beaufort Smythe, Viscountess Strangford, Egyptian sepulchres and Syrian shrines: including some stay in the Lebanon, at Palmyra, and in western Turkey (London: 1862), The Getty Research Institute. Online Resource. 60 and its prominence as a world heritage site. Many books were published (English and non-

English) in the 1970s and 80s which gave detailed descriptions of Palmyra and reveals the significance of Palmyra in the western imagination. A few examples include Kazimierz

Michalowski’s Palmyra, Malcolm A. R. Colledge’s The Art of Palmyra, Iain Browning’s

Palmyra, Jean Starcky and Michał Gawlikowski’s Palmyre.108

The place of Palmyra in the Western historical imagination takes an interesting shift in the 21st century. Jane O’Brien, writing for the BBC discusses the relationship between the ruins of an ancient city such as Palmyra and some of the most iconic buildings in Washington.

O’Brien reflects on Palmyra’s influence on United States architecture, including buildings such as the Capitol, the White House, and Monticello, the Virginia home of President Thomas

Jefferson.109 According to scholars such as Julian Raby, Robert Wood’s 1753 The Ruins of

Palmyra that first provided a detailed survey of Palmyra, was a prime inspiration for the neoclassical architectural style in Britain and North America. Indeed, Wood’s image of an eagle decorating an ancient Roman temple became the model for the Great Seal of the United States.110

In American popular imagination, Palmyra’s architectural influence on iconic US building can serve as a means of forging a cultural bridge between Americans and West Asia.

Rosenzweig and Thelen’s project on popular history-making is about destabilizing the myth that non-academic or ordinary Americans are merely passive consumers of history. Rosenzweig and

108 Kazimierz Michałowski, and Andrzej Dziewanowski, Palmyra (Warszawa: Arkady, 1968); Malcolm A.R. Colledge, The art of Palmyra (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976); Browning, Palmyra, 1979; Jean Starcky, Palmyre (L'Orient Ancien Illustre 7: Paris, 1952); Michal Gawlikowski, Palmyra (Institute of Archaeology, Warsaw University: Warsaw, 2010).

109 O’Brien, “Palmyra: Ruins that inspired the architecture of power,” 2015.

110 O’Brien, 2015.

Thelen argue that these non-academic or ordinary Americans rather play a crucial role in shaping the past and how this past influences their present and future. Rosenzweig and Thelen further examines “how Americans understand the past,” in order to make sense of the public’s deep fascination with the past and also to realize the emergence of the so-called trend—“people’s history” or “public history” in the history of America. As they discuss, most of the people did not view the past as distant or abstract, rather they tried to view their past as deeply tied to the present and to their day-to-day activities. “… the responses impress us with the presence of the past—its ubiquity and its connection to current day concerns.”111 Similar to Rosenzweig and

Thelen’s claim of how people view their past as deeply tied to the present and to their day-to-day activities, scholars such as Raby who are working on the Palmyra historical site intend to find ways for the American public to connect to The Ruins of Palmyra to make them realize

Palmyra’s influence on United States architecture has been significant.112 Raby’s question and its corresponding answer, “Why was the White House and the Capitol built in a neo-classical style?

It all starts at Palmyra,” enables the American public to make a connection between themselves and Syrians and to acknowledge Palmyra’s historical connection to the American past. Palmyra as a historical site and its neoclassical style and architectural influence on the American past has been forgotten in US public memory. However, this process of forgetting is acceptable and expected according to Erll. Erll states that the art of memory cannot do without the two key terms, “remembering and forgetting” because, remembering and forgetting are two different

111 Roy Rosenzweig and David P. Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 18.

112 The reference is to the book by Robert Wood on Palmyra, The Ruins of Palmyra, and how the neo-classical style adopted to build the White House and the Capitol has been influenced by this book. 62 sides of the same coin, memory. Specifically, forgetting is the very condition of memory that will prompt Americans to remember their shared past with a different culture [Syrian or Eastern] from across the borders.113 Therefore, using Raby’s question I argue that Americans should revisit American history as not merely restricted to a limited national past but to a transnational perspective, through the process of memory.

An assessment of the relevant scholarly discussion related to the destruction of Bel in

Palmyra throws light on its historical value in a greater intellectual context. This scholarship also helps to estimate Bel’s importance as a site of cultural memory and how its destruction has impacted the world. The destruction of the Temple of Bel elicited a huge response from scholars across the globe and UNESCO called the temple’s destruction “an intolerable crime against civilization” and a “war crime.”114 Indeed, numerous scholars had already predicted the destruction of this archaeological site in the wake of the ISIS crisis, and ISIS’s invasion of ancient historical sites in its Syrian territories.

Analyzing the scholarship on how the West has conceived the ISIS attacks on Palmyra, we see that Palmyra as a historical site of cultural and historical prominence has incredible value for scholars and historians. Scholars around the world were considering an impending attack by

ISIS and had also warned about it as evident from their conversations. But, unfortunately, the government of Syria or UNESCO was unable to prevent its destruction and a great marker of civilizational history and memory was demolished.

113 Erll, Memory in Culture, 8. . 114 “U.N. Satellite Image Confirms ISIS Destruction Of Temple Of Bel,” Latest Nigerian News, September 1, 2015, https://www.latestnigeriannews.com/news/1926038/un-satellite- image-confirms-isis-destruction-of-temple-of-bel.html.

It is possible to trace a trajectory of the memorialization of Palmyra from a local to a global scale thus extending its significance beyond the local. Palmyra as a symbol of the collective memory of primarily the Syrians and people from around the world carried a lot of historical and cultural value from a bygone era. ISIS’ destruction of the Temple affects the past, present, and future of the people who once lived here, and the religious, cultural, and social values that they placed on this Temple over the years. The demolition of Palmyra has led to the destruction of the tourist potential of this site which has been a crossroad of ancient global traffic for centuries.

Moreover, over the years, travelers, artists, researchers, and archaeologists from around the world also visited Palmyra to admire the splendor of its architecture.

Conclusion

Huyssen’s metaphor of the palimpsest—a text which has been partially erased to create space for new text— serves as a methodological tool for evaluating sites of memory/culture. It is particularly useful in understanding the multiple layers of histories and memories embedded in

Palmyra. As Huyssen notes, public memory rarely stays focused on one event or history at a time; instead, multiple histories collide with each other in public space, often in ways that are productive, sometimes in ways that seem problematic.115 Palimpsests are sometimes intentional and sometimes not, as what has happened with Palmyra. Thus, Huyssen’s concept of the palimpsest is an apt metaphor for the history of a place such as Palmyra, where memories/stories and artifacts/structures preserve the accumulated layers of history in the collective memory.

Subsequently, the concept of place always matters when it comes to Palmyra as the place is abound in myths and memories which are accumulated over the course of its history.

115 Huyssen, 2003. 64

So how has Palmyra become a palimpsest of memories and histories? Analyzing the histories and political/territorial conflicts within and outside of Palmyra it is evident how Palmyra as a vast geographic space has been successively conquered by invading armies or annexed by powerful dynastic states for over a millennium. The latest in the line is the invasion of Palmyra by ISIS and the demolition of some of the Palmyrene structures within it. There is also the recapture of Palmyra by the coalition forces and then the re-conquering of Palmyra by ISIS. Each of these historical “conquests,” “excavations,” and “lootings” have seen at least some of the

Palmyrene artifacts being partially dismantled for reuse as building materials/fortifications, or modified for religious or civic purposes, or even transported across the world for its aesthetic and economic value. Records indicate how thousands of artifacts from this region that had been secured during the late Ottoman rule (1876–1922) and subsequently during the French Mandate

(1923–46) are today housed elsewhere in American, Western European, Russian, and Turkish museums.116 There are also many controversies on the “collecting practices of this period” which are categorized either as colonialist or state-sanctioned looting or as a means of preserving the history and heritage of Palmyra for future years.117

Multiple layers of histories and memories overlap within this place—they are created, transformed, and recreated by people within and outside of this space. Palmyra has been transformed throughout these years due to numerous destructions/invasions and also its current position as a war zone. There are initiatives worldwide to reconstruct it both physically and virtually elsewhere (in a different space), and the memories attached to Palmyra have been transformed but not completely erased or lost. The cultural violence that Palmyra has withstood

116 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

117 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.” 65 destroyed some of the architectural structures within the city but the city remains, along with the memories attached to the city.

CHAPTER TWO. PALMYRA RECREATED: PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL RESTORATIONS

A monumental recreation of the destroyed Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, has been

unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square. The 1,800-year-old arch was destroyed by

Islamic State militants last October and the 6-metre (20ft) model, made in Italy from

Egyptian marble, is intended as an act of defiance: to show that restoration of the ancient

site is possible if the will is there.

- The Guardian, April 19, 2016.118

The demolition of Palmyra’s buildings and the presence of ISIS in the region have resulted in the collapse of tourism and the local economy. Ironically, Palmyra as an ancient site of civilizational memory has gained a lot of prominence after its demolition. The extent of damage to Palmyra may never be measured fully in quantitative or qualitative terms. But

Palmyra as a place has not been completely obliterated. Palmyra as a symbol of the collective memory of Syrians carries a lot of historical and cultural value. ISIS’s destruction of the Temple of Bel affects the past, present, and future consciousness and narratives of the people who once lived here, and the religious, cultural, and social values that they placed on this Temple for centuries.

After the destruction of the Temple of Bel, there was a worldwide drive to memorialize

Palmyra, especially in the media and by scholars. The international media was successful in communicating the intense sense of loss across the world. Moreover, I argue, the media

118 Mark Brown, “Palmyra's Arch of Triumph recreated in Trafalgar Square,” The Guardian, April 19, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/19/palmyras- triumphal-arch-recreated-in-trafalgar-square.

67 articulated the loss of Palmyra as the loss of civilizational memory. People around the world also responded emotionally to the loss of Palmyra. In the process of articulating loss and grief, there was also an attempt to rescript the importance of Palmyra from a local to a global site of culture and history. Today, across the world, Palmyra has come to represent cultural annihilation. The violence that Palmyra has withstood destroyed some of the architectural structures within the city. However, it did not wipe out the city or the memories attached to the city. Indeed, Palmyra has been resurrected physically elsewhere and virtually by the West in an effort to perpetuate the memory of Palmyra.

This chapter explores the ways in which Palmyra is being recreated by the West and its significance as an ancient site of civilizational memory as perceived by the West. I analyze how the West has appropriated Palmyra and its artifacts by memorializing them through their recreations elsewhere, physically and virtually. I argue that the West has appropriated Palmyrene artifacts and Palmyra becomes the inheritance of the West through these physical and digital appropriations specifically through the use of digital media as a powerful tool in their hands and thereby promoting a legacy of the “digital cultural heritage.” First, I begin with a discussion of the terms “memorialization” versus “recreation” to explain the distinction between these terms to understand what the West has accomplished through the memorialization of Palmyra and its artifacts by rebuilding them. In particular, I focus on the digital memorialization of Palmyra by the West through the online resource projects, Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), Getty

Online Exhibition’s “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” the Palmyra Portrait Project, and #New

Palmyra that have been initiated by the West to recuperate the architecture and memory of

Palmyra. The second part of the discussion focuses on how digital archaeology as a discipline and powerful tool in the hands of the West helped to accomplish this mission. The chapter 68 concludes with the scholarly conversation concerning the charge of neocolonialism in the

Western digitization of sites and objects around the world.

Memorialization and Recreation

Memorialization and recreation are two distinct but related terms. They are both linked and disconnected in some way or the other. Memorialization is an act of preserving the memory of a person, group of people, organization, event, or ceremony, etc. When we try to memorialize a person or an organization, we are trying to honor or remember that specific person’s contributions or the significance of an event or organization. Memorialization and recreation can be explained as part of a synchronic and diachronic process within a specific historical period or across history. Memorialization in terms of a diachronic analysis explains how the very act of remembering and memorializing someone or something takes over the course of history as we take into account the history of a person or an event or organization and what their contributions are. The history of a person, place, or event plays a key role in memorialization, because the memory of an object or individual cannot be preserved without looking back or reminiscing the past.

While memorializing we are trying to preserve the past for the future. Therefore, memorializing is more of a diachronic approach to understanding, acknowledging, and preserving the past. In Monument Wars, Kirk Savage brings in French designer Pierre Charles

L’Enfant’s vision of public monuments and their influence on the space where they are built to explain the significance of monuments in connection with memorialization. “In his [L’Enfant’s] 69 vision, public monuments would play a key role in fueling the city’s development and justifying the nation’s expansion.”119

One of the key examples of memorialization in the United States is the Washington

Monument, a 555 foot obelisk built in memory of the father of the nation, George Washington.

The monument serves as a phallic symbol for the supreme power and authority that the nation holds. Another monument, the Vietnam Memorial, is a huge polished gravestone constructed in honor of the veterans who sacrificed their lives for the nation during the Vietnam War. Savage points out the significance of these monuments and how they contribute to nationalism and self- representation. “The monuments that were to fill these centers would occupy—literally and figuratively—the high ground of national self-representation. Some were designated specifically to represent federal power.”120 Roger C. Aden also discusses how we envision the National Mall in Washington, D.C. as “representative of our national character.”121Yet another monument of fame is the Lincoln memorial made in memory of President Abraham Lincoln and housed in a white Greek Temple with its neoclassical architecture. Savage explains the prominence of monuments of great men as reflecting the nation’s civilizing sensibility through its geographic expansion and “not as the brute imposition of authority but as the providential spread of moral exemplars waiting to be imitated.” Savage further explains, how “The dispersal of monuments to great men and martyrs over the full extent of the city [Washington, D.C.] would represent

119 Kirk Savage, Monument wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the transformation of the memorial landscape (Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 2011), 26.

120 Savage, Monument wars, 30.

121 Roger C Aden, US Public memory, rhetoric, and the National Mall (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018), 5.

70 territorial occupation as a civilizing process, both physical and moral.”122 Similar to the Lincoln

Memorial is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial which is another neoclassical artifact that is symbolic of the reverence that the nation has for its great men of the past.

Recreation, as it denotes, has a simple meaning of re-creating things from the original or even producing something completely new based on the original. But the term “recreation” has a much deeper connotation especially when we discuss the “how” and “why” of re-creating an artifact from the original or copy it to produce a replica of it. It is not merely objects that can be reproduced within a stipulated time frame, but even a specific period in history can be re-created with the help of advanced technology which, in turn, perpetuates the notion that we are in a constant simulacrum and the world around us is surreal, especially in this post-modern age. One of the best epitomes of such a re-creational simulacrum is Colonial Williamsburg’s living history museum in Virginia that was privately commissioned and built to historically recreate colonial living history of the United States with staged actors in period clothes and recreated and restored

17th and 18th-century buildings. The Walt Disney Company’s Harry Potter-themed park, a recent addition to the Disney parks, modeled after the magical world of wizardry envisioned by J.K

Rowling’s renowned Harry Potter series, may also be seen as a re-creational simulacrum. Other significant examples include the imitations of the Eiffel Tower across the world such as the

Blackpool Tower in the United Kingdom and the Tokyo Tower in Japan which are artistically miniature copies of the original at Paris.

One of the major distinctions between memorials and recreations is that, as Savage explains, memorials such as the “national memorials” in the United States are “now expected to be spaces of experience, journeys of emotional discovery, rather than exemplary objects to be

122 Savage, Monument wars, 32. 71 imitated.”123 Recreation is more of an action-specific process where the stress is laid on how successfully one can recreate an artifact after the original. A memorial is more of an emotional marker on which one attaches countless memories. However, a specific recreation is not devoid of emotions and memories, but it is more imbued with the art of making it or the skill with which an object or artifact is reproduced.

As symbolic markers, memorials are representative of architects’ representations of a person’s qualities such as the valor and strength of a hero or a war veteran, or an event. Most monuments of national character/importance are memorials but on the contrary, most recreations might or might not be hailed as memorials. As Aden argues, most monuments as memorials such as the National Mall carry a collective sensibility, “as a collective “us.””

Therefore, Aden addresses the fact that the National Mall represents the “soul” of a nation rather than the “character” and stresses on the innate human quality of emotions or pathos and its effectivity on us. He further explains that the impact of the National Mall as a monument of memorialization can evoke spiritual and emotional responses from Americans whose visit to this

Mall will help them reconceive this space as a national civic religion and to understand “who we are.”124

Re-creations are not generally seen as emotional markers or not expected to provoke spiritual and emotional responses. In a general sense, they are more or less expected to be perfect and, moreover, a facsimile of the original by imitating the exact color, texture, and material of the primary artifact. In that sense, the replica of the Triumphal Arc of Palmyra is a recreation that is reproduced exactly after the original except for the fact that it is one third the size of the

123 Savage, 21.

124 Aden, US Public memory, rhetoric, and the National Mall, 5. 72 original. Interestingly, the Arc also classifies under the category of a monument that is memorialized as representative of a Palmyrene cultural marker that unites both the West and the

East. It is also imbued with the spirit to fight against all sorts of cultural annihilation against

ISIS. In the present context, the Arc itself is a complex architectural symbol and the process of re-creating and displaying it across the world through the help of the Western initiatives such as

IDA has various ramifications, for the local and the global, that I will further discuss towards the end of this chapter.

Although I have provided a discussion about some memorials and re-creations, in this chapter I focus primarily on the re-creation of specific objects or artifacts in connection with

Palmyrene history, and why it matters when it comes to the reproduction of Palmyrene artifacts such as the Triumphal Arc of Palmyra. As an international website on re-creating artifacts,

Sculpture Solutions points out the relevance of museum reproductions or artifacts from the museums and how they are connected to a special time frame within history. “Museum objects have a powerful connection with history, and artifacts and antiquities often exhibited in museums are not genuine, but created to imitate the historical context and make up special history.”125

These artifacts which are reproduced are originally part of a cultural tradition and inherently belong to a specific place and also are representative of the identity of the people who lived there. They carry the stories of the people who once lived there and speak for themselves. By recreating artifacts, we are preserving a slice of history. Architects determine the meanings

125 “Artifacts in Museums and Imitation of Historical Context,” Sculpture Solutions, Accessed December 28, 2019, https://sculpture.solutions/artifacts-in-museums-and-imitation-of- historical-context/.

73 behind these re-created artifacts and in the process, a new history is also forged according to the whim and fancy of the maker. Therefore, the process of recreation and the act of memorialization are very important for my discussion to understand how the West’s reproduction of Palmyrene artifacts and their memorialization is an attempt to re-create the history of Palmyra and annex it as the West’s heritage.

The difference between memorialization and recreation applies to Palmyrene artifacts, especially in the aftermath of the demolition of several of them by ISIS, and has various implications in connection with what the West has been striving to accomplish as it re-creates

Palmyra onto a physical and virtual space removed from Palmyra in Syria. It can be argued that re-creating an artifact, such as the replica of the Triumphal Arc and it being roped off for display to different parts of the world is more of a physical process, at the same time acknowledging that the process of conception and creation is reflective too. The process of rebuilding the Arc and the investment behind the project are huge and undertaken by international coalitions such as the

IDA. The effort to physically rebuilding it exactly like the original (even though it is one third the size of the original) is laudable. However, memorializing is more of an internal thought process.

In attempting to memorialize Palmyra worldwide, a transformation occurs in terms of how the world in general and the West, in particular, think about Palmyra and its monuments when they are transferred from the geographic region of Syria to other parts of the world into the virtual space. There is the transformation of Palmyra’s significance from a local to a global scale and also there is the question of exactly whose memories are being transformed and by whom.

When we memorialize an artifact such as the Arc of Palmyra, the act of memorialization has multiple ramifications. Billie Pivnick discusses the collective nature of memorializing as “an act 74 that involves shared memory and collective grieving—aiming also to restore severed communal bonds and dismantled cultural ideals. As such, it is a form of cultural renewal that can transform traumatized mourners into an ethical community of memory.”126 When we now visualize and pay homage to Palmyrene artifacts we are also influenced and shaped by the West’s efforts to memorialize Palmyra, both physically and virtually. Consequently, what the West has accomplished by recreating the artifacts of Palmyra elsewhere is to transform Palmyra as the cultural patrimony of the West.

The sharing of emotions and collective significance of memorializing monuments dates back to prehistoric times. Memorializing is also a way of creating a communal experience to pay homage to bereaved and lost treasures (as in the case of Palmyrene artifacts) around the world.

Culturally, the phenomenon of commemoration through memorializing is a ritualistic practice in most of the cultures around the world. Foot et al. point out that memorializing practices “that follow major tragic events provide a transformational experience for the bereaved, the survivors, and others who are affected by loss.” As a result, all these “acts of public grief and private mourning have provided opportunities to celebrate the lives of those who died, to mourn their passing, and to inscribe memories of the deceased in the public consciousness.”127 Therefore, the practice of memorializing has a very significant role culturally, socially, and globally.

126 Billie A Pivnick, “Enacting Remembrance: Turning Toward Memorializing September 11,” Journal of Religion and Health (2011) 50: 499, https://doiorg.ezproxy.bgsu.edu/10.1007/s10943-011-9517-1.

127 Kristen A Foot, Steve Schneider, and Barbara Warnick, “Web-based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework,” Journal of Computer Mediated- Communication 11(1):72-96, 2005, https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/11/1/72/4616656.

Memorializing as a practice and art of remembering differs depending upon cultural practices. Since it is culturally imbued and ritualistically performed, the act of memorializing becomes quite complex. Scholars and artists have emphasized the cultural and social dynamics of memorializing. Pivnick discusses the ritualistic and performative acts involved with memorializing such as re-creation or rebuilding, and how it resonates as a cultural activity, which is a combination of beliefs and norms. “Memorializing is usually accomplished with monument or elegy or both. Typically, monuments are commemorative and involve construction or rebuilding.128 If we conceive memorialization as a solely cultural activity, the memorialization of

Palmyrene artifacts by the Western-based initiatives such as IDA through their re-creations poses a quite complex scenario from a cultural and social point of view. Pivnick has further emphasized the importance of memorializing and what “has been lost within our hearts and minds,” along with the monuments which are symbolic of fallen victims or lost treasures.129

Therefore, it is evident that in the hands of the West, it becomes a challenging pursuit to memorialize a cultural activity such as commemorating the emotions of a community such as the inhabitants of Palmyra who are primarily impacted by the demolition of the Palmyrene artifacts which were representative of Palmyrene culture and identity of Syria.

The question to probe further is how successful is the West in memorializing the tragedy that ravaged the Palmyrene artifacts by physically rebuilding them? Palmyra and its artifacts have immense cultural and historical significance when compared to their physical and digital reproductions. Culturally, the Palmyrene artifacts represent the identity of Syria and symbolically for what Palmyra as a place has been through. It was renowned for its huge tourist

128 Pivnick, “Enacting Remembrance: Turning Toward Memorializing September 11,” 506. 129 Pivnick, 506. 76 potential, as a crossroads of global cultures, “a ruin of ruins,” “Venice of the Sands,” and even more. As Pivnick explains, “It is difficult to find what has been lost, given that new community structures, in certain instances, seamlessly flowed into fill the gaps left by the absence of what went before.”130 Similarly, the Western re-creations of Palmyrene artifacts such as the replica of the Temple of Bel might look exactly the same as what has been lost in the war, the original, which was three times the size of the replica. At the same time, it is very difficult for the West to determine what exactly has been lost by the demolition of the Temple: it might be the memories behind the artifact, the stories surrounding it, or even the identity of the Syrians or the inhabitants of Palmyra itself as a symbolic marker of Syria.

Memorializing Palmyra is not merely an act of filling the voids created by the ravages of the Syrian war. It is history itself as Pivnick points out, “In memorializing, we join remembering the past with imagining the future in the present moment.”131 That past, which is the past of

Palmyra and the people of Palmyra, which is unknown to the West cannot be re-created through any of these aforementioned Western initiatives. Therefore, by memorializing these artifacts virtually and digitally, the West can only mold the history of Palmyra from a Western point of view. Thus, these artifacts eventually become the patrimony of the West.

Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that virtual collaborative projects such as IDA,

PPT, #NEW PALMYRA, and “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” have contributed largely to sustain the memory of Palmyra through their virtual recreations and are accessible worldwide.

The recreation of these artifacts through digital media has largely helped scholars, tourists, researchers, and common people alike to understand and experience Palmyra from around the

130 Pivnick, 506.

131 Picnick, 506. 77 globe. Through these reproductions, the Western–based initiatives are trying to recreate the lost treasures of Palmyra and thereby memorialize them through virtual media for present and future generations. Scholars such as Foot et al., explains that the very act of recreating these Web-based artifacts itself becomes a social practice as they are documented and memorialized for the future.

“Web-based memorializing as an emerging set of social practices mediated by computer networks, through which digital objects, structures, and spaces of commemoration are produced.” They emphasize the role of Website producers in formulating these kinds of Web practices, such as Web-based memorializing because, “Web site producers create, appropriate, manipulate, link to and/or display digital objects that can be accessed by Web browsers.” What is fundamental about the process of creating a Web-based memorializing is that, along with understanding the significance of these virtual recreations, “Awareness of the type of actor producing a memorial Web site, (e.g., an individual or institution), is foundational to understanding the practices of Web-based memorializing evidenced on the site, because memorial Web sites are inscriptions, artifacts, and structures which manifest their producers’ actions, strategies, resources, and societal roles.”132 Many of these websites, such as the IDA have overtly expressed their mission of fighting against ISIS’s cultural annihilation of Palmyrene artifacts by re-creating them and also aim at cultural heritage preservation. Therefore, it is relevant to analyze the precise role these Western-based virtual collaborations play in perpetuating the legacy of Palmyra by memorializing its artifacts through digital media. At the same time, it is also significant to understand and create awareness of the influence of Western initiatives on a global scale.

132 Foot, Schneider, and Warnick, “Web-based Memorializing After September 11: Toward a Conceptual Framework,” 2005.

Analyzing the global influence of the initiatives by the producers (the West) to recreate

Palmyrene artifacts toward rebuilding Palmyra, it is important to realize the distinction between:

“traditional memorials” and “living memorials.” On the one hand, as Andrew Shanken explains,

“traditional memorials” are usually the conventional monuments or architectural edifices “such as statues, obelisks, triumphal arches, and other commemorative structures, those forms of memorials whose sole purpose is to serve as a memorial.” On the other hand, “‘living memorials,’ can be useful projects such as community centers, libraries, forests, and even highways that were marked in some fashion, usually with plaques, as memorials.”133 IDA’s recreation and the unveiling of the Triumphal Arc around prominent cities of the world are prime examples of historical memorials that can stand the test of time and the ravages of the Syrian war. There is an overwhelming amount of optimism or enthusiasm towards the whole process of recreating Palmyrene artifacts and at the same time, there are also criticisms raised against the amount of effort and money invested in the project. The re-creation of the arc would not have been made possible without the immense help of digital technology and digital archaeology, its primary discipline. Throughout the whole process, IDA has been parading the benefits of digital technology and bragging about how it has immensely contributed to the process of carving out the arc in the exact image of the original. Digital archaeology is a powerful tool in the hands of these Western initiatives such as IDA and as designed and manifested by them.

133 Andrew M Shanken, “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States during World War II,” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 130-47, Accessed January 21, 2020, doi:10.2307/3177256.

The phenomenon of recreating the arc raises some disquieting questions: What are the benefits of building a traditional memorial over a living memorial, especially in the case of

Palmyra? Who benefitted from a traditional memorial? Where is it displayed and through what means? How does the world in general and West, in particular, memorialize Palmyra? The appropriation of Palmyra and its artifacts by the West through these physical and virtual recreations has transformed Palmyra. This was made possible only because the West was successful in creating replicas of the original artifacts and also their 3-D digital versions with the help of virtual media and digital archaeology. “Re-creation” is how the west attains the “end goal” of memorializing Palmyra as its legacy, especially from a Western point of view. There is no doubt about the advantages of rebuilding the arc and displaying it across the world as a sort of commemoration of the artifact and memorialization of the loss of the original. At the same time,

IDA could also have considered initiatives contributing to living memorials such as hospitals, or community centers, in Syria or around the world for rebuilding the community of Syrian refugees who are displaced as a result of the ongoing crisis in Syria. Palmyra in the hands of the

West and through its digital manifestation gets transformed into a memorial that is laden with

Western values and ideologies.

In the aftermath of the Syrian war and ISIS attacks, several online resource projects have been initiated by the West to recuperate the architecture and memory of Palmyra. These projects are facilitated mainly by the Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA), the Getty Online Exhibition titled, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” the Palmyra Portrait Project, and #New Palmyra. I have specifically selected these projects to understand how the Western perception of civilizational memories surrounding Palmyra has changed when it was transferred from its geographic space to a digital medium. These projects are informed by the place of Palmyra in the 80

Western historical imagination. As I discuss in chapter one, Palmyra has always been of historical interest to the West, to academics as well as tourists. This chapter further engages the scholarly conversation on Palmyra by scholars such as Raja (2016), Kropp (2016), Shabi (2016),

Kaizer (2002), and Roberts (2015), who have identified the relevance of Palmyra in a global context and the importance of preserving it for posterity through various means including online documentation and databases as designed and implemented by the West.

The unveiling of the replica of the Triumphal Arc at Trafalgar Square in London on April

19, 2016 marks a significant and visible moment in the memorialization of Palmyra. Uncovering the Triumphal Arc, the then mayor of London, Boris Johnson commented, “I am proud today to see this Arc erected here in London. Congratulations to the Institute of Digital Archaeology.

How many digits do you think DAESH deserve? I think two digits to DAESH,” said the mayor while lifting up his two fingers.”134 Many across the world who admired the ancient city of

Palmyra and lamented the destruction of the Triumphal Arc at Palmyra by ISIS/DAESH might have felt the same way. Just 154 days after the demolition, the Arc was unveiled to the public in another part of the world, Times Square in New York, on September 20, 2016. As The Guardian reported, the arc was recreated by “a team of archeologists at Oxford University’s Institute for

Digital archeology (IDA) …[as] an an act of resistance to Isis’s rampant acts of cultural destruction in Iraq and Syria.135 On February 13, 2017, the Arc was on display in Dubai, exhibited by the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Reporting on the

134 Ruptly, “UK: Boris Johnson gives IS two fingers during Palmyra arch replica unveiling,” YouTube video, 00:3:27, April 19, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsDz_Bxe168.

135 Raya Jalabi, “Replica of Syrian arch destroyed by Isis unveiled in New York City,” The Guardian, September 20, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2016/sep/20/palmyra-arch-syria-new-york.

81 event, The Gulf Today noted that the Arc of Triumph in Palmyra is part of one of the world’s most extensive ancient archaeological sites.136

The display of the Arc in Dubai was followed by its exhibit in Florence for the G7 summit on culture on March 30th and 31st of 2017. As the Florence Daily News reported, “It has become the symbol of civilization against the barbarity of ISIS.”137 First put on display in

Trafalgar Square (London), and then in the park of City Hall in New York and Dubai, the 11-ton arc replica was placed in Piazza Signoria, the heart of Florence. The G7 summit’s theme that year was global heritage protection. When the Arc was transported to Arona, Italy’s Museum of

Archaeology, it was renamed in honor of Khaled al Assad, the Syrian archaeologist who sacrificed his life for Palmyra. The Arc was unveiled by Assad’s sons who movingly spoke about their father’s passion for preserving history.138 Another remarkable exhibit, The IDA’s replica of the Triumphal Arc of Palmyra was displayed in Washington D.C. from September 26 to 30,

2018. Crawford claims that the final destination of the Arc will be back in Palmyra. He explains:

The intention is to erect it close to, but not within, the ancient city, in honor of the now demolished arch, and of Khaled al-Assad, the archaeologist who lost his life attempting to protect his country’s cultural heritage. On the other side of the proposed setting for the new arch is Tadmor, the modern oasis settlement—bombed out, broken, and deserted; a warren of rubble and corpses.139

136 Imran Mojib, “Arab’s Growth Unstoppable:VP,” The Gulf Today, February 13, 2017, http://gulftoday.ae/portal/657d9c1d-de01-4649-963e-9b3ae5610bf5.aspx.

137 “Replica of Palmyra's arch to be unveiled for G7 in Florence | Florence Daily News,” Florence Daily News, March 3, 2014, http://www.florencedailynews.com/2017/03/14/replica- palmyras-arch-unveiled-g7-florence/.

138 “The Institute for Digital Archaeology,” The Institute for Digital Archaeology, Accessed January 18, 2018, http://digitalarchaeology.org.uk/.

139 Crawford, Fallen Glory, 565. 82

The reconstructed arc remains in England and it is believed that it can one day be placed back in

Palmyra. Palmyra’s current position as a war zone makes the feasibility of the proposal doubtful.

The timeline of these exhibits around the major cities of the world can be bookmarked between a period of two years. The exhibits were open and free to the public. The Florence

Daily News noted, “The arch will not be roped off, allowing visitors to walk under it and touch it.”140 This is another significant aspect of the replica of the Arc as people can experience it right in front of their eyes and also by touching it. So far, more than three million people have seen in person the replica of the lost symbol of Palmyra, the Triumphal Arc.141 The IDA quotes one visitor’s remarks about the Arc installation at Trafalgar Square, “the arch is not a recreation but a monument in its own right a symbol of courage and tolerance.”142 This Arc now serves as an iconic symbol, rather than just a replica, that is emblematic of the resistance to the cultural annihilation. It has been transferred to different sites around the world and in the process, transformed the memories surrounding Palmyra. Millions of people across the world were able to experience it in front of their eyes only because of these installations.

The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA)

These initiatives would not have been possible without the effort of The Institute for

Digital Archaeology (IDA), a joint venture among the University of Oxford, Dubai’s Museum of the Future, and Harvard University. On its website, IDA announces its flagship exhibit and the technology behind the making of it:

140 Replica of Palmyra’s Arch to be Unveiled for G7 in Florence,” Florence Daily News, March 14, 2017, http://www.florencedailynews.com/2017/03/14/replica-palmyras-arch-unveiled- g7-florence/.

141 Arch versus Arc, the British spelling is Arch and the American, Arc.

142 “The Institute for Digital Archaeology,” 2018. 83

The centerpiece of our Trafalgar Square and City Hall park installations was the 1/3 scale reproduction of the 2,000 year old Triumphal Arch from the Palmyra site in Syria, which was destroyed in August 2015. Produced using state-of-the-art 3D technology, the arch was installed in Trafalgar Square on Monday April, 18th and open to the public on Tuesday April 19th.143

Figure 2. The unveiling of the replica of the Triumphal Arc at Trafalgar Square in London. Image reproduced with the permission of IDA http://digitalarchaeology.org.uk/our-purpose.

The process of building the Arc

The six-meter (20-foot) Egyptian marble replica of the Triumphal Arc, which is about one-third the size of the original, was created by IDA from photographs of the original site using

3-D imaging technology and 3-D computer-aided carving tools. Modern technology, such 3-D printing, has made it possible to build the Arc in the exact likeness of the original. The

Newsweek reports the director of IDA confirming that it has used the same materials used to build the original Arc, such as concrete. According to Michel, the current director of IDA,

“Concrete was one of the most widely used materials in the classical period, so we’d be using

143 “The Institute for Digital Archaeology,” 2018.

84 essentially the same materials that these structures were built from originally.”144 In March 2016, director of antiquities Maamoun Abdelkarim stated that the Monumental Arc, along with the

Temples of Bel and Baalshamin, would be rebuilt using existing remains, a process called anastylosis.145 The IDA expressed its desire to rebuild whatever ISIS has destroyed using this groundbreaking technology. Also, according to experts, it will not be that difficult to reconstruct the Arc since many of its stones from the original still survive. It is helpful to explain the process of anastylosis, the scientific technology involved in creating the Arc. As Crawford reports:

The data was used to build a fully digital 3D model of the original Arch of Triumph. After the ‘copy’ came the ‘paste.’ First, raw matter—cement and what is known, rather enigmatically, as ‘geocomposite’ material, a predominantly synthetic aggregate—was used to approximate the density of the original material. The exterior of the arch, however, is Egyptian marble carved, with submillimeter precision by robot stonemasons working to the schematic offered by the digital model. The robots carried out their work in the symbolic setting of Tuscany’s Carrara marble quarry used famously by Augustus to rebuild the republican city of Rome as an imperial capital. At this point the arch was still in pieces; it was only when it arrived on site between the fountains of Trafalgar Square, that the jigsaw was fitted together, relying on steel rebar to keep it all in place. Curiously, it is not a one-to-one scale reproduction: whether due to cost or logistical problems, it is two-thirds of the size of the original. 146

According to Crawford, the most important highlight of the digital recreation is that it can be duplicated or recreated anywhere and at any time, and also as many times as we decide.147 As

Crawford points out, then why not recreate or “plant” Palmyra in a different space that is not

144 Mary Karmelek, “The New Monument Men Outsmart ISIS,” Newsweek, November 11, 2015, https://www.newsweek.com/2015/11/20/institute-digital-archaeology-preserves- cultural-heritage-middle-east-392732.html.

145 explain anastylosis

146 Crawford, (564-565).

147 Crawford, 566. 85 limited by any geographical constraints, in Nevada or Central Park or New York, or even on the moon or in outer space?148

So, how did IDA make possible the installation of the replica across the world? It was one of the daring initiatives of the organization to preserve the architecture of Palmyra for posterity. An important initiative of the organization is the Million Image Database program in collaboration with UNESCO, which was started in the year 2015. Since then it is being used to document endangered archaeological sites in the Middle East. Newsweek details how the IDA made possible the capture of the images from the war zone of Palmyra, especially in the middle of a conflict. First, a technology team, led by magnetician Alexy Karenowska (Director of

Technology of IDA), was assembled at Oxford to develop a low-cost, easy-to-use 3-D camera in order to create photographic equipment unique to this project. They took an off-the-shelf model and heavily modified it, adding features like macro mode (which enables focusing on close-range objects), the use of file formats that could store anaglyph information—different-colored layers of a photograph superimposed to create a stereoscopic three-dimensional effect—and automated

GPS stamping.149 Then UNESCO and IDA produced a list of the most threatened sites around the world. Most of the sites chosen were on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger— including Palmyra, which the team was able to reach and document before its destruction. It was a risky venture in the middle of a war zone:

The volunteers have ample local knowledge of the targets, which in many ways makes them more equipped to assess an area than any third-party security detail. But there are obvious risks still involved for those on the ground working to check ISIS’s cultural cleansing. They’ve taken strict precautions: All volunteers are told to avoid areas directly controlled by ISIS or its sympathizers. They have also built in a three-month lag time between when pictures are taken and when they are posted, making it difficult to

148 Crawford, 566.

149 Karmelek, “The New Monument Men Outsmart ISIS,” 2015. 86

ascertain the photographer of any given site. While volunteers have not had any direct confrontations with those looking to do them harm, other challenges have arisen. For example, the team discovered that high-speed Internet was not always available in parts of the Middle East. To remedy this, cameras are now given out with prepaid mailers so participants can send back filled memory cards.150

Crawford describes the process of rebuilding the arc by IDA as a technological offensive against the iconoclasm of ISIS.

IDA plays a huge role in preserving and transferring the memory of Palmyra from spatial geography to a digital memorial. According to Michel, the Palmyra Arc reconstruction’s mission

“is to rebuild the landscape of the Middle East and the great symbols of our shared cultural heritage that have been destroyed or defaced. These symbols - the architecture and objects of the ancient world - speak powerfully to what unites the East and the West.” 151 Initially begun as an open-source database of high-resolution images, it also hosts workshops, conferences, and exhibitions around the sites aimed, as IDA proclaims in its website home page, advancing the ideals for which Dr. Assad gave his life. Also, with the support of the Dubai Future Foundation and the British Council, it has undertaken other initiatives such as the massive photogrammetry program that will document hundreds of at–risk sites in the Middle East. The organization was founded in 2012 by its current Executive Director Michel to promote the fusion of new digital technologies and traditional archaeological techniques. As Michel explains in his keynote address at the organization’s first annual conference in 2013, “the IDA’s mission is to encourage

150 Karmelek, “The New Monument Men Outsmart ISIS,” 2015.

151 “The Institute for Digital Archaeology,” 2018.

87 a diverse, crowd-sourced and stake-holder driven approach to the stewardship of heritage assets.”152

The Million Image Database, which has its motto, “preserving the past and protecting the future,” is an open access storehouse of “heritage material - objects, architecture and places.” It is user-friendly and anybody can access the life-like 3D virtual images of Palmyra and other historical sites from around the world. When you access a navigator map, Palmyra comes alive in front of you. What is most remarkable about the project is that “many of these images will appear in 3D anaglyph form to provide a more engaging viewing experience and to facilitate future physical reconstructions and virtual site tours.”153 Short descriptions accompany each image to get a sense of the importance of these artifacts. Through projects such as the Million

Image Database, the IDA has successfully created accessible digital archives that encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and crowdsourcing of research through partnerships with institutions across the globe. It invites contributions of photographs and 3D images to their million-image database as it aspires to grow day by day like Wikipedia. Along with the Million

Image Database, the IDA runs a sister project, the Paper Archive Database, which is similar in its mission of archiving millions of paper records of ancient sites “languishing in obscurity.” This database has also succeeded in its mission of regaining some of the lost archives on Palmyra such as Robert Wood’s foundational book on Palmyra, The Ruins of Palmyra, which is a storehouse of information and descriptions on the architecture of the place. From its initial

152 “The Institute for Digital Archaeology,” 2018.

153 “Navigator,” The Million Image Database, Accessed March 12, 2019, https://www.millionimage.org.uk/about/navigator/.

88 founding in 2012, the IDA has grown into a very successful open resource organization now and its members include high-profile academicians, scientists, researchers, and world leaders from around the globe such as Alexy Karenowska, a magnetician based in Oxford University; Emma

Dench, professor of Classics and History at Harvard; Mary Beard, professor of history at

Cambridge; and Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the King of Dubai. The IDA is also supported by the generous funding of the Dubai Future Foundation and the United Arab Emirates and its partners include The United Nations, UNESCO, Trinity College at Oxford, and ISAW based in New York University.

The Online Exhibition by the Getty Research Institute, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra”

“The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” is an online exhibition on Palmyra by the Getty

Research Institute, which captures the site as it was photographed for the first time by Louis

Vignes in 1864 and illustrated in the 18th century by the architect Louis-Francois Cassas. The online website announces, “Produced some 75 years after Cassas’s etchings, these pioneering photographs of Palmyra complement the prints to create an unparalleled visual record of this extraordinary ancient site.”154 Similar to the IDA’s philosophy of preserving Palmyra and other historical sites to posterity through an online database, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” strives to retain virtual access to the legacy of Palmyra and “is created as a tribute to Palmyra.”155

Palmyra does come alive through these compelling photographs and online exhibition.

What is different about this online exhibit as compared to IDA is that, even though it is an open access system, it does not allow any kind of crowdsourcing. The exhibit presents information and

154 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

155 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

89 materials on Palmyra and precludes people from outside contributing to it. Launched on

February 8, 2017, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” is Getty Research Institute’s first online exhibition. It was “conceived as a means to complement the Institute’s exceptional holdings with an innovative design that creates a compelling digital experience. The online presentation of this exhibition aims to reach a global audience.”156 Uma Nair equates the exhibit to a physical gallery saying that, “The exhibit [“The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra”] offers the same breadth and depth as a physical gallery exhibition.”157 Furthermore, Nair notes that this online exhibit contains 108 works of art, including 20 “loan” objects from other institutions, and more than 18,000 words of peer-reviewed scholarly text. It also includes a resource page that provides links and further readings on both the history of the site and current events.158

The Getty is a private collaborative based in California and its project team includes curator Francis Terpak and research associate Peter Louis Bonfitto who worked specifically for the online exhibit, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.” The J. Paul Getty Trust acts as “a cultural and philanthropic institution” mainly aimed at the presentation and conservation of the world’s greatest artistic and architectural legacies such as Palmyra.

“The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” online exhibit is classified into different sections: The

Legacy of Palmyra, City Plan and Monuments, Ancient Palmyra, Rediscovery, Modern, and

Additional Information on Palmyra. One of the significant attributes of this virtual project is the

156 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

157 Uma Nair, “Lessons Learned from Project-Managing the Getty Research Institute’s First Online Exhibition,” The Iris: Behind the Scenes at Getty, June 13, 2017, http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/lessons-learned-from-project-managing-the-getty-research-institutes- first-online-exhibition/.

158 Nair, “Lessons Learned from Project-Managing the Getty Research Institute’s First Online Exhibition,” 2017. 90 classification of different phases of Palmyra into ancient, rediscovery, and modern. This classification throws light on the different phases of the city before and after the rediscovery of the city by travelers, tourists, and archaeologists. Viewers can virtually experience the different phases of the city from the sketches and photographs available within the site. The images of

Palmyra are mainly of two different types: photographs and sketches. These high clarity photographs and sketches date back to as early as the 18th century. Introducing the history of the project, the exhibition takes us directly to the City Plan and Monuments, which provides a sense of the structural milieu of the ancient city. The project provides a map of Palmyra, the city, and the City Plan and Monuments section is specifically useful to locate and project Palmyra in the map and to provide an overview of the city and the different types of architecture contained in it.

To create the City plan of Palmyra, Cassas used sophisticated surveying techniques to produce an accurate plan of the ruins of Palmyra. Showing the site’s condition prior to archaeological excavations or reconstruction, this plan excludes major features of the ancient city, such as the theater. The images by Cassas and Vignes represent Palmyra as it was for over a thousand years.159 The images are very user-friendly as anybody can access it from anywhere to get an idea of the geography of the city and its monuments. When you click on each of these images underneath the City plan and monuments section, for example, the Temple of Bel, first it will offer you the overall plan of the building as provided by Cassa’s etching followed by a short description of it. Then further clicking on it will take you to the multiple photographic versions of the temple as taken mostly by Vignes and other artists from different angles and also the sketches by Cassas. These are multiple images from different directions such as the Southwest

159 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

91 exterior corner of the courtyard, view of the temple cella, the cella entrance, cella entrance detail, reconstruction of the cella, cella ceiling detail, and the reconstruction view of the Temple and courtyard. These images and photographs are downloadable for further research and can be reproduced with the permission of the Getty Research Institute.

Figure 3. Map of the city of Palmyra from the “City Plan and Monuments Section” from Getty’s online website http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/city_plan.html.

The next section, titled “Ancient Palmyra,” is a veritable storehouse of information on multiple aspects of Palmyra: commercial and regional aspects of Palmyra, including trade;

Palmyrene inscriptions, language, culture, religion, Palmyrene sculptures, and so forth. All of these sources are accompanied by vivid life-like images. Following the “Ancient Palmyra” section is the “Rediscovery” of Palmyra, which takes you virtually further to the rediscovery of

Palmyra by the West and how Palmyra has been perceived by people around the world. This section has photographic images and classical paintings of Palmyra, including the renowned G.

Hofstede van Essen’s oil on canvas, “View of the Ruins of Palmyra.” This panoramic painting showing a view of Palmyra as a “marble wilderness” was composed of sketches van Essen made 92 on-site. It is the earliest visual record of Palmyra in the West and was used as the source for all subsequent depictions of Palmyra in the West until Robert Wood’s 1753 publication.160 The exhibit includes other visual representations of Palmyra such as the painting of the “Monumental

Arc,” the iconic symbol of Palmyra, in color lithograph by Nicholas Hanhart. A two-part panorama featuring Colonnade photograph by Vignes is yet another visual representation of an albumen print which virtually depicts the famous Palmyrene Colonnade. Although Vignes’s photographs were never widely shared, his trip to Palmyra “marks the beginning of modern documentation of Palmyra, and a new era of visual reportage.”161

The “Modern Palmyra” section of the exhibit also provides information, pictures, and paintings on the history of the excavations conducted in the site and also the unearthing of many unknown artifacts and buildings within Palmyra. What is most useful about “The Legacy of

Ancient Palmyra” project is that it does not just provide virtual access to Palmyra but also throws light on the biography and history of the place right from the ancient era up until the present era.

There is also information and images on the Polish-led excavations of the Camp of Diocletian, which began in 1959 and continued for the next six decades. “First day of work in Camp of

Diocletian,” presents Kazimierz Michałowski, director of excavations, with his workers at the

Camp of Diocletian, with the image of the Temple of Bel looming in the background. As the exhibit notes, “this photograph marks the beginning of modern excavations and related research that has formed our current understanding of the ancient city.” There is an additional information

160 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

161 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

93 and resources section of the exhibit, which provides access to multimedia sources and links to different resources on Palmyra.

The exhibit significantly contributes to the scholarship on Palmyra mostly through its visual, graphic, and archival inventory. Co-curator Bonfitto and web designers Masato Nakada and Karen To Nakada converted the 18th-century prints and 19th-century photographs into a digital environment as part of this online exhibition. This online exhibition includes the rarely seen images of a three-year diplomatic voyage to the Ottoman court undertaken by artist and architect Louis-François Cassas (French, 1756–1827) beginning in 1784 as presented by

Bonfitto. Getty’s collections include hundreds of Cassas drawings of ancient monuments. The

19th-century travel account of Emily Anne Smythe, Viscountess Strangford, who undertook a two-year expedition through the Middle East, is also included in Getty’s rare collection. As the exhibit highlights, Smythe’s illustrated description provided a vicarious adventure that assured tourists—particularly women—that travel could be performed with “ease and security” in the region.162 What is most helpful about the online exhibit is that, unlike most of the other databases such as IDA, Palmyra Portrait Project, and #New Palmyra, all digital images to which the Getty holds the rights are accessible to the public without any charge.163

Palmyra Portrait Project based in Aarhus University

Yet another useful scholarly resource that projects Palmyra onto a virtual/digital landscape is the Palmyra Portrait Project based in Aarhus University. The project compiles more than 3,000 Palmyrene funerary sculptures and fragments that are held in museums around the world. Kropp explains the three-fold manifesto/mission of the project:

162 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

163 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.” 94

Palmyrene funerary sculpture is the largest corpus of portrait sculpture in the Roman world outside Rome, which makes this group of material extremely significant both in relation to issues of identity in the Roman provinces, as well as in comparison to core- Roman portraiture studies. Both are facts which have been completely ignored in scholarship until now. There are more than 3000 pieces scattered through various museums and private collections across the world. These have never been collected, catalogued and treated as a single corpus. The aims of this project are therefore threefold: to compile a corpus of all known Palmyrene funerary portraits, to digitalise the H. Ingholt-archive and to produce text volumes to accompany the corpus, as well as a number of publications on various aspects of Palmyrene sculpture.164

In order to accomplish these goals, this project has been undertaken by a group of researchers including Rubina Raja and Andreas Kropp, who have examined the archive, the collection at the

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (NCG), and surveyed material in other collections in order to build the project. Kropp is an assistant professor in Classical Art at the University of Nottingham. Raja is a professor of Classical Archaeology and center leader of the Danish National Research

Foundation’s Center of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions.

The Palmyra Portrait Project (PPP) aims at rectifying the problems associated with the research on Palmyrene portraiture. These include but are not limited to a lack of comprehensive corpus of material on Palmyrene portraiture and a dearth of synthetic study of Palmyrene portraiture as an artistic and cultural phenomenon.165 In order to redress these issues, the PPP began on 1 January 2012 and ran until the end of 2015.

Kropp discusses how the people behind the PPP accomplished their dream to compile a detailed comprehensive corpus. The first collection they have worked on is the one at the NCG, one of the largest collections of Palmyran bust reliefs outside Syria. All of its 122 portrait reliefs

164 Andreas J.M Kropp and Rubina Raja “The Palmyra Portrait Project,” Syria no. 91 (2014),393-408. http://www.academia.edu/11445487/_The_Palmyra_Portrait_Project_Syria_91_2014_393-408 90-91.

165 Kropp and Raja, “The Palmyra Portrait Project,” 393-408. 95 have been published before, with various degrees of detail. A host of public and private collections across the globe, sales catalogs, and auction websites have also been registered. The documentation also consists of new measurements, including those of individual elements like the heads and the depth of the reliefs, detailed descriptions of poses, faces, hairstyles, clothing and attributes, and high-resolution photographs of all four sides and salient details. Members of the team conduct autopsies when material is retrievable and accessible.166 Typologically, the material can be divided into stelai, loculi reliefs, sarcophagi, and founder reliefs. The loculi reliefs now embedded in the database amount to 1,276 objects with 1,471 portraits. Furthermore,

142 stelai with 191 portraits and 237 sarcophagi with 634 portraits have been collected and entered into the database. The smallest group is that of founder reliefs with 12 portraits from 4 objects. The other portraits come from religious dedications, honorific statues, and architectural decorations or are fragments.167

166 Kropp and Raja, “The Palmyra Portrait Project,” 393-408

167 Kropp and Raja, 393-408. 96

Figure 4. Cross-section of the Tower Tomb of Elahbel (detail), From Louis-François Cassas, Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoenicie, de la Palaestine et de la Basse Aegypte, vol. 1 (1799–1800), pl. 120, engraved by Delettre. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (840011). https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/palmyra_sculpture/inner.html.

The documentation of this material is accessible in a new online database, developed specifically for this purpose. The database now holds 2,533 objects with more than 3,400 individual portraits created from around 50 BCE to the fall of Palmyra in 273 CE. From these,

1,667 portraits are identified as funerary, and they come from large family tombs – tower tombs, temple or house tombs, and underground tombs (hypogea). In the database each object is registered, and every portrait on each object is given a subcategory. With this data, it will be possible for the first time to have precise information on each head (height, width, depth etc.) 97 and to make comparisons, a practice that is established in the study of freestanding heads and busts. The database also offers fields for entries on present collection, former collection, and provenance. Other parameters such as gender, color traces, hairstyles, dress and jewelry are registered in the database and will be searchable. The database currently holds some 2,000 portraits, which have been entered with all the relevant information. The aim is for each catalog entry to provide the reader with a visual impression of the portraits without having the actual photograph present.168 The material offers vast opportunities for research.

The database is developed in collaboration with Rubina Raja, Annette Højen Sørensen and the IT department at Aarhus University, Emdrup. The work was initiated in 2012 as a pilot project. The development of the database was continued, and the design of the user interface for the online publication of the database started to take form. Steener Oksbjerre is in charge of the current work on the database together with several student assistants affiliated with the Aarhus branch.

Another venture of the PPP is an interpretive, synthesizing text volume with research articles by collaborators, dealing with questions of style and craftsmanship, realism and idealism, context and identity, gender roles as expressed through dress codes, hairstyles, jewelry, attributes and insignia, and several other aspects. In order to facilitate the PPP work on the corpus, an important source of material is the Ingholt archive, which was given to the Ny Carlsberg

Glyptotek, an art museum in Copenhagen, Denmark by Yale University where Ingholt worked for many years. It comprises illustrations of more than 1,000 portraits, which Ingholt had collected over the years, from the 1920s to the 1980s. Each photo comes with annotations by

168 “Palmyra Portrait Project,” Aarhus University, Modified on January 16, 2020, https://projects.au.dk/palmyraportrait/.

Ingholt and additions by Ploug. The PPP has digitized this archive and will make it available online to a larger public. The information contained in the archive is currently being entered into the database as well and in this way a concordance between the archive and the database holdings will be made. What is unique about the PPP is that it also monitors the international market and registers Palmyrene sculpture sold at auctions around the world. This process includes a careful study of auction catalogs from the past and present, thereby tracking the authenticity of Palmyrene artifacts.169

#NEWPALMYRA PROJECT

Another initiative that aims to preserve the memory of Palmyra in the digital space is the

#NEWPALMYRA PROJECT. #NEWPALMYRA declares on its website, “This digital archaeological project dedicated to preserving the memory of the lost cultural heritage of

Palmyra features virtual reconstructions and 3-D models of major monuments, created to raise global awareness of these unique historic structures.”170 This online project has many initiatives such as the #PALMYRAVERSE which looks forward to “a global building campaign.” As the website claims, #PALMYRAVERSE is an online space where monuments from Palmyra come together across time and space. The campaign sets a monthly prompt for artists, designers, technologists, and researchers to come together and create for the #PALMYRAVERSE with 3D modeling, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. Each month, a rotating panel of judges from the fields of art, cultural heritage, and technology selects the top three works for prizes. So far

#NEWPALMYRA has produced five models of monuments destroyed in Palmyra: The Temple

169 “Palmyra Portrait Project,” Accessed November 13, 2018.

170 “Building the Future from History Together,” #NEWPALMYRA, Accessed November 11, 2018, https://www.newpalmyra.org/.

99 of Bel, Triumphal Arc, Roman Theater, and Baalshamin. According to its Executive Director

Barry Threw, “Most recently released was the Tetrapylon, made in collaboration with Creative

Commons and re:3D, the largest 3D printed column structure in the world. #NEWPALMYRA also created the first 3D model added to Wikipedia, the Lion of Al-Lat.”171

To support the #PALMYRAVERSE project, #NEWPALMYRA in collaboration with the

LikeCoin Foundation plans to provide technology to support feedback on submissions from the community-at-large. Kin Ko, co-founder of the LikeCoin Foundation remarks, “At LikeCoin

Foundation, we are reinventing the like. We are proud to support the creators of

#PALMYRAVERSE monuments – not just through technology support, but also our

LikeButton, which rewards creators daily for their likes.”172 They do this on a daily basis through incentives for submissions to the #PALMYRAVERSE as users engage with monuments through the #PALMYRAVERSE system and also contribute larger rewards for selections made by judges.

The motto of the organization as the #NEWPALMYRA project announces on its website is “Building a future upon the past.” In order to accomplish this mission of building a future upon the past, the #NEWPALMYRA project has various initiatives, including digital archaeology, cultural development, and open data. By “digital archaeology,” the organization means collecting data from international partners, analyzing it, creating a reconstruction of

Palmyra in virtual space, and sharing the models and data in the public domain. It is using digital tools to preserve heritage sites. Through the process of cultural development, it hosts live

171 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

172 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

100 workshops and builds a network of artists, technologists, archaeologists, architects, and others to research, construct models, and create artistic works. It creates exhibitions and experiences in museums and institutions globally, celebrating the cultural heritage of Syria and the world through the lens of architecture embodying culture and power. “Open data” helps to advance open data policies in museums and institutions through advocacy, education, and consultation.173

This is an international coalition that sources archaeological/historical data on Palmyra and shares it with communities through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It solicits the aid of the international community, which includes researchers, wiki medians, educators, developers, archaeologists, artists, curators, and developers to rebuild the Palmyra project by contributing

“issues, code, data in our models to its ‘GitHub’ projects and also helping with spreading the word.”174 It has also organized avenues for art workshops, creative workshops, and exhibitions on Palmyra to create awareness on the importance of carrying the project forward and also preserve Palmyra to posterity. It is licensed under Creative Commons and supported by a number of international organizations such as MIT Media Lab, sketchfab, 3D Hubs, the Electronic

Frontier Foundation, school of creative media, Obscura, Mozilla, Barjeel Foundation, and

Swissnex. As an open source project, the organization thrives on contributors from across the world. It accepts contributors of all sorts: 3D modelers, archaeologists, artists, curators, developers, educators, journalists, researchers, and wikimedians to help with their mission of building a future upon the past.

173 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

174 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

101

Figure 5. Temple of Allat from the #New Palmyra website https://www.newpalmyra.org/.

Bassel Khartabil, a Palestinian Syrian open-source software developer was the director and founder of the organization. However, on March 15, 2012, Khartabil was detained by the

Syrian government in Damascus at Adra Prison. Barry Threw is a designer and technologist focused on spatial media, mutable architectures, and cultural infrastructures. He works in collaboration with institutions, artists and organizations at the intersection of technology and culture. He is Director of Software at Obscura Digital and is a curator with the Gray Area

Foundation for the Arts. He is serving as Interim Director of #NEWPALMYRA.175 Joichi “Joi”

Ito is also a significant contributor to the organization. He initiated the internet culture in Japan at Digital Garage, and as an early-stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Wikia, Flickr, Last.fm,

Kickstarter and other Internet companies, he has served on countless boards and advisory

175 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018,

102 committees around digital culture and Internet freedom.176 Joi aptly sums up the significance of the project and also the contributions of its visionary, Khartabil:

With the advanced and novel application of 3D technologies used in the #NEWPALMYRA Project, Bassel Khartabil exemplifies MIT Media Lab’s tradition of human-scaled innovation. The application of technologies to the pressing issues of our world today is precisely why Bassel’s #NEWPALMYRA Project is so important - his work sets the standard for a deliberate and conscientious approach to open culture, technology, and the arts. It’s precisely the kind of work we support at MIT Media Lab, where innovations are connected locally again and again until they are truly global.177

As part of its Creative Commons Global Summit Venture, #NEWPALMYRA in collaboration with re:3d, an Austin-based 3D printing company, has produced a 200-pound, 7.5 feet tall 3D rendering of one of the Palmyra Tetrapylons. This was on display at the Creative Commons

Global Summit in Toronto, CA from April 28-30, 2018, that brought the commons to life through the work of its community.178 #NEWPALMYRA has other open source and community events such as the Protocultural, which is a series of events to gather scientists and artists to develop new forms of artistic and technological expressions based on their digital practices. As the organization explains, Protocultural considers computer coding as a continuation of human writing history and it takes advantage of all intellectual technologies to push forward the borders of emotions, literacy, and understanding of life.179

176 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

177 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018

178 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

179 “Building the Future from History Together,” Accessed November 11, 2018.

103

Palmyra and Digital Archaeology

Digital archaeology can be defined simply as the application of digital techniques to the field of archaeology. Scholars such as Meyers have tried to provide a broader definition of the term stating that it has come to signify two contrasting meanings: The first one refers to the archaeology of digital materials, including excavation of code, analysis of early informatics, and interpretation of early web-based materials. The second meaning refers to the use of digital technologies in the study of past human societies through their material remains. However,

Meyers confirms that a digital approach is much more than a tool as it can inform all levels of research from excavation to interpretation to presentation.180 Similar to Meyers, Evans and Daly also define the application of digital archaeology as an inclusive process: “It should not be a secret knowledge, nor a distinct school of thought, but rather simply seen as archaeology done well, using all of the tools to aid in better recovering, understanding and presenting the past.”181

Many scholars, thus, by pointing out the significance of the application of digital tools to the field of archaeology try to avoid a reductive approach and make it more accessible to researchers and archaeologists alike.

Digital archaeology as a developing field with its advancements in digital technology has its own inherent problems, practical applications, and critics. One of the eminent practitioners of the discipline, Laura Harrison discusses the challenges and successes of recent digital heritage projects in museums, teaching, and fieldwork contexts. As Harrison clearly states, one of the

180 Katy Meyers, “Defining Digital Archaeology,” Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative, October 6, 2011, http://chi.anthropology.msu.edu/2011/10/defining-digitalarchaeology/.

181 Thomas L. Evan, and Patrick T. Daly, Digital archaeology bridging method and theory (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2006), 3-9. 104 challenges includes finding answers to guiding questions of the discipline: How are digital archaeologists to combat critiques of technological fetishism? Is it possible to build open digital databases that favor the democratization of science, rather than implicitly reinforcing divisions between developed and less-developed nations, researchers and other stakeholder communities?

What are the outcomes of going digital, and what will digital heritage look like 5, 50 or 100 years from now? Thus, the conversation around what is next in the field of digital heritage is thus not a question of technology, but rather one of impact. Harrison further discusses how “the recent ‘digital turn’ in archaeology has driven methodological advances and opened new research avenues, with wide ranging impacts at multiple scales.”182 As Harrison points out, one of the many pressing questions shaping today’s digital heritage practice is whether digital tools bring us closer or further away from the trowel’s edge.183

Digital archaeology as a highly developing field strives towards advancing and perfecting its digital tools. A recent digital turn in archaeology includes the production of exact copies of archaeological remains without damaging them. Merchan et.al describe a procedure to obtain exact replicas of classical statues that reduces their manipulation, thus preventing them from further damage, which was applied to two Roman marble sculptures of Medellín (Badajoz,

Spain).184 This practical application of re-creating artifacts in the exact likeness of the original is

182 Laura Harrison, “A Roadmap to Applied Digital Heritage,” Studies in Digital Heritage 3, no. 1 (2019), 40-45.

183 Harrison, “A Roadmap to Applied Digital Heritage,” Studies in Digital Heritage 3, 40-45. 184 Merchán, M. J et al., “Digital fabrication of cultural heritage artwork replicas. In the search for resilience and socio-cultural commitment,” Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, no. 15 (2019), e00125, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.daach.2019.e00125.

105 relevant to the replication of Palmyrene artifacts and other World Heritage sites in danger across the world.

The papers in the SAA symposium, a forum that engaged key topics pertaining to digital archaeology, identified some of the key topics of discussion in this dissertation: The transformative role of digitization on archaeological practice in the 21st century, reflexivity in digital archaeology, knowledge production in the digital age, the ethical and political issues surrounding open data, and the importance of data curation, contextualization and dissemination, and the slow data critique. Similarly, the papers in this special issue highlight key issues at the forefront of discussions about contemporary digital heritage practice. Each of these articles engages with the concept of applied digital heritage, and together they envision a roadmap to a participatory and reflexive future for archaeology in the digital age.185 Proceedings from another international conference on digital archaeology also discuss how current archaeological research practices confirm a strong trend towards the grouping of researchers and the sharing of data, which now requires the establishment of shared platforms. This change in practices is reflected in the shift from working locally to opening up to databases shared by several teams, several institutions and even several countries. Since 2005, the experience of seven projects carried out in the Traces laboratory (Architerre, ChasséoLab, Départ, Graph-Comp, Modelespace,

Monumen, M&P) in collaboration with French and foreign partner institutions (Ministry of

Culture, regional services, CNRS, universities, preventive archaeology organizations and companies, associations, etc.) has helped to clarify the principles of coordination, complexity, collaborative work and the impact of the choices made.186 Some of the groups whose

185 Harrison, “A Roadmap to Applied Digital Heritage,” 40-45.

186 Michel Dabas et al., Chronocarto, a web-GIS for archaeologists (but not only...) 106 participation was facilitated through these shared platforms and inclusive processes are the people identified as at-risk groups such as the LGBTQ communities, ethnic and religious minorities, and low-income socioeconomic groups. Therefore, digital archaeology as an advanced discipline and tool kit for the researchers/participators in the present century has become more inclusive rather than exclusive through these concepts of applied digital heritage, dissemination of data through shared platforms, and other participatory and inclusive processes and knowledge sharing platforms.

A variety of archaeological and epigraphic sources from around the world, with the support of literary evidence in the form of scholarly conversations and media resources, digital exhibits, and collaborative projects testify to Palmyrene history, achievements, and prosperity.

The growth of digital archaeology as a field has immensely contributed to the development of archaeological research and it has significantly reduced the amount of time and effort that archaeologists have to put forward towards documenting and preserving their research. The reconstruction of the Triumphal Arc of Palmyra by IDA would not have been possible without the help of the photogrammetry program, which is a recent advancement in digital archaeology.

Richardson writes:

That this is remotely possible is down to advances in photogrammetry - the ability to produce highly detailed three-dimensional photographs of objects or buildings that can then be re-imagined in flexible on-screen images, or literally rebuilt using 3D printing techniques or 3D imaging software (as is the case with the arch being created for Trafalgar Square.)187

Archéologies numériques, Openscience, 2019, Proceedings of the session n° III-3 (CA) of the XVIII° UISPP congress, Paris, June 2018 Session III-3 (CA). Construire des référentiels partagés :Webmapping et archéologie, 19-3 (1), ⟨10.21494/ISTE.OP.2019.0350.

187 Nigel Richardson, “The Arch of Triumph of Palmyra is recreated in London –1800 Years after it was built,” The Telegraph, April 18, 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/08/why-the-arch-of-triumph-of-palmyra-is-being- recreated-in-london/. 107

Richardson explains that by reconstructing the Arc we are able to take the memory of a destroyed past and recreate it into a physical form in the present with an eye on the future.188

As discussed earlier, it was possible for IDA to create the replica of the Arc in two different forms using photogrammetry: physically and virtually. The Arc was physically recreated around the major cities of the world and also onto a virtual/online space. The IDA as a Western initiative was successful in transforming the civilizational memory surrounding Palmyra and Palmyrene artifacts (the Triumphal Arc here) and transferring it to a different geographic space and medium.

Digital archaeology uses innovative techniques such as aerial archaeology, photogrammetry, and 3D modeling to recreate the artifacts so that it brings back at least a replica for the memories surrounding these artifacts. The contribution of digital archaeology towards the rebuilding of the destroyed Palmyra artifacts is addressed by scholars such as Woodman who thinks that, “It is now perfectly possible to construct a simulacrum of the Temple of Bel.”189

Silver outlines the multiple dimensions of digital archaeology in exploring Palmyra using aerial archaeology and satellite imagery. Father Antione Poidebard, a pioneer in aerial archaeology documented sites such as Palmyra by photographing them from his airplane in Syria during the

French mandate period. Archaeologists can also trace sites and structures by remote sensing with

188 Richardson, “The Arch of Triumph of Palmyra is recreated in London –1800 Years after it was built,” 2016.

189 Ellis Woodman, “It’s Great That We Can 3D-Print Vandalised Temples, but Is That the Way to Repair Palmyra?” Architects’ Journal 243, no. 9 (2016), 67, http://ezproxy.bgsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft& AN=114461398&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

108 aerial photographs, satellite images, and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging.)190 Google Earth is one of the most frequently used methods for capturing satellite images for mapping the geography of a specific site such as Palmyra.191 These digital applications along with many others, GIS (Geographic Information System), CAD (Computer Assigned Design), and

Multispectral Landsat satellite imagery have all become part of an archaeologist’s toolkit to help him advance in the discipline of digital archaeology and also to further explore and document

World Heritage sites in danger such as Palmyra.

As discussed earlier, digital archaeology has profusely helped to preserve the memory of

Palmyra in many different ways: physical and virtual reconstructions, 3D images, satellite images, high-resolution maps, digital photographs, etc. In order to preserve and perpetuate the memory of an ancient civilization and a World Heritage site in Danger such as Palmyra, it is necessary that these digital recreations should circulate widely. In fact, it is ironic that Palmyra garnered a lot of attention after it was attacked and grabbed the headlines of international media.

Numerous images showing the devastation of Palmyrene artifacts/buildings such as the Temple of Bel and The Triumphal Arc were constantly in the media and these visual reminders affected people across the globe in two different ways. Scholars, artists, archaeologists, and tourists were all concerned about the destruction and erasure of an ancient site of great archaeological and

190 LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to the Earth. These light pulses—combined with other data recorded by the airborne system— generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape of the Earth and its surface characteristics.

191 Minna Silver, Gabriele Fangi, and Ahmet Denker, Reviving Palmyra in multiple dimensions: images, ruins and cultural memory, (Caithness: Whittles Publishing, 2018), 15.

109 artistic significance. They were also provoked by ISIS’s religious propaganda against antiquities/sites of historical importance and cultural annihilation of the city once dubbed as “the

Venice of the Sands.” Many, including scholars such as Michel (the current Director of IDA and one of the architects behind the Triumphal Arc reconstruction project), realized that it is imperative to perpetuate the memory of Palmyra by preserving it elsewhere and started working towards it. Michel asserts during the inauguration of the Arc at Trafalgar Square in London that

“If They [ISIS] Knock It Down We Will Rebuild It Again.”192 Hence, images in the form of visual reminders (digital recreations of Palmyra in this context) are inevitable to link us to our history/past and they play a key role in sustaining our memory of it.

The duplication of the monuments of Palmyra has also been critiqued as having an adverse effect since in reproducing a monument the value of the original could be erased. Dr.

Karenowska (the magnetician at IDA who is part of the Triumphal Arc reconstruction project) also agrees that a reproduction can only ever be “second best.” But she explains that, “The idea is to use this as a way of drawing attention to the fact that reconstruction is underway, and as proof of what technology can do for something that touches all of us.”193 Others think that the

IDA, rather than reconstructing the Arc, could have used that money in a better way as the entire process is inordinately expensive. It is rather ironic, as Richardson believes that with IDA, “The issue of endangered archaeology had suddenly become agonizingly postmodern.” He adds that it

192 “Triumphal Arch in the News,” The Institute for Digital Archaeology, Accessed February 27, 2019, http://digitalarchaeology.org.uk/media.

193 Stephen Farrell, “If all else fails, 3D models and robots might rebuild Palmyra damaged by Islamic States,” The Orange County Register, March 29, 2016, https://www.ocregister.com/2016/03/29/if-all-else-fails-3d-models-and-robots-might-rebuild- palmyra-sites-damaged-by-islamic-state/.

110 is like a reversal of the process when ISIS exploits cutting-edge technology to make professional destruction videos they are being matched by developments in photogrammetry and 3D printing.194 After the ISIS attacks, the relevance of digital archaeology in recreating the

Palmyrene artifacts, and the advantages and disadvantages associated with the entire process get even more complicated.

Despite the fact that much criticism has been raised against the virtual recreations of

Palmyra, there are initiatives worldwide by organizations such as IDA to create awareness about the significance of these recreations. The IDA considers its project to remake the Arch as an act of international solidarity with the people in Syria, Iraq, and across. Moreover, as Palmyra is a war zone the public, including archaeologists, tourists, and researchers, can now get access to the site through these digital creations and virtual spaces. International solidarity is very important to recuperate and embrace cultures and civilizations that are damaged or on the verge of extinction.

Palmyra is a World Heritage center and its architectural and cultural significance have created a mark on not just the map of Syria but the world map as well.

Moreover, digital archaeology as an extension of classical archaeology is a developing field and has widely contributed to archaeological research. As IDA states digital archaeology helps researchers to look at ancient objects in entirely new ways:

To uncover hidden inscriptions, invisible paint lines, the faintest palimpsests -- and to share these discoveries with the world. Beyond that, digital technologies can put these crucially important repositories of our cultural identity and shared history forever beyond the reach of those who would destroy them. The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) was founded to promote, improve and expand these important new digital tools.195

194 Richardson, “The Arch of Triumph of Palmyra is recreated in London –1800 Years after it was built,” 2016.

195 “The Institute for Digital Archaeology,” 2018. 111

The process of documentation, digital exhibits, and crowdsourcing has grown from a national to an international level. “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” is expanding into new digital territory with a translation of the exhibition into Arabic.”196 The concept of Creative Commons has disrupted many virtual barriers that hindered mass knowledge production and sharing.

Adhering to the Creative Commons license agreement, most of the virtual initiatives such as the

IDA agree to share with the public, documents, 3D models or photographs related to Palmyra.

Another project initiative of most of the virtual project is the open access documentation of the material available worldwide and digitalization of the archives. #NEWPALMYRA in collaboration with its international affiliates, sources archaeological and historical data, shares it with the community, and outputs art exhibitions, salons, and creative works using this data to carry the rich history of Palmyra forward to new generations.197

Most of these projects seek to symbolically reject ISIS’s violence and the cultural annihilation of Palmyra. Hanson from IDA supports the reconstructions of the Arch though she believes preserving the architecture is less important than what the efforts to rebuild would symbolize. “After the shrines are exploded,” Hanson says, “the sites themselves are bulldozed and wiped clean [by ISIS] in order to physically erase their memory. A reconstruction of any sort, in any location, would be working against what ISIS hoped to accomplish.”198

As discussed in the introduction to the chapter, #NEWPALMYRA, similar to other digital initiatives such as the IDA, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” and the PPP are successful

196 Nair, “Lessons Learned from Project-Managing the Getty Research Institute’s First Online Exhibition,” 2017.

197 “Building the Future from History Together,” #NEWPALMYRA, Accessed November 11, 2018.

198 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.” 112 in transferring the memory of Palmyra as conceived by the West from a geographic space to a digital medium to make it into a digital memorial. In the process of transferring Palmyra and also the memories surrounding it, much transformation has taken place. These include not only the structural variation in size from the original monuments of Palmyra such as the iconic Triumphal

Arch or other Palmyrene artifacts. The original Arch is 50 feet tall and hand-carved from limestone, the replica is 20 feet tall and made out of Egyptian marble sculpted in 30 days by robotic arms at a workshop in the famous quarries of Carrara, Italy and cost about $143,000.199

But artifacts that were destroyed could also be built in the exact likeness of the original with the help of the recently developed 3D technology and other innovative techniques.

In the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on Palmyra, representations of Palmyra are necessary so that the city and its monuments will not be erased from our memory altogether. One might argue that digital initiatives such as IDA, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” PPP, and the #NEW

PALMYRA by digitally transferring Palmyra onto a virtual/digital space were in fact, helping to recover the memories surrounding Palmyra and also to preserve them onto a digital space and thereby thwarting ISIS’s mission to erase them. Richardson states, “This [the replica of the arc] is archaeology’s new weapon against the black-masked iconoclasts whom Simon Schama dubbed the Obliterators.”200 Thus, digital archaeology and its applications have a lot of significance for my research.

199 Claire Voon, “What’s the Value of Recreating the Palmyra Arch with Digital Technology,” Hyperallergic, April 19, 2016, https://hyperallergic.com/292006/whats-the-value- of-recreating-the-palmyra-arch-with-digital-technology/.

200 Richardson, “The Arch of Triumph of Palmyra is recreated in London –1800 Years after it was built,” 2016. 113

Digital Archaeology, Palmyra, and Visual Colonialism

In the hands of the West, archaeology as a scientific discipline and practice developed widely along with its related disciplines such as paleontology and anthropology. Scholars and practitioners of the discipline have pointed out the historical relationship between colonialism and archaeology and how archaeology and its practical applications (exhuming, collecting antiquities/relics, and displaying them in museums) have colonial sensibilities (Abadia 2006;

Mudie 2018; Dietler 2005). Abadia notes how during the greater part of the twentieth century, the history of archaeology promoted an idealized image of archaeological practice in colonized places and as a result, historians often omitted the political implications of archaeology and, in many instances, justified the appropriation of material culture from colonized places.201 As

Abadia explains, a cursory review of the historiography of the discipline will confirm the fact that, “During most of the twentieth century, the history of archaeology has been an eloquent example of ‘colonial discourse.’” Abadia further elaborates how, “By focusing on a particular image of the archaeologist and of archaeological practice, historians of archaeology have helped to legitimate colonial domination in encounters between the West and ‘the rest’”202 Abadia’s observation supports the longstanding debate on archaeology as a form of colonization as confirmed by other scholars such as Mudie who believes that, “Archaeology as a modern practice is an invention of the West; so is the museum”203 Dietler also confirms the view that:

“The museums of northern Europe and North America are now filled with treasures of Greek and

201 Oscar Moro-Abadía, “The History of Archaeology as a ‘Colonial Discourse,’” Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 16, no. 2 (2006), 4-17.

202 Moro-Abadía, “The History of Archaeology as a ‘Colonial Discourse,’” 4-17.

203 Ella Mudie, “Palmyra and the Radical Other On the Politics of Monument Destruction in Syria,” Otherness: Essay and Studies 6, no. 2 (2018), 144. 114

Roman sculpture, architecture, bronzework, and ceramics as a result of the acquisitive urge that motivated the development of archaeology as a means of bringing back the tangible relics of an ancestral past.204 Hence, Dietler defines the discipline of archaeology itself as “colonialism” by laying out the basic tenets of archaeology as imbued with colonial sentiments and practices such as the collection of memorabilia and displaying them in museums by the West.

Dietler, in “The Archaeology of Colonization and the Colonization of Archaeology,” begins the discussion on the “archaeology of colonization” by explaining how since the prehistoric times the Greco-Roman classical influence has overwhelmingly impacted the field of archaeology as a discipline and in turn over the centuries there was an attempt towards the

“colonization of archaeology” by Western countries (European and United States). He discusses the European or Western fetish for bringing back relics from the museums and how the very practice of archaeology has been colonized or dominated by the veneration towards Greco-

Roman artifacts as representative of a civilized or elite culture.205 Therefore, as these scholars have addressed, the practice of archaeology and its advanced version of digital archaeology have further contributed to a form of visual colonialism through the digital recuperation of classical

Eastern artifacts such as the Arc and other Palmyrene monuments.

One of the themes that I discuss throughout my dissertation is the prominence of digital archaeology in mediating memories across global borders and the inevitability of digital archaeology in the documentation and preserving information for future use. Appreciating all of the efforts by digital archaeology as a discipline and its powerful digital tools, especially in the

204 Dietler, “The Archaeology of Colonization and the Colonization of Archaeology,” 48.

205 Dietler, 48.

115 hands of the West to reconstruct the Palmyrene artifacts, it is also necessary to analyze how the very process of recreating Palmyrene artifacts, unfortunately, has resulted in the neocolonialism or visual colonialism of digital media.

A great deal of criticism has been raised against the advent of the digital initiatives in recuperating the memory of Palmyra to a digital space. Voon discusses how people from different walks of life such as artists and scholars have reacted vehemently against the digital transformation of Palmyra as digital colonialism. Iranian-born artist Morehshin Allahyari, questions the motive behind the rebuilding of Palmyra and lost histories. He doubts the fact that the larger public is going to stand in front of the replica of Palmyra and feel anything amazing.

He explains that “It would be more interesting to learn about visual colonialism,” rather, as all of a sudden people want to talk about how sites in the Middle East are everyone’s cultural heritage they are trying to preserve. “It’s such a weird position to think you’re going to put this in the public and educate people about ISIS.”206 History has witnessed outcries and vehement reactions against a Eurocentric representation of history in books/text media and there have been many successful and unsuccessful approaches to rectify it. Virtual media is also never free from it as exemplified through the virtually recreated images of Palmyra by the Western initiatives in an effort to rebuild Palmyra from rubbles and to preserve it for posterity.

The concept of “digital divide” has been explored by scholars such as Ruth Rikowski

(2011) who analyze the connection between “the world of modern digital media and the realms of politics, economics, education, and media.”207 There is always a digital divide which

Rikowski explains as the growing gap between those who have access to digital technologies and

206 Voon, “What’s the Value of Recreating the Palmyra Arch with Digital Technology?” 2016. 207 Ruth Rikowski, Digitisation perspectives (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2011), 148. 116 those who do not. It is often understood as a serious issue between the Western, developed countries who have access to computer technologies and those least developed and developing countries that do not. The least developed countries that lack these technologies are often exploited economically by developed countries thereby enabling a resurgence of neocolonialism in virtual space as the process creates a disparity in capital distribution. Rikowski calls this

“virtual space” that transcends nation-state boundaries as a potential site for a new and extremely powerful wave of neocolonialism.208 Digital archaeology as an extensively developing field and its use of advanced computer technologies are powerful tools in the hands of the West or developed countries as exemplified through the rebuilding of Palmyrene artifacts in digital media.

The West’s efforts to physically and virtually memorialize Palmyra lead to the pitfalls of visual colonialism through the use of digital archaeology. Syria, where originally Palmyra stood, could not initiate a reconstruction similar to the Western-based model of recreating Palmyrene artifacts because it lacks the advanced computer-mediated technologies that exclusively belong to the West. Yet another factor in the form of capital—most of these Western initiatives such as

IDA, Getty online, and PPP are backed up by multinational corporations; generous funding from them sustains these resource projects. Many scholars have already expressed their concern against a Western-based reconstruction of Palmyra and the overwhelming global response to the need for rebuilding it. According to Plets, many of the bold responses in favor of rebuilding

Palmyra lack analytical depth because “the stream of poignant statements about the loss of cultural objects that are intrinsically part of a Western global memory (e.g. Palmyra) flooding

208 Rikowski, Digitisation perspectives, 148.

117 social media and main-stream media outlets feels at odds with the daily humanitarian suffering and enormous loss of life.”209 Plets also cautions archaeologists and heritage professionals about the Western initiatives to reconstruct Palmyra. “Executing renovations at illustrious ancient sites might provide international visibility, but the funding schemes enabling these reconstructions are rarely free from political influence and are imbued with geopolitical ambitions.”210 Drawing information from these critiques—for and against a Western–based model of reconstruction of

Palmyra, what we need to further analyze is if we should memorialize Palmyra as a cultural legacy of Syria or as a patrimony of the West that becomes “intrinsically part of a Western global memory.”

A major part of the scholarship on digital archaeology as a method and tool examines its advancements in preserving cultural heritage sites such as Palmyra. As scholars such as Denker explain, digital archaeology as a vastly expanding field focused on the use of 3D computer graphics in relation to archaeology and cultural heritage for scholars in multi-disciplinary fields starting from the 1990’s (Forte and Siliotti, 1997). A majority of the scholarship in the last two decades focused on photo-realistic reconstructions of the past (Logothetis et al., 2016) and

(Manferdini et al., 2016) and thereby the discipline of digital archaeology continues to make contributions to the creation of a new legacy in cultural heritage, namely the “digital cultural heritage.”211 Denker defines how the trio combination produces the concept of “digital cultural heritage”: “Reconstructions of the past with the advent of 3D computer graphics, high resolution

209 Gertjan Plets, “Violins and trowels for Palmyra: Post-conflict heritage politics,” Anthropology Today 33, no. 4 (2017), 18.

210 Plets, “Violins and trowels for Palmyra: Post-conflict heritage politics,” 22.

211 Ahmet Denker, “Rebuilding Palmyra virtually: Recreation of its former glory in digital space,” Virtual Archaeology Review 8, no. 17 (2017), 27. 118 rendering and 3D printing are increasingly produced and maintained in digital form, thus creating a new type of legacy: digital cultural heritage.”212 Since, digital archaeology as a highly advanced discipline in the West, the rise of a new type of cultural legacy, the “digital cultural heritage” is something of which the West claims ownership. In the case of Palmyra, the West owns this “digital cultural heritage” as designed and implemented by it, and especially through the use of specific digital software tools that helped to remodel the memory of Palmyra from a

Western point of view.

It is important to note how the world in general and the West in particular remember

Palmyra before the ISIS attack it and memorialize it in the aftermath of the war. The perceptions about Palmyra have changed as it transitioned from a local to a globally situated site. Digital archaeology as a potent tool in the hands of the West is capable of remodeling the worldview of

Palmyra, especially from a Eurocentric perspective. The main focus of these recreations has been to produce a realistic view of the site as once it existed at the same time exemplifying the significant advancement of digital archaeology and its methods and tools as developed by the

West. Digital archaeology has an immense role in promoting the digital cultural heritage of

Palmyra and recreating a “realistic looking” view of the site, and as perceived by the West through the use of these highly advanced digital media tools.

It is difficult to ascertain how successfully digital technology and the physical and virtual initiatives such as IDA, PPP, “The Legacy of Palmyra”, and #NEW PALMYRA are able to recreate models based on the original. Without debunking the accomplishments of these virtual and physical initiatives, it is also important to further discuss the following questions: Why is there

212 Denker, “Rebuilding Palmyra virtually: Recreation of its former glory in digital space,” 29. 119 so much of an effort towards recreating these artifacts and transferring them to primarily/mostly

Western sites? Why are these Western-based initiatives using digital media to promote and sustain the memory, culture, and identity of Palmyra across the world through these virtual recreations? Are all of these initiatives merely based on philanthropy and a fight against ISIS’s cultural annihilation of Palmyra? These questions take us back to the interconnected relationship between colonization and space. Many of these Western-based initiatives have colonized digital media by promoting the legacy of the “digital cultural heritage” as devised and manifested by the

West. Colonialization is rooted in the fundamental principles of invading space and imposing authority on the colonized by the colonizer. I argue that the reconstruction of the Arc and other

Palmyrene artifacts including their online/visual equivalents aligns with a Western colonial project as it has imperialist sensibilities.

Throughout history huge statues in commemoration and to keep alive the memory of the rulers, colonizers, or even dictators have been erected in prominent cities to perpetuate the notion of claiming space and establishing authority over the colonized by the colonizer. Conversely, there is also the practice of tearing down statues in an attempt to erase the memory of a person.

In connection with the destruction of memory, Silver discusses Damnatio memoriae, “the cursing and erasing of the memory of a certain person” which was in practice since prehistoric times. This was done with the presumption that a person’s memory can be erased and this process affects that person in a magical way. Such acts include Joseph Stalin’s disfigurement of his enemies from photographs and the tearing down of Saddam Hussein’s statue from Firdos

Square in Baghdad in the aftermath of the Western invasion of Iraq in 2003. When the Soviet

Union collapsed in 1991, portraits and statues of Stalin and Vladimir Lenin were also taken out 120 of public places and destroyed.213 All these instances of claiming and re-claiming space have imperialistic sensibilities. Demolishing statues of the previous owners/rulers of the land and replacing them with new rulers is an act towards invading space and claiming authority. Hence,

IDA and other physical and virtual initiatives such as the PPP, “The Legacy of Ancient

Palmyra,” #NEW PALMYRA reflect imperialistic motives and authority over the middle-

Eastern sites in the recreation of Palmyrene artifacts such as the Arc in major Western cities around the world and also through digital media, which is yet another virtual space controlled by the West with the aid of its powerful digital tools.

Yet another reason that these initiatives consciously or unconsciously perpetuate the

Western imperialistic sensibility is that most of these artifacts of Palmyra in the aftermath of the

ISIS attacks have been relocated to European museums and mainly displayed in Western countries as part of the international exhibit. A critical analysis of how the West reacted to the

Palmyrene crisis and how some of its prominent members (Boris Johnson, Roger Michel, etc.,) as representative of the West responded to the attacks demonstrates that it is part of the very same colonial discourse. The crux of their narratives is clear enough: No matter what, we can recreate anything which is destroyed with our powerful tools and digital/intellectual superiority; hence, we/the West rule the world. In the initial phase of the exhibition of the Triumphal Arc,

Michel (Director of IDA) declared that it will be taken back to Palmyra and housed within the city within six months of its destruction by ISIS.214 Most of the Palmyrene artifacts are housed in

213 Silver, Fangi, and Denker, Reviving Palmyra in multiple dimensions: images, ruins and cultural memory, 11.

214 Deborah Amos reports for NPR in “Palmyra’s Ancient Arch, Destroyed by ISIS, To Rise Again In London the Arch” that “Archaeologists raged against Michel’s plan to install his 20-foot-scale model of the Arch of Triumph in the wreckage of Palmyra within six months, arguing that a re-created arch would alter the historical meaning of the ancient site.” Published 121 private homes in the West, European museums, and black markets. Abadia points out the underlying connection between colonialism, imperialism, and archaeology: “the consolidation of archaeological science was related to scientific expeditions promoted by Western governments and commercial organizations.” He further explains how “the opening of museums such as the

Louvre or the British Museum and the creation of Western institutions whose main objective was to rule conquered countries.”215 Archaeology, which is an appendage of colonialism and its practical application, excavation, as promoted by the West has exhumed hidden treasures from

Palmyra worth billions in the name of archaeological discovery.

Most of these physical and virtual initiatives including the IDA laud the contributions of

Europeans and Americans towards rediscovering Palmyra but there is not much of an in-depth discussion about the contributions of the people who lived there or the Syrians or the Eastern travelers or scholars who contributed to the study of Palmyra. A large part of the information is an attempt to substantiate how Palmyra also forms part of a Western cultural heritage rather than exclusively belonging to the Eastern domain. This rhetoric is especially conveyed in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks and there is an overwhelming attempt to re-claim Palmyra as part of the Western legacy or culture. On its website, IDA commends its advanced technology and the multiple exhibitions focused on Palmyra and its future proceedings, but does not include statistical figures/information on how those funds are used. The statistics about funding and how the IDA mobilizes is not transparent. The organization claims that its Palmyra renovation project

on April 18, 2016, the link is: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/04/18/474686269/palmyras-ancient-arch-destroyed- by-isis-to-rise-again-in-london

215 Abadía, 11, 2006.

122 is geared towards philanthropy and its mission is to fight against the cultural annihilation of

Palmyra which supposedly unites the West and the East.

A cursory review of the people and the institutions behind all of these physical and virtual projects testify to the fact that they are mostly Western-based initiatives. I have briefly mentioned the people and the institutions behind these projects in the earlier section of this chapter when I introduced each of these projects. The PPP is funded by the global brewing group, Carlsberg Foundation, based in Denmark, which has also other affiliations such as three grant-awarding foundations, two internationally acclaimed museums, and a ground-breaking international research laboratory. It has contributed largely to the PPP. It does not come as a surprise that some of the Palmyrene artifacts housed in the “Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek,

Copenhagen” named “Vejen til Palmyra” are owned by this global foundation as it has “two internationally acclaimed museums.”216 Some of the mutilated artifacts from the ISIS attacks on the museums including the limestone funerary bust of a woman, “The Beauty of Palmyra” (190-

210 CE) are housed within this glyptoteket.217 Glyptotek literally means “a storing place” and the

NY glyptotek is an art museum that houses the private collection of its owner, Carl Jacobsen

(1842-1914), who was the heir of the Carlsberg Breweries group. Raja in one of her lectures on the PPP is critical of the excavation practices of the earlier century, for instance, noting that

Harald Ingholt had excavated “too many tombs” in Palmyra around 1920 and dug out thousands

216 “Vejen til Palmyra” translates to English as “The road to Palmyra.” See https://www.glyptoteket.dk/udstilling/vejen-til-palmyra/.

217 Limestone funerary bust of a woman from Palmyra (Central Syria) with traces of polychromy so called ”The Beauty of Palmyra,” 190-210 CE. (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen).

123 of funerary busts which made their way to the West218 This was a hundred years before ISIS attacked and looted Palmyra. While ISIS’s stealing and mutilating of the Palmyrene artifacts are viewed as war crimes, many of the Western antique collectors’ hobby, including Ingholt’s and

Carl Jacobsen’s, are brushed aside in the name of philanthropy. The foundation declares that the

“Carlsberg Foundation should strive for the highest possible quality in everything that it does and that the operation of the Carlsberg brewery should never focus solely on business today, but also give thought to the future.” The Carlsberg Foundation is the parent foundation for the Carlsberg family.219 It is thought -provoking that the mission of the foundation “should never focus solely on business today, but also give thought to the future.” Hence, it is not quite surprising that the primary source of funding for most of these virtual projects that have far-reaching consequences for the future, also come from the West and its European counterparts.

Moreover, all of these websites use English as the primary language of communication.

There are numerous people around the world who do not have any access to these websites and the plethora of information within it about Palmyra, its history, and the restoration initiatives simply because of the reason that they cannot read or write English. Most of these projects claim that they extend their solidarity with the people of Syria by recreating the Palmyrene artifacts and making them accessible which runs through their mission of crowdsourcing and open access.

Contrary to their mission of extending solidarity, it is quite astonishing that, most of these

218 The Getty Research Institute, “The Palmyra Portrait Project: Preserving Cultural Heritage in a Time of Conflict,” YouTube video, 1:02:38, October 22, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkY2lA6wzkY.

219 “Introduction to the Carlsberg Foundation,” Carlsberg Foundation, https://www.carlsbergfondet.dk/en/About-the-Foundation/The-Carlsberg- Foundation/Introduction-to-the-Carlsberg-Foundation.

124 websites/projects do not provide any information on the current status of the people who once lived in Palmyra before the attacks and how and where they are displaced. Thus, at times, the excessive sympathy in the form of solidarity extended by these initiatives seems patronizing to the people of Syria. However, it should be taken into consideration that at certain times, the undue sympathy extended in the form of solidarity by these “so-called” philanthropic projects consciously or unconsciously can become propaganda as well.

As mentioned earlier, Getty’s online exhibit “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” has numerous references to the Western contributions towards the visual repertoire of Palmyra such as the renowned G. Hofstede van Essen’s oil on canvas titled “View of the Ruins of Palmyra.”

The exhibit proudly claims that “Vignes’s , who famously photographed the colonnade, marks the beginning of modern documentation of Palmyra, and a new era of visual reportage.”220 There is also information and images on the Polish-led excavations of the Camp of Diocletian, which began in 1959 and continued for the next six decades. As the exhibit declares, “this photograph marks the beginning of modern excavations and related research that has formed our current understanding of the ancient city.” Michael Press argues that the Getty’s online exhibition on

Palmyra “falls into Orientalist traps as it forgoes the city’s historical complexity to take an

Orientalist approach.” Press further explains that by deliberately eliding insights about numerous non-Western contributions, interactions, and attributes of Palmyra such as the post classical

Palmyra, discussion on the modern village in Palmyra (the surrounding land used for fields and gardens, a cemetery, a ruined mosque, and a mill), and also the modern interpretation of Queen

Zenobia (Palmyra’s famous third-century Queen), “the exhibition makes Palmyra’s legacy solely

220 Terpak, Bonfitto, and Louis, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra.”

125 about modern European and American interactions with it.” Press continues that there is also an intense effort to reinforce the point that, “it was people like Cassas and Vignes who (we are told) were responsible for “creating Palmyra’s legacy.””221 It is not difficult to sieve through the language used and the wealth of information on Palmyra as projected by these websites (such as the Getty’s online exhibit) to see that they are all primarily Western perceptions of Palmyra as conceived and disseminated through mass media which, in turn, becomes a medium of propagation for the West.

One of the recent trends in contemporary history is the obsessive collection and reproduction of material objects to preserve them for future and experimental purposes. The use of digital techniques or digital archaeology get entwined into these practices as part of collecting, curating, and recreating them. In an interview with the Washington Post, Karenowska (the IDA magnetician) expressed the desire to make the IDA’s antiquities database “open access” explaining, “it will indeed be possible for people to print their own 3D models of a range of structures and artifacts.”222 According to Crawford, the process of replicating Palmyra anywhere and everywhere for any conceivable purpose—such as in mementos like Palmyra key-rings, door stops, or garden ornaments—could transform the Arch of Triumph into a marketable trademark, like the Nike swoosh (a classical Greek goddess turned sportswear retailer). This process of mass-produced recreation, he believes, “would come closest to the entrepreneurial spirit of the people who built the city in the first place.”223 However, Geismar (2018) reads the collecting and

221 Michael Press, “The Getty’s Online Palmyra Exhibition Falls into Orientalist Traps,” Hyperallergic, March 1, 2017, https://hyperallergic.com/360675/the-gettys-online-palmyra- exhibition-falls-into-orientalist-traps/.

222 Crawford, Fallen glory: the lives and deaths of history's greatest buildings, 566.

223 Crawford, 566. 126 remaking practices of the contemporary period as “a form of salvage to collect the material culture of the disappearing worlds.” Haidy Geismar further adds that “The media paid little attention to the materiality or formal and aesthetic qualities of the reproduction [3D replica of the

Triumphal Arch], focusing on the redemptive power of digital imaging to reproduce lost heritage, a form of salvage not dissimilar to the original urges to collect the material culture of the ‘disappearing worlds’ of colonised peoples in the nineteenth century.”224 As a result, the complex history of Palmyra is erased and a new digital cultural history is remade through the reductive lens of a Western narrative.

We can understand how the commercialization of Palmyra is occurring around the world as advertised and promoted by people like Karenowska. It is also quite surprising that Palmyra has been receiving attention at the hands of these Western initiatives in contrast to the destruction of other numerous artifacts of the East including the Bamiyan Buddhas of

Afghanistan which were completely ravaged by the Taliban regime in 1996 when they seized power.

ISIS has attempted to wipe out the history of Syria altogether through the destruction of the artifacts which are symbolic of Syria’s cultural and social history. Inadvertently what the

West is trying to achieve through its reclamation of Palmyra also leads to a form of erasure of

Syrian or Eastern narratives. The West is enchanted with Palmyra and its disappearing past, as it has always been attracted to the exotic, exquisite, and mysterious ways of the East. As Plets explains, “For ethnographers mapping the transnational entanglements defining global cultural

224 Haidy Geismar, “Mimesis, replication and reality,” Museum object lessons for the digital age (London: UCL Press, 2018),109, Accessed January 22, 2020, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1xz0wz.11.

127 politics, it is especially important to keep a keen eye on how multilateral organizations are used to script specific futures in the Middle East.”225 Hence, by recreating these physical and virtual recreations of Palmyrene artifacts, the West displaces the history of Palmyra as a Syrian site. By replacing the original artifacts with physical and virtual copies or models, the West creates a history of its own for Palmyra, as it has done with other places across the globe.

In this chapter, I have analyzed how the structural and virtual transformation of Palmyra as a result of the digital recuperations of it by various digital initiatives by the West has made

Palmyra the patrimony of the West. These digital recuperations are acknowledged and perceived in different ways by the world in general and the West in particular and therefore the memories attached to this ancient marker of civilization have also been transformed.

225 Plets, “Violins and trowels for Palmyra: Post-conflict heritage politics,” 22.

128

CHAPTER THREE. CIVILIZATIONAL MEMORY: THE TRANSFORMATION OF PALMYRA

It is the natural and common fate of cities to have their memory longer preserved than

their ruins. Troy, Babylon and Memphis are now known only from books, while there is

not a stone left to mark their situation. But here we have two instances [Palmyra and

Balbeck] of considerable towns out-living any account of them. Our curiosity about these

places is rather raised by what we see than what we read, and Balbeck and Palmyra are

in a great measure left to tell their own story.

- Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra Otherwise Tedmor, in the Desart, 1753

Today Palmyra’s story is being told in sites outside Syria while its monuments are being recovered beyond a physical place. Palmyra may soon come to share the fate of Troy,

Babylon, and Memphis, as a place where “not a stone” marks its “situation.” The ruins of this ancient city—what is not sold on the black market—now embody the memory of violence and the erasure of place rather than the memory of an ancient civilization. This loss of place has spurred global efforts to use digital media to reconstruct Palmyra. The digital reconstruction of

Palmyra, with a meticulous attention to its spatial geography and architectural form, therefore, is a means of recovering place rather than the memory of an ancient and local culture. Indeed, the loss of Syria’s ancient heritage and the displacement of Palmyra’s inhabitants has ensured that the custodianship of Palmyra’s civilizational value has been transferred to the West. Moreover,

Palmyra as a continuously lived site has been lost in this transference of memory and memorializing.

The displacement of Palmyra primarily to Western sites through digital imaging draws attention to the value of the material representations of Palmyra while obscuring local cultural 129 memories. The erasure of Palmyra as a local site is achieved through the physical violence of

ISIS as well as by the West’s sense of entitlement to Palmyra as a World Heritage site. Indeed, the digital productions of Palmyra have, in turn, become a means by which the West claims custodianship of Palmyra, the civilization, as it has historically been represented in the West. As noted in chapter two, Palmyra was designated as a World Heritage center and a caravan of civilizations. In the Western imagination, Palmyra also represented an ancient site of historical memory. For the West, this was a collective memory of civilizational achievement and a cosmopolitan culture rooted in Eurocentric notions of “civilization.”

In this chapter, I borrow the term “civilizational memory” from Douglas Robinson who uses it to emphasize a collective process of remembering but I extend its meaning to include a genealogy of memory of Western civilization.226 As the studies of postcolonial critics such as

Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Robert J.C. Young, Homi Bhabha, and others have shown, historically the idea of civilization has a central place in colonial discourse whereby the presumed lack of civilizational value of non-Western societies and cultures served as foil to the

West’s civilizational heritage. Furthermore, the West’s civilizational heritage is located in a

Judeo-Christian world view while it traces its roots to ancient Greco-Roman histories. In using the term civilizational memory, I draw on this exclusive sense of civilization to denote the

West’s historical archive of memory. I argue that the digital reconstructions of Palmyra have become the patrimony of the West and the means by which the West claims custodianship of the civilizational memory that Palmyra has historically represented to the West. These digital

226 Robinson, Exorcising translation: towards an intercivilizational turn, section 2.4.

130 versions of Palmyra therefore now become the sites where the ancient civilization of Palmyra is reimagined by the West and reclaimed.

This chapter examines the digital re-inscription of Palmyra as a transference of meaning and memory whereby Palmyra, no longer a local site or the exotic locale, comes to signify the recuperation of the West’s civilizational memory. I argue that Palmyra is now a memory of an imagined place in a narrative of the West’s cultural genealogy. Hence, Palmyra has been transformed as memory, a memory that is the patrimony of the West and the inheritance of

“civilized” nations. Drawing on memory studies scholarship, I examine the role of memory in the forging of a civilizational memory rooted in the West’s imagination and the ways in which

Palmyra is being memorialized. Who articulates this transformation of Palmyra into digital space and the memories now embedded in it? I examine the role of media, scholars/archaeologists, and public/tourists in forging a civilizational memory that displaces local memories and histories.

Memory and Remembering Palmyra

Palmyra is a war zone and there is no way by which scholars, tourists, and researchers can get access to it. As Rubina Raja, in her talk at the Getty Villa, points out, conservation efforts in Palmyra are impossible in the wake of ISIS’s advance into and occupation of the region. The digital recuperation of Palmyra is, therefore, the most viable means of holding on to the memory of Palmyra as a place. However, this recovery is juxtaposed with the loss of local memories of place. Raja, for instance, notes how the histories of families in Palmyra were destroyed by the looting of the funerary towers within Palmyra.227 Such acknowledgment of the loss of local knowledge and memory is rare in the emerging discourse on Palmyra’s recovery. It points to a

227 The Getty Research Institute, “The Palmyra Portrait Project: Preserving Cultural Heritage in a Time of Conflict,” 2016.

131 significant gap in memory studies scholarship on the transformation/demolition of places such as

Palmyra. Specifically, while there is a lot of scholarship on the physical aspect—the material destruction of the site—the cultural, social, religious, and economic impact of the demolition in the local context have not been examined closely.

The displacement of the local memory of Palmyra and the concurrent assertion of a civilizational memory in the custodianship of the West points to the significance of memory theory in understanding this transference of memory. Halbwachs’s research on “memoire collective” has emerged as a foundational basis for memory studies. This chapter draws on

Halbwachs’s concept of memory to explore how individual memories are inherently shaped and are often be triggered by socio-cultural contexts or frameworks. Halbwachs coined the term

“collective memory” and his contribution to cultural memory studies includes his concept of cadres sociaux de la mémoire (social frameworks of memory). Halbwachs’s research on the memory of religious communities (in La topographie légendaire) stressed the topographical aspects of cultural memory, thus anticipating the notion of lieux de mémoire, Pierre Nora’s concept of places that reminds us of the past. Halbwachs explores the social construction of memory to understand the nature of individual memories within families, social classes, and religions. He also addresses the question “How do we use our mental images of the present to reconstruct our past?” to further examine the different aspects of collective memory. Halbwachs in The Legendary Topography of the Holy Land and his other studies has discussed rituals, commemorative symbols, and representations.228 229 Drawing on the scholarship of Halbwachs

228 See Halbwachs’s works: On Collective Memory, The Collective Memory, Les cadres sociaux de la memoire etc.

229 Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, and Sara B. Young, A companion to cultural memory studies (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012). 132 and Erll, among others, this chapter affirms the importance of the transformation of civilizational memory and delineates how memory attains an expansive meaning through its association with peoples or individuals, redefining the value of the ancient historical site of Palmyra.

The concept of “cultural memory” has opened the path to studying memory at both individual and collective levels. Astrid Erll in the introduction to Media and Cultural Memory

(2011) notes how a pre-cultural individual memory or a Collective or Cultural memory that is detached from individuals and embodied only in media and institutions does not exist. As Erll argues, “Just as socio-cultural contexts shape individual memories, a “memory” which is represented by media and institutions must be actualized by individuals, by members of a community of remembrance, who may be conceived of as points de vue [the French equivalent for viewpoint] (Maurice Halbwachs) on shared notions of the past.”230 Erll highlights individuals and their contribution toward Collective or Cultural memory and how they should be realized by individuals who must function as makers of memory. Erll adds, “Without such actualizations, monuments, rituals, and books are nothing but dead material, failing to have any impact in societies.”231 This is exactly where the individual and collective memory of individuals and groups of people play a crucial role—because the individual or the group assigns meaning to these “dead materials.” This is relevant to this chapter in understanding how the destruction of

Palmyra results in a transformation of civilizational memory. In the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on Palmyra, the West strove to recuperate the memory of Palmyra elsewhere. The monuments of

Palmyra have been transferred to a digital space and also to other parts of the world in order to

230 Erll, Memory in Culture, 5-9.

231 Erll, 5-9.

133 recreate and preserve the memory of Palmyra for posterity. This process has led to a transformation of the civilizational memory surrounding Palmyra and its artifacts/monuments from its original place to other virtual spaces across the world. Palmyra is now a memory of an imagined place in a narrative of the West’s cultural genealogy. Hence, Palmyra has been transformed as memory, a memory that is the patrimony of the West and the inheritance of

“civilized” nations.

The relationship between memory and space/place has been pointed out by many scholars such as Halbwachs, Erll, Nora, and, Huyssen. The connection between memory and place becomes complex depending on how each of us assigns certain values, attitudes, and emotions to specific geographic markers such as a temple or a church or even a tourist destination/world heritage site such as Palmyra. Can Bilsel’s article (2017) connecting Halbwachs’s concept of collective memory and architecture provides a means of examining the relationship between collective memory and spatial geography. Bilsel writes, “Architectural and urban spaces figure prominently in the work of the French sociologist [Maurice Halbwachs] since he maintains that memories survive in the longue durée only to the extent they are indexed into architectural places, and mapped into an urban and historical topography.”232 Collective memory, for

Halbwachs, is therefore in constant flux. Bilsel argues that, “in the last decades, the ability of architecture, urban design, and architectural conservation in framing and preserving a stable and unified cultural heritage have been profoundly challenged.”233 Moreover he explains that “a

232 Can Bilsel, “Architecture and the Social Frameworks of Memory: A Postscript to Maurice Halbwachs' "Collective Memory,” Iconarp International J. of Architecture and Planning 5, no. 1 (2017), 1.

233 Bilsel, “Architecture and the Social Frameworks of Memory: A Postscript to Maurice Halbwachs’ ‘Collective Memory,’” 5-6. 134 balkanization of memory” has occurred where the memories of social groups are fragmented and events are remembered differently by social groups who have become indifferent to other social groups memories and realities.234

The importance of preserving Palmyra for posterity ensures ritual practices, traditions, and replications of Palmyra, the place and its memory through the documentation of Palmyra is now part of the effort to preserve the West’s civilizational memory. By creating a visual repertoire of

Palmyra and through ritual practices, including the commemoration of Palmyra by recreating it elsewhere, such as the unveiling of the Triumphal Arc of Palmyra by IDA.

In this age of advanced digital and visual technology when everyone is increasingly hardwired to remember things mostly through the visualization of events and facts, the importance of visual reminders in the form of digital recuperations of Palmyra and physical recreations of it is inevitable. As Bilsel argues, “Just as social upheaval, oppression and resistance came to define more of the urban experience in the Middle East, new forms of commemoration such as performative reenactments of events in public spaces or new media have replaced architecture as anchors of collective memory.” New media and virtual collaborative projects serve as such “anchors of collective memory” as reflected in the IDA, PPP,

“The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” and #NEW PALMYRA. Halbwachs’s idea of how collective memories “are localized and indexed to a social group” also contextualizes my study as the collective memories surrounding Palmyra are deeply ingrained in the minds of the Syrians and the inhabitants of Palmyra. Palmyra as an iconic symbol in Syria is not a tourist place for the

234 Bilsel, “Architecture and the Social Frameworks of Memory: A Postscript to Maurice Halbwachs’ ‘Collective Memory,’” 7.

135

Palmyrene people but an ancient site of their culture and identity.

The legacy of Palmyra will remain in one form or the other through these recreations.

However, remembering Palmyra’s legacy as a World Heritage center and a site of Western civilization will also come with the dark memories of violence. The inhabitants of Palmyra who have been the victims of the ravages of war might remember this place specifically as the space where their near and dear ones were executed, raped, and/or buried. In examining the transformation of civilizational memory in connection with Palmyra, one must consider the shift from understanding Palmyra as a World Heritage center or the caravan of civilizations to a darker image of the war zone. While scholars such as Raja, Kropp, and Shabi have discussed the destruction of Palmyra as a loss, I focus here on the digital transformation of Palmyra as a form of loss caused by the loss of physical accessibility to this specific site. Most importantly, the absence of lived experiences and memories in the digital transformations of Palmyra also mark a loss of collective local memories as well as a space beyond the physical reach of people who once lived there. Therefore, the representative individual and collective memories attached to this place after the ISIS invasions are mostly about plunder and murder, memories that are repeatedly affirmed by scholarly and media representations and discourse on Palmyra.235

The looting of Palmyrene artifacts and their entry into the global antiquities trade have further removed Palmyra’s artifacts’ provenance to sites outside Syria . This has led to the transformation of memories surrounding Palmyrene artifacts, artifacts that are now the spoils of war housed in museums in the West or in metropolitan centers, or as decorative showpieces in

235 See these articles on Palmyra: Shah and El Zulafi, “Palmyra in Pictures: A Syrian Site Under Threat,” 2015; Yan, “How ISIS’ demolition of a Syrian temple impacts the world,” 2015; Manning, “Why ISIS Wants to Erase Palmyra’s History,” 2015.

136 private homes around the world. Many of these artifacts are available online for purchase on e- bay and other prominent online sites, including both original and fake versions. In response on

March 2016, the FBI initiated an alert for art dealers to watch for stolen artifacts from Syria and

Iraq regions in the international market, warning that the purchase of looted artifacts was a federal crime.

Cultural Memory: Individual and Collective

To understand the transformation of Palmyra, it is important to trace the historical progression of memories attached to it. Erll, in Memory in Culture, notes the connection between culture and memory and how this connection has an impact on both individual and collective levels. The individual person always remembers within a sociocultural context and cultural formations are based on collective memory.236 Using Erll’s concept of the connection between

“culture and memory,” and her discussion of Halbwachs’s concept of memoire collective, I argue that the violence inflicted on the city of Palmyra in particular and Syrians, in general, was an attempt by ISIS to erase the identity of Palmyra as an ancient marker of multiethnic and cultural values, and this has, in turn, transformed the local memory of Palmyra and how the West perceives Palmyra, both at the individual and collective levels.

Our memories, both the individual and collective, are always entwined in an intricate relationship. According to Halbwachs’s concept of collective memory, the individual memory/past and the collective memory/past are mutually dependent. Halbwachs states that every individual belongs to several social groups such as family, religious community, colleagues, and so forth but each individual has her/his own different group-specific experiences

236 Erll, Memory in Culture, 9.

137 and thought systems.237 Applying the memoire-collective theory to the Syrians who have been victims of the violence of ISIS, I argue that their individual memory/past and the collective memory/past are mutually dependent even when they were battling for their lives and fleeing persecution from ISIS. Halbwachs’s discussion in On Collective Memory on the nature of individual memories within families, social classes, and religions is useful here. The individual memories of these Syrians are tied to the shared collective history of Palmyra and also of their suffering in the wake of the recent civil war in Syria and under the ISIS regime.

The media play an important role in forming individual and collective memories. Erll discusses the role of the media in creating realities in relation to collective memory and how cultural memory research is often simultaneously media research. She writes, “However, just like memory, media do not simply reflect reality, but instead offer constructions of the past.

Media are not simply neutral carriers of information about the past. What they appear to encode

– versions of past events and persons, cultural values and norms, concepts of collective identity – they are in fact first creating.”238 In relation to this idea of collaborative collectivity, Halbwachs also explains the shifting nature of memory because it is continuously renewed by people in the present and also expressed through language. The history of Palmyra and the lives of Syrians are mired in the past and equally centered in the present. Halbwachs discusses how individuals hold onto frameworks of memory that differ based on family, class, and/or religion. These frameworks of memory are important for every individual—a war-torn victim will most probably try to identify and relate to another war-torn victim because they share traumatic memories and hold onto more or less similar frameworks of memory, whether as a family, class, or religion.

237 Erll, 15-16.

238 Erll, 114. 138

Viejo-Rose and Stig Sørensen (2015) argue that conflict and social disorder result in severe damage and the loss of irreplaceable and unique artifacts in addition to psychologically affecting people who are linked to sites such as Palmyra.239 War-torn victims also share the generic category of “Syrians or the inhabitants of Palmyra.”

War-torn Syrians can overcome their traumatic past and regain their strength and move on by forgetting, a condition of memory. In this process of surmounting these memories, they still know that they share their traumatic past with others in the Syrian diaspora. The linguistic collectivity that is forged by this shared memory is a critical means of both remembering and forgetting. Halbwachs’s discussion on how an individual’s framework for understanding memories is “deformed, changed or destroyed” is significant here. This idea of an individual’s framework for understanding memories is deformed, changed or destroyed is similar to Erll’s dual concept of memory. Erll states that the art of memory cannot do without the two key terms;

“remembering” and “forgetting” because they are two different sides of the same coin.240 The individual memory of each of these Syrian’s suffering can also be interpreted in relation to the shared collective memory of the group—the shared suffering that they have to undergo in the wake of the recent ISIS brutalities. Thus, the power of their narratives expressed through the medium of storytelling is invaluable in their lives.

Collective Memory and Spatial Geography

The group most affected by the Syrian war and the ISIS attacks on Palmyra were locals who inhabited the city of Palmyra. C. Holtorf discusses the significance of Palmyra for local

239 qtd in Munawar, 38. Nour A Munawar, “Reconstructing Cultural Heritage in Conflict Zones: Should Palmyra be Rebuilt?” EX NOVO Journal of Archaeology, no. 2, (December 2017), 33-48.

240 Erll, 8. 139 people lies in it being part of their ancestors’ heritage and collective memories, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. Syrians are proud of Palmyra and the memories of the city provide them with a sense of cultural identity that unify them in present war-torn Syria.241 Halbwachs points out how our collective memories are always tied to a spatial framework and spatial images play a vital role in forming collective memory:

The place a group occupies is not like a blackboard, where one may write and erase figures at will. No image of a blackboard can recall what was once written there. The board could not care less what has been written on it before, and new figures may be freely added. But place and group have each received the imprint of the other. Therefore every phase of the group can be translated into spatial terms, and its residence is but the juncture of all these terms. Each aspect, each detail, of this place has a meaning intelligent only to members of the group, for each portion of its space corresponds to various and different aspects of the structure and life of their society, at least of what is most stable in it.242

The transformation of Syria into a war zone points to different local memories embedded in the spatial frames of Palmyra. Once a resplendent city, Palmyra no more appeals to the local imagination of the Syrians as an ancient site of archaeological marvel but as a bloody site where many of their family members were tortured, killed, and buried. The memories surrounding this ancient place have been transformed from a caravan of cultures to a place of bloodshed and the trials of survival. How Syrians in particular and the world in general (the West specifically in this context) remember Palmyra, has transformed the identity of Palmyra.

Syrians as the inhabitants of the city have placed a lot of social and cultural values on this ancient marker of civilization over the years. The place where one stays is not like a blackboard

241 Cornelius Holtorf, “Averting loss aversion in cultural heritage,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 21, no. 4 (2015), 405-421, Accessed November 15, 2019, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2014.938766.

242 Lewis A Coser, and Maurice Halbwachs, on collective memory (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press,1992), 2.

140 where, as Halbwachs states, one can create marks and erase at will; it should be conceived more like a palimpsest where memories are layered, one over the other. Halbwachs stresses the internal ties that the people share with their place: “Each aspect, each detail, of this place has a meaning intelligent only to members of the group, for each portion of its space corresponds to various and different aspects of the structure and life of their society, at least of what is most stable in it.” The Syrians who lived in Palmyra as members of a specific group have always had a specific set of meanings that they have placed on this marker of civilization and also as their home where they had their social, cultural, economic, and religious ties. Before the war, many

Syrians depended on Palmyra’s legacy and its tourist potential to make a living. More than a hundred thousand people visited Palmyra every year before the Syrian crisis.

The erasure of Palmyra as a local site is achieved through the physical violence of ISIS as well as by the West’s hailing of Palmyra as a global cultural center and transferring of

Palmyra/Palmyrene artifacts to virtual media and across the globe. For Syrians primarily and the

West in general, Palmyra is an iconic symbol and the monuments within the city carry a lot of ritualized remembering. Palmyrene architecture is symbolic of the Eastern and Western cults and the Palmyrene civilization is of both Greco Roman and Middle Eastern cultures. Monuments such as the Lion of Alat, Temple of Bel, Triumphal Arc, among others, are iconic landmarks of

Palmyra and they are also representative of the civilization and culture of Palmyra. Erll discusses collective memory and its specific relation to a group and place in terms of what she calls

“symbolically charged media such as monuments which serve as occasions for collective, often ritualized remembering.” Erll defines collective memory as, “the construction and circulation of knowledge and versions of a common past in sociocultural contexts,” made possible with the help of media. It has different forms: through orality and literacy as age-old media for the storing 141 of foundational myths for later generations; through print, radio, television and the Internet for the diffusion of versions of a common past in wide circles of society; and, finally, through symbolically charged media such as monuments which serve as occasions for collective, often ritualized remembering.243 As Erll elaborates, the oral literacy of a person determines how histories are transmitted in the form of stories and myths. Likewise, media reports of events and stories on Palmyra have played a critical role in disseminating the civilizational memory of

Palmyra to the West and other parts of the globe.

Great philosophers including Plato have argued about the “mimetic” nature of art.

According to Plato, the concept or idea is only the original, and when you conceive it into art it is already “twice removed from reality.” As Plato insists, you can never reproduce the original when you recreate it. It is always a copy. While acknowledging the critics who argue against the recuperation of Palmyrene artifacts such as Mudie, Al-Manzali, and Allahyari, I argue in this study that the digital initiatives to reclaim Palmyra have been successful in transferring a memory of Palmyra to a digital space and, in doing so, transformed Palmyra as a place while appropriating its civilizational value.244 Halbwachs’s notion that collective memory unfolds within a spatial framework and space is a reality that stays forever is significant here. As he argues, “It is to space - the space we occupy, traverse, have continual access to, or can at any time reconstruct in thought and imagination - that we must turn our attention. Our thought must

243 Erll, 113.

244 Maira Al-Manzali, “Palmyra and the Political History of Archaeology in Syria: from Colonialists to Nationalists,” Mangal Media, October 2, 2016; Mudie, “Palmyra and the Radical Other On the Politics of Monument Destruction in Syria,” 144-45; Voon, “What’s the Value of Recreating the Palmyra Arch with Digital Technology,” 2016.

142 focus on it if this or that category of remembrances is to reappear.” Thus, according to

Halbwachs’s concept of collective memory, “every group and every kind of collective activity is linked to a specific place, or segment of space.”245 But it is also possible that we can reconstruct that specific space onto a different medium. Hence, Palmyra has been transformed in the process of recuperating it. As Halbwachs explains, “Cities are indeed transformed in the course of history. Entire districts may be left in ruins following siege, occupation, and sacking by an invading army. Public works and new roads require much demolition and construction as one plan is superimposed on another.”246 Halbwachs’s idea of transformation of place and superimposition of one plan on the other is significant in understanding the various transformations of Palmyra and its monuments in the wake of the ISIS attacks. Ideologically, the process of reviving Palmyra and its monuments and the initiative behind the project to resurrect and preserve it for posterity is not about how exactly the replica of the monument looks or how similar these recreated versions are towards their original.

You do not have to be an inhabitant of the city to acknowledge and appreciate the beauty and splendor of Palmyra’s architecture. Thousands of people, including people from across the globe such as tourists, researchers, and scholars have admired Palmyra since prehistoric times.

Their understanding of Palmyra as a lived experience itself brings forth individual and collective memories surrounding Palmyra and these memories are still etched in their minds. In connection with the affiliation between collective memory and spatial geography, Halbwachs discusses how

“most groups engrave their form in some way upon the soil and retrieve their collective

245 Halbwachs, “Space and the Collective Memory,” The collective memory (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 6-7.

246 Halbwachs, “Space and the Collective Memory,” 3. 143 remembrances within the spatial framework.” As Halbwachs explains, “most groups,” are not just limited to the geographic space they live in but, “we may say that most groups - not merely those resulting from the physical distribution of members within the boundaries of a city, house, or apartment, but many other types also.” This category of “many other types” includes people who do not live in a place like Palmyra but who have been to Palmyra and treasured Palmyra and its memories as a form of lived experience. Halbwachs writes, “But even if stones are movable, relationships established between stones and men are not so easily altered.”247 Although the relationship that Syrians or the inhabitants of the city have for Palmyra are unique to them, the relationships that the aforesaid groups have established with Palmyra are also important and cannot be cursorily dismissed.

Historically, scholars have emphasized the significance of collectivity and a collective conscience in preserving the memory of demolished cities or buildings. Halbwachs notes the importance of a collective conscience, as opposed to an individual conscience, in restoring the memory of destroyed cities, monuments, or buildings. According to him, “individual sorrow and malaise is without effect, for it does not affect the collectivity.” He explains that “in contrast, a group does not stop with a mere display of its unhappiness, a momentary burst of indignation and protest. It resists with all the force of its traditions, which have effect. It searches out and partially succeeds in recovering its former equilibrium amid novel circumstances.”248 The case of

Palmyra is no different and the Western-based digital initiatives have helped, to use Halbwachs’ words, “to recover its [Palmyra’s] former equilibrium amid novel circumstances.” Halbwachs’s idea of collectivity can be used to understand how Palmyra has come to represent a catastrophe

247 Halbwachs, The collective memory, 3.

248 Halbwachs, The collective memory, 4. 144 for the world. It is now a site to be rescued and recovered with the help of a collective conscience that is global rather than restricted to Syria and its individual conscience. Indeed, the West felt a responsibility to intervene when it comes to the Palmyrene crisis making it imperative that both digital and non-digital initiatives should save and preserve Palmyra and its monuments.

Memory plays a key role in our lives. It sustains us and makes meaningful our lives.

Discussing the relationship between memory and collectivity, Halbwachs writes about the influence of memory in our family lives. He explains how “we extend our family memory in such a way as to encompass recollections of our worldly life,” and how family memories can also unite groups who have similar memories. At the same time, he points out that even though different families can share similar memories, there are also distinct memories that each group or an individual family carries. Through the concept of family memory, Halbwachs tries to make us understand the influence of a varied kind of memory in our lives and also how it functions within a society.249 The Funerary towers in Palmyra are one of the unique monuments that contain a lot of funerary tombs, family tombs, and funerary portraiture. Becker writes about the prominence of these tombs:

The funerary reliefs from Palmyra form a profoundly evocative body of evidence. The individualized treatment of the sculptures themselves still serves to convey important elements about the identities of these individuals. We can glean information about wealth, social status, role in the community, familial relationships—all of which help to enrich our reconstruction of ancient Palmyrene society.250

Silver also discusses how the family tombs within these Funerary tombs reflect the unity and importance of groups such as tribes, clans, and families in Palmyra. Silver reflects, “They [the family tombs in Palmyra] provide a valuable source for studying the families and individuals in

249 Halbwachs and Coser, On collective memory, 81.

250 Becker, “Temple of Bel, Palmyra,” Khan Academy. 145 the great caravan city.” 251 Hence, there are many memories, both individual and collective surrounding these tower tombs and very significant to understand the history and culture of

Palmyra.

As discussed earlier, the prominence of memory in our lives, both individual and collective to create unique memories has been analyzed by scholars. Halbwachs’s most important thesis on collective memory is that human memory can only function within a collective context such as in a family or a group. Using Halbwachs’s concept of family memory

(collective memory that functions within a group such as family or affiliated with the family and its members) we see how each of these funerary tower tombs harbors a unique memory of families who lived in ancient Palmyrene society. While families in contemporary Syria do not trace their genealogy directly to these tombs, the compilation of the funerary corpus and its accessibility seems very useful because it preserves memories of distinct families who once lived in Palmyra. That being the case, the initiative by PPP to document and preserve the funerary tombs should be acknowledged because, without PPP, one of the landmark monuments of

Palmyra, the Funerary towers, would have been lost or become inaccessible to the world.

The West and the East have always been obsessed with the mysteries surrounding

Palmyra, the place itself and especially its hidden treasures. There were numerous Western expeditions to the city, which were primarily archaeological excavations to unearth its hidden treasures in the name of exploring Palmyra’s civilization. Mudie argues citing al Manzali (2016) that, with Palmyra, “the ascendancy of the site’s archaeological ruins in the Western imagination as a mythical fragment of classical antiquity and exemplary World Heritage site has come at

251 Silver, Fangi, and Denker, Reviving Palmyra in multiple dimensions: images, ruins and cultural memory, 67. 146 great cost to its quotidian, or everyday, significance.” Considering its exemplary global status, the International Astronomical Union in 2015 agreed to rename the planet Errai in the Cephus constellation as Tadmor, (Palmyra’s ancient name) at the request of the Syrian Astronomical

Association.252 In fact, some of the local population was displaced from the ancient site to make way for most of the archaeological excavations.253

Collective acts of ritualized remembering through the digital preservation of Palmyra and the recuperation of Palmyrene artifacts such as the Triumphal Arc ensure the preservation of the history of the city and also, in turn, maintains the tradition of collective memorialization by the

Syrians and also by the West. Many would argue that these digital initiatives to recuperate

Palmyrene artifacts elsewhere and into a virtual space might not evoke the similar kind of feeling that they obtain when they experience the city right in front of their eyes. Critics have argued that the recreation of the Triumphal Arc of Palmyra is inauthentic. As a response to these criticisms, the people involved in the rebuilding of the Arc have their own justifications for the initiative.

Michel, (Director of IDA) explains that “When you watch satellite images of structures like the

Temple of Bel in Palmyra just reduced to rubble over the course of five minutes,” the people behind the project are compelled to somehow reconstruct it. Karmelek adds that reconstruction may not be the “purest” form of preservation, but in cases where there are not many other options, it might be the best course of action.254 Even the architects (IDA) behind the project of

252 Crawford, “Fallen Glory,” 566.

253 Al-Manzali, “Palmyra and the Political History of Archaeology in Syria: from Colonialists to Nationalists,” quoted in Mudie, “Palmyra and the Radical Other On the Politics of Monument Destruction in Syria,” 144-45.

254 Karmelek, “The New Monument Men Outsmart ISIS,” 2015.

147 the replica of the Arc agree that recreation can never replace the original Arc, which was destroyed in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks. The destruction of the monuments of Palmyra points to the visual reminders that are required to perpetuate the memory of a place like Palmyra.

Hence, while it is not possible to recreate the exact monuments, in lieu of the original, these digital reproductions of Palmyra help preserve the memory of the ancient city.

The reconstruction of the demolished artifacts of Palmyra is a form of recovery of

Palmyra itself because, in the process of rebuilding these artifacts memories surrounding

Palmyra are being recovered. However, the memory that is being produced is a new kind of memory about the monuments of Palmyra located in new sites. Subsequently, the rebuilding of the artifacts elsewhere and transferring them into a digital space itself is a transformation of memory happening in two ways: the transformation of Palmyra as a result of the loss of Palmyra in connection to the demolition of Palmyrene artifacts; and the transformation happening to

Palmyra, the place, as a result of the transferring of Palmyrene artifacts to a digital space and elsewhere, which can be understood as a form of recovery as well. Therefore, both the loss and recovery of Palmyra add to the transformation of Palmyra and the memories surrounding it.

Palmyra and its Deadly Geography: The Place has been Transformed

In the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on Palmyra, the international media was successful in spreading the news about the devastation of Palmyra and its monuments by ISIS. With Palmyra, the notion of deadly must be viewed in a broader and connotative sense. Survival practices associated with overcoming one’s tragic plight can also be deadly. Witnessing how the historically and culturally significant artifacts of Palmyra are reduced to rubble or bulldozed off within minutes and physically erased can instill a deadly feeling of fear. Moreover, the kind of policing that a terrorist organization such as ISIS exerts to provoke fear is almost always brutal 148 and deadly. ISIS’s occupation of Palmyra turns the physical terrain of Palmyra into a dangerous and deadly zone in the present that makes everyday life grim and travel to Palmyra almost impossible.

Over the course of Palmyra’s history, the city acclaimed as the “City of Ruins” was unearthed, dusted, excavated, and covered again multiple times. As discussed earlier, Palmyra is a palimpsest and it contains layers of un-demarcated boundaries and spaces. UNESCO classifies

Palmyra as a “World Heritage site in Danger” primarily because the city is located within a deadly geography created by ISIS. Various geopolitical, economic, and political factors have made Palmyra an unsafe place for travel and inaccessible to tourists and scholars alike. The city has transformed into an inhospitable terrain, a death trap, with mines laid around Palmyra.255 The conflict between Russian-backed Syrian troops and ISIS militants in order to reclaim the city has proven deadly. As a result, Palmyra the place has become a deadly political and civic space.

Palmyra, a city steeped in history and myth, had many stories to offer to the people who once visited it as tourists, researchers, and scholars. Tim Cresswell urges us to understand deadly spaces or places that are marked as having a deadly geography with a deep inward feeling rather than with mere intellect.256 The people who visited Palmyra—tourists, researchers, and scholars—explored and tried to understand Palmyra with a “deep inward feeling” (to understand it emotionally) and they helped to carry the stories and myths around the world. These might be about anything and everything related to the city, short or elaborate description of the

255 See article: Rick Gladstone and Hwaida Saad, “ISIS Fighters Laid Mines Around Palmyra’s Ancient Ruins Before Retreating, Syrians Say,” New York Times, March 3, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/world/middleeast/isis-fighters-laid-mines-around- palmyras-ancient-ruins-before-retreating-syrians-say.html.

256 Tim Creswell, “Place: Encountering Geography as Philosophy,” (GEOGRAPHY - LONDON- 93, no. 3 (2008), 135-136. 149 geographical aspects of the place in terms of research, hearsay and tell-tale stories. As Lippard explains, there is always “the historical narrative as it is written in the landscape or place by the people who live or lived there.”257 Even one’s own experiences, as a tourist or scholar, are tied to a place and the experience of Palmyra by Westerners and others from around the world also constitute memories contributing towards a collective consciousness. In the wake of the ISIS attacks, the collective consciousness of the world is molded by the terror unleashed by ISIS and the deadly terrain of Palmyra. Hence, Palmyra today has been transformed from a tourist spot to a contested warzone.

Palmyra as a place and its geography have been ravaged by ISIS after it invaded the city and demolished the artifacts within it. To understand Palmyra’s transformation from a tourist spot to a contested warzone, I draw on architecture critic Robert Bevan’s recent monograph, The

Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, which provides a thoughtful analysis on the destruction of memory through a war waged on architecture. He argues that, “The link between erasing any physical reminder of a people and its collective memory and the killing of the people themselves is ineluctable. The continuing fragility of civilized society and decency is echoed in the fragility of its monuments.” Bevan sees this as a form of “cultural cleansing, with architecture as its medium . . . a phenomenon that has been barely understood.”258 As scholars like Bevan, Bernard Cohn, Leon Krier, Peter Eisenman, and Geoffrey Scott have explored, the design and architecture of buildings are saturated with ideological content. Thus, buildings are not political by its own nature but are politicized “by why and how they are built, regarded and

257 Luzy Lippard, Lure of the local: sense of place in a multicultural society (New York: New Press, 1997), 7.

258 Robert Bevan, The destruction of memory: architecture at war (London, UK: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2016),18-19. 150 destroyed”.259 The politicization of Palmyrene architecture (ISIS’s iconoclasm against Palmyrene architecture) and its shift from a relatively safe place where once people lived to a deadly place disrupts the West’s ideal of a “Shelleyean Utopia” and “an oasis of date palms,” where water from the sulfurous spring Efqa, which bubbled up through a limestone cave irrigated the surrounding land via a series of natural canals.260 Moreover, the series of memories that we have about Palmyra as a place—individual, collective, cultural, and historical—have been continuously layered throughout its history. Most spaces identified as living spaces have cultural and emotional resonances with both natives and outsiders. The occupation of Palmyra by ISIS entailed the disruption of Palmyra’s geography and civic life. In contested and deadly places, how these places/spaces should have been treated as opposed to how they are treated in reality become an important narrative in the discourse about Palmyra.

The monuments destroyed in Palmyra are part of the collateral damage of the Syrian war and ISIS’s ideological quest for an Islamic republic. The war on architecture, as Bevan explains, entails the “destruction of the cultural artefacts of an enemy people or nation as a means of dominating, terrorizing, dividing or eradicating it altogether.” Architecture, according to Bevan, acquires a totemic quality and structures and places of symbolic significance such as Palmyra are deliberately demolished or “selected for oblivion with deliberate intent.” Bevan, therefore, asserts that rather than being collateral damage, the destruction of architecture is a deliberate effort to erase the memories, history, and identity attached to the architecture of a place and to create “a place-enforced forgetting.” Therefore, “these buildings are attacked not because they

259 Bevan, The destruction of memory: architecture at war, 23.

260 Crawford, 544. 151 are in the path of a military objective: to their destroyers they are the objective.”261 This practice of deliberate destruction applies to the monuments of Palmyra that were destroyed by ISIS in the name of iconoclasm. As Bevan states, the destruction of cultural sites can serve many purposes such as terror, propaganda, conquest, and genocide.262 The monuments of Palmyra are very much imbued with the memories, history, and identity of the Syrians but it has also become a patrimony of the world. After it was designated the status of a World Heritage site, Palmyra came to be claimed as a site of a global civilization. Palmyra thus no longer belongs just to Syria or the Syrians. It belongs to the world. Therefore, the destruction of Palmyra and its monuments is conceived not merely as a local or ethnic crisis but as a global crisis spurring the global effort to recuperate it elsewhere by the West.

The concept of place is dynamic and it is hard to demarcate or define a place as merely consisting of a geographic space alone. While Palmyra as a space has been redefined, Palmyra as a place has also changed in the Western consciousness. When people think of Palmyra in the present, it is no more restricted to the geographic limits of the Syrian province. Palmyra’s boundaries have extended from a geographic territory to cyberspace. With the help of the virtual initiatives discussed earlier, Palmyra comes alive right in front of our eyes. A geographic space can be demarcated with clearly defined boundaries. But, when it comes to cyberspace, it is no more a space that is restricted within certain set limits. Apart from the digital recuperations,

Palmyrene monuments—such as the Triumphal Arc—have also been carried and displayed around the world. Numerous Syrians including the original inhabitants of Palmyra are scattered

261 Bevan, 18.

262 Bevan, 9.

152 across the world as refugees of Syrian war. These people carry with them memories attached to the city of Palmyra and also its monuments which are representative of their Syrian identity and culture. Palmyrene monuments now belong in the diaspora and are also harbored in-between spaces such as United Kingdom, United States, Poland, Russia, Italy, and Denmark etc. This is mainly because several Palmyrene artifacts are housed in Western museums and private homes.

As a result, Palmyrene monuments become representative of the illegal trade antiquities in the

Western market.

In 2017 The Sydney Morning Herald announced, “Now the Lion of al-Lat stands proud again, after being carefully restored by Polish archaeologist Bartosz Markowski and re-erected in

Damascus.”263 The digital recuperations have helped to reconstruct and transform the memory of

Palmyra and its artifacts outside Palmyra and to the virtual media. We no longer think of

Palmyra and its artifacts as restricted geographically to Syria alone or as belonging to the

Syrians.

Criticism against the virtual documentation and reproduction of Palmyrene artifacts rests on the belief that the cultural ownership of Palmyra belongs to the Syrians and that it is not possible to recreate the heritage and cultural value of these artifacts through virtual media.

However, some of these critiques are directed against the “ownership” of Palmyrene artifacts outside of Syria and especially by the West. As discussed previously, many of these artifacts are freely available in the Western international market, both original and fake versions of them. Yet another reason for the vehement critique against digital reproduction is that most of these virtual

263 Kinda Makieh, “Palmyra Lion of al-Lat statue damaged by IS now stand proud in Damascus,” The Sydney Morning Herald, October 27, 2017, https://www.smh.com.au/world/palmyra-lion-of-allat-statue-damaged-by-is-now-stands-proud- in-damascus-20171002-gyseh9.html.

153 initiatives are funded and operated by the West and also the medium of communication used in most of these online initiatives is mainly English. It is quite understandable that if the mode of communication is English, which is the primary speaking language of most of the Western countries, then most of the Middle-Eastern countries and specifically people from Syria who cannot understand English do not have any kind of access to these initiatives. That posits a lot of questions related to the digitization of Palmyrene artifacts by Western initiatives that I have discussed in the previous chapter. The point for critics may not be that these objects are being digitized, but rather how, by whom, and who has control over the digitized artifacts, what kind of access there is (for example, is any of the documentation in Arabic? Are Syrians included in the conceptualization of these digital artifacts, etc.)? These are serious issues to deal with and are at the heart of my point about the West appropriating Palmyra for its own ends rather than solely as a service to the world.

However, some scholars have pointed out the significance of digital media and its mission in achieving larger political and ethical goals. Landsberg argues that technologically produced or, which the author names as, “inauthentic” or “prosthetic” memory is capable of achieving larger ethical and political goals. She explains:

“Modernity makes possible and necessary a new form of public cultural memory. This new form of memory, which I call prosthetic memory, emerges at the interface between a person and a historical narrative about the past, at an experiential site, such as a movie theater or museum. In this moment of contact, an experience occurs through which the person sutures himself or herself into a larger history … In the process that I am describing, the person does not simply apprehend a historical narrative but takes on a more deeply personal, deeply felt memory of a past event through which he or she did not live. The resulting prosthetic memory has the ability to shape that person’s subjectivity and politics”264

264 Alison Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 2. 154

Landsberg examines the formation of prosthetic memories in three cases in which memory transmission for historical reasons became enormously problematic: the case of United States immigrants in the 1910s and 1920s, who were separated from their European communities and homeland and for whom the memory of the “homeland” was never uncomplicated; the case of

African Americans after slavery, for whom the legacy of what Orlando Patterson calls “natural alienation” had specific implications for memory and genealogy; and the case of the Holocaust, where the eradication of witnesses and the death of survivors have complicated both remembering and testifying.”265 The author explains how in each of these cases, kinship ties were broken (the link between parents and children or between communities) and alternative methods for the transmission of communication were required. The memories forged in response to modernity’s ruptures do not exclusively belong to a particular group. The memories of the

Holocaust do not belong exclusively to the Jews or the memories of Slavery to African

Americans. Through the technologies of mass culture, prosthetic memories are transportable and therefore challenge notions of memory such as heritage and ownership. This new form of memory according to Landsberg is neither reactionary nor progressive but powerful. Hence,

Landsberg argues that rather than disdain the new memory-making technologies, we must instead recognize their power and political potential. Likewise, with Palmyra, we have to recognize and acknowledge the power and potential of its virtual recreations in recovering

Palmyra and transferring its artifacts from a geographic space to a digital memorial.

Most of these are 3D user-friendly exhibits that provide an opportunity for viewers to interact with Palmyra virtually and create a sense of being in the city. On a related note,

265 Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture, 2. 155

Landsberg in Engaging the Past: Mass Culture and the Production of Historical Knowledge points out that it is important to realize the role popular audiovisual media “have played in shaping the way people in the present visualize, come to understand, and ultimately feel invested in history.”266 She specifically discusses the often-unexplored audiovisual historical medium— the virtual history exhibits on the Internet. As she points out, the most significant aspect of the virtual history exhibit is its “ability to reconstruct spaces that literally do not exist anymore or do not exist as they once did and to translate those temporally lost experiences into the present.”267

Landsberg, using examples of The Secret Annex Online virtual exhibit from the Anne Frank

Museum website, and Witnessing History: Kristallnacht, a virtual exhibit created by and accessed through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, asserts that through these recreated virtual spaces visitors have a unique way to engage with the past and thereby they have more agency to interact with their past. According to Landsberg, witnessing the virtual history exhibits such as the Holocaust Memorial provides a therapeutic experience that “can create the conditions in which past atrocities can become part of a usable past.”268 Landsberg, thus, urges, “to explore the ability of prosthetic memories to produce empathy and social responsibility as well as political alliances that transcend race, class, and gender [to promote] potentially counterhegemonic public spheres.”269 Landsberg’s theory can be applied to the virtual exhibits of

Palmyra such as IDA, Getty Online, #New Palmyra, and PPP which will help to promote a sense

266 Alison Landsberg, Engaging the Past: Mass Culture and the Production of Historical Knowledge (New York, Columbia University Press, 2015), 2.

267 Landsberg, Engaging the Past: Mass Culture and the Production of Historical Knowledge, 157.

268 Landsberg, 176.

269 Landsberg, 21. 156 of transparency, accessibility, and international solidarity to fight against all modes of cultural annihilation.

Conclusion

As we engage the technological advancements in recreating Palmyra and its monuments elsewhere and digitally, the efforts of individuals like Assad who have fought to preserve the memory of Palmyra and its monuments are historically important. “The Destruction of

Memory,” a documentary which explores the role of architecture in cultural genocide, and is based on Bevan’s book with the same title, asserts that “those who willingly risk their lives to protect not just other human beings, but our cultural identity—to safeguard the record of who we are, and to provide evidence of crimes against humanity.”270 These words from the documentary fit the octogenarian Syrian archaeologist Assad, who sacrificed his life and career to promote and preserve the cultural identity of Palmyra. At the same time, it is also important that we acknowledge the significance of these virtual projects and their Palmyrene recreations. These virtual aids made it possible to transfer the memory of Palmyra from a geographic space to a digital medium and thereby preserve a particular archive of memories surrounding Palmyra and its artifacts for posterity. As the last two chapters have argued, today Palmyra has been transferred to a “safer zone,” the virtual media, and its boundaries have been redrawn. Hence,

270 Jason Sayer, “‘The Destruction of Memory,” documentary explores the role of architecture in cultural genocide,” The Architect’s Newspaper, June 13, 2016, https://archpaper.com/2016/06/destruction-memory-tale-going-cultural-genocide-face- today/#gallery-0-slide-0.

157 one might argue, that while Palmyra, the local site, may not have escaped the fates of Troy,

Babylon, and Memphis, its civilizational memory in the West’s guardianship, is being kept alive virtually, and solely for its “own reasons.”

158

CHAPTER FOUR. CONCLUSION: THE LOSS OF PALMYRA AND THE BAMIYAN BUDDHAS

This intertwined relationship between digital technologies, the internet and imperial

power structures that the Palmyra exhibition brings into play has further reaching

implications when one considers the role played by technology in the Syrian conflict

more broadly. Initially harnessed by civilians as a tool of revolutionary uprising during

the Arab Spring, the internet all too quickly became the target of a clamp down by the

regime and in the present conflict is predominantly utilized for the purposes of

surveillance, control and oppression.

- Mudie, “Palmyra and the Radical Other”

In “Once destroyed by the Taliban the Buddha statues live again,” a recent news video produced by the BBC, a team of conservators, both local and international are featured trying to put together the 7000 shattered pieces of Buddhist statues that were sledgehammered by the

Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. The BBC’s Shoaib Sharifi visited the National Museum in Kabul where a team is rebuilding some of the ancient Buddha sculptures that were destroyed by the

Taliban. Fabio Colombo, the conservator, passionately speaks about it in the video produced for

BBC: “We found the collection inside 12 trunks in Kabul Museum. This is one of the most important collections in Afghanistan and Central Asia. This is gold for us.” The BBC documents how the Taliban tried to erase all traces of a rich pre-Islamic past and ordered the destruction of ancient statues, including the world’s tallest standing Buddhas, when they seized power in

Afghanistan in 1996 and imposed an extremist version of Islamic law across the country. “Those memories are still alive for millions of Afghans. And now they have become present concerns, as the US and Afghan government negotiate with the Taliban for a deal that could see them return 159 to power in Afghanistan.”271 ISIS, who shares the Taliban’s ideological mission to root out idolatry, was purportedly trying to instill its iconoclastic views on the architecture of Palmyra when it sledgehammered and bulldozed the monuments that were representative of the culture of

Palmyra.

A report from The New York Times, “2 Giant Buddhas Survived 1,500 years. Fragments,

Graffiti and a Hologram Remains,” relates another episode in the restoration of the Bamiyan

Buddhas. The New York Times reports how Janson Hu and Liyan Hu financed a 3D light projection of Solsol, one of the Bamiyan Buddhas that was destroyed by the Taliban. However, the 3D recreation is provisional as there is no substantial monetary contribution to further the project or appropriate management from the government’s part to sustain it. The light projector functions at the mercy of the solar panels as Bamiyan does not have electricity except for the solar panels. The projector thrives on a diesel generator which the locals cannot afford at this point. Even worse is the dismal state of affairs at the site where the remnants of the demolished

Buddhas are still present. The report mentions how visitors can walk in and do whatever they want: souvenir-hunters steal pieces of painted stucco decorations from the network of chambers or remove chunks of fallen sandstone; others carve graffiti signatures and slogans; and the site has even seen solicitations for sex.272 Unfortunately, while there are striking similarities between the destruction of Bamiyan by the Taliban and of Palmyrene monuments by ISIS in the name of

271 “Once destroyed by the Taliban the Buddha statues live again,” BBC, April 18, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-47954950/once-destroyed-by-the-taliban-the-buddha- statues-live-again.

272 Rod Norland, “2 Giant Buddhas Survived 1,500 years. Fragments, Graffiti and a Hologram Remains,” The New York Times, June 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/world/asia/afghanistan-bamiyan- buddhas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share. 160 iconoclasm, many World Heritage Sites at risk such as the Bamiyan Buddhas have not received much international attention as compared to Palmyra. Nor have they been reclaimed by the West as a site of ancient civilizational memory or global culture.

In this chapter, I argue that the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas does not receive as much attention as Palmyra primarily because the Bamiyan Buddhas have been perceived as belonging inherently to the East and represents eastern culture. I conclude my dissertation by discussing how these efforts to reclaim Palmyra as a patrimony of the West must be juxtaposed against the reality that Palmyra’s antiquities have remained present in the lives of Syrians and peoples living in the region. Therefore, the real Palmyra is lost somewhere in translation and transference.

In contrast to Palmyra, Bamiyan has been seen as embodying Eastern civilization because its Buddha statues have represented the influence of Buddhism. Rather than a global crossroads,

Bamiyan has been seen as a crossroads within Asia, where travelers and traders from South and

East Asia met along the silk route. I argue that the negligence the international community has shown towards Bamiyan stems from this perception of the Bamiyan as part of an Asian cultural legacy rather than a global civilizational heritage. The numerous global initiatives—both virtual and physical—to restore Palmyra serves as a foil to the West’s apparent indifference to Palmyra.

Palmyra elevation from a local civilization to a global level enables it to be claimed by the West as its patrimony. Palmyra, which is a mixture of the Greco-Roman and Middle Eastern cultures has now been brought under the ambit of Western civilization.

Similarly, numerous artifacts of aesthetic and historical importance have been re-created recently with the help of technology and made accessible to the public. The BBC reports how

Google has made possible the re-creation of an ancient statue, the Lion of Mosul, which was 161 destroyed by ISIS in 2015, by using crowd-sourced pictures and 3D printing. The BBC reports how, “the project is part of the museum’s Culture Under Attack season, which sees it team up with Google Arts and Culture and Historic England to explore the impact of war on culture around the world.” As part of the project’s free access, it is possible for online visitors to play around with the 3D model and zoom in to study the intricate details of the statue. For the first time Google Arts & Culture have created an object or artwork as part of a museum exhibition, and the public can experience it at the Imperial War Museum in London from July 5, 2019 onwards. Originally, the statue was a giant Assyrian guardian lion, which stood at the entrance of the Temple of Ishtar in Nimrud, Iraq.273 Most of these initiatives, including the reconstruction of the Lion of Mosul, are inspired by virtual projects such as the IDA, among others, which have made possible the reconstruction of the Palmyrene monuments and also their virtual access through various digital forms and archives.

As mentioned earlier, unlike the international focus on Palmyra, the Bamiyan Buddhas have not received much Western attention. Efforts to restore them have been dampened by the

1994 Nara Document on Authenticity and UNESCO’s declaration "that any attempt to rebuild Bamiyan Buddhas will result in the site being removed from the list of World

Heritage.”274 Ironically, any attempt to restore the Buddha Statues at Bamiyan would corrupt the authenticity of the historic site. Bevan therefore sees UNESCO’s stance as "a call for truth in architecture."275 Prior to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, Japan had offered to remove

273 “Google lets destroyed Lion of Mosul roar again,” BBC, July 2, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48839818.

274 Bevan, The destruction of memory: architecture at war, 245.

275 Bevan, 245. 162 the statues from Bamiyan and restore them outside Afghanistan, an offer that was rejected by the

Taliban. In the wake of the destruction of the Bamiyan statues, not many conservators or institutions came forward to rebuild them, unlike the digital initiatives and the physical recreations of the Palmyrene monuments. This is mainly because the majority of the people behind the Bamiyan project also believed that the reconstruction of Bamiyan would only erase the history and culture of the place and result in a Disneyfication of the Bamiyan Buddhas.276

Bevan argues how the reconstruction of a demolished architecture such as the Bamiyan

Buddhas can likely produce “a falsification” of the original. Bevan further explains that there are various “pitfalls of reconstruction” when it comes to circumstances that are meant to be “forced forgetting” through an attack on the material culture of the place (by Taliban) to destroy the memory of a place. Hence, he advocates, “a pragmatic reconstruction necessary for the resumption of life” through “a need to remember, a need to call to account, and a need to prevent destruction from being repeated.”277 Moreover, and above all, as Bevan argues is, “the need for truth to be expressed in the raisings of buildings” and what is most important is “whose truths are being constructed?” Bevan’s question raises critical concerns for my research that analyzes the transformation of memory through the reconstructions of Palmyrene monuments by the West elsewhere and in digital media. Therefore, it is fundamental for my dissertation to further discuss whose memories are being transformed and whether there is a falsification of the memories that are being re-created by the West through these digital and physical reproductions.

Some questions I engage in this dissertation on the transfer of Palmyra and its monuments to the digital space by the West have included: What kind of memories are being

276 Bevan, 246.

277 Bevan, 230. 163 preserved, and whose memories are preserved in the digital space? What has been lost when

Palmyra was appropriated as a World Heritage Site, a monument, and even as a memorial? What are the different ways by which the title of Palmyra as a World Heritage Site contribute to the memory of Palmyra? When Palmyra was transferred to digital space and its monuments recreated, what has been lost in the translation? What has been accomplished in the process? In this chapter, I offer explanations to some of these questions and further analyze how the destruction of Palmyrene monuments by ISIS and the recuperation of them by the West have impacted the Syrians in particular and the West in general.

As I argue in chapter two, when the West claimed custodianship of Palmyra, there was also an intense effort to reconstruct the spatial geography and architectural form. These efforts served as a means of recovering place rather than the memory of the ancient and local culture of

Palmyra. Richardson discusses how in his interview with Michel, the current Director of IDA, reveals a ‘postconflict plan for the Middle East.’ Richardson explains:

Michel says he is in discussions right now with folks in Aleppo about reconstructing the minaret of the mosque there. He hopes to get into Palmyra – now that Isil has been driven out by Russian-backed Syrian government forces - to begin reconstruction work and, more grandiosely, has already had talks with regional governments about developing a ‘postconflict plan for the Middle East.’278

Michel’s postconflict plan for the Middle East sounds patronizing and magnificent. But the question here is: does Palmyra/Middle East require a patron from the West to preserve its monuments or recreate them within its own soil? In that case, exactly whose memory of the place once destroyed will be resurrected in Palmyra? How can an “outsider” such as Michel, one who has not lived in Palmyra understand the spatial geography and re-create an artifact in the

278 Richardson, “The Arch of Triumph of Palmyra is recreated in London - 1,800 years after it was built,” 2016.

164 exact likeness? With Palmyra, it may be possible re-create something in the exact or near likeness, but the very process of rebuilding Palmyrene monuments is not merely about putting stones and slabs together to reproduce an artistic structure. The memory of the place and the emotional and cultural values that the inhabitants of the city have placed on these monuments also count. Therefore, the whole process of reconstructing Palmyra, the city, as Michel describes, is not easy and has complex cultural, religious, economic, and social ramifications.

I have previously discussed in chapter three how the displacement of Palmyra primarily to Western sites through digital imaging draws attention to the value of the material representations of Palmyra while obscuring local cultural memories. The erasure of Palmyra as a local site is achieved through the physical violence of ISIS as well as by the West’s sense of entitlement to Palmyra as a World Heritage Site. Indeed, the digital productions of Palmyra have become a means by which the West claims custodianship of the civilizational memory that

Palmyra has historically represented to the West.

Palmyra is a complex multi-ethnic site and, as discussed in chapter one, what makes

Palmyra unique is this very complexity that has enamored the world in general and the West in particular. Mudie explains how Palmyra “as an archaeological site located in the Middle East yet claimed by the West as an example of universal heritage, and standing at the crossroads of both the global war on terror and an intensely localized civil conflict, the current situation at Palmyra in many ways continues its long history as a complex multi-ethnic site.”279 The reification of

Palmyra as a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO has transformed its status from a local tourist site of archaeological significance to a global center of civilizational memory. The West and the

East have looked to Palmyra as a representative of the “ancient world culture” that combines

279 Mudie, 143. 165

Greco-Roman and the Middle Eastern elements. Mudie further argues how “the international drive to increase the legal mandate to protect cultural heritage coincides with the rise of the field of virtual heritage.” Therefore, significant attention is paid to the role played by technology in preserving at-risk archaeological and architectural sites and the extent to which digital reconstructions risk reifying a classical past at the expense of engaging with the present-day cultures of the Middle-East.280 In contrast, numerous World Heritage Sites at risk such as the

Bamiyan Buddhas have not received international attention as compared to Palmyra nor have they been reclaimed by the West as a site of ancient civilizational memory.

As a result of Palmyra’s global status, the local significance of Palmyra is lost especially because of the displacement of the local population within the city. Ingrid D Rowland (2016) discusses how even before the recent devastation of Palmyra by ISIS, the site had “suffered destruction in the lofty name of knowledge: it was twentieth-century archaeologists, not Islamic fanatics, who obliterated old Tadmor Village, and many structures, like fortification walls, that dated from post-classical times.”281 The local culture suffered at the hands of these lofty intruders including archaeologists who erased the local culture and cultural practices/rituals of the city. In the process of exploring ancient ruins, numerous archaeologists have unearthed a significant number of artifacts including the burial tower tombs, a remarkable monument of

Palmyra. This very practice of exhuming tombs in the name of archaeological expedition has impacted the sentiments and cultural value that the local population had placed on the artifacts and also the preservation of the memory of their ancestors. Most of these archaeological

280 Mudie, 139.

281 Ingrid D Rowland, “Breakfast in the Ruins,” The New York Review of Books, September 17, 2016, www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/09/17/breakfast-in-the-ruins- palmyraphotographs/.

166 expeditions were led by Western researchers, including Harald Ingholt, who excavated many tombs in Palmyra around 1920, recorded in sketches and data in his unpublished diaries, which later contributed to substantial archaeological evidence of the site.282 There were also Polish-led excavations of the Camp of Diocletian started in 1959 under the Director, Kazimierz

Michalowski that continued for the next six decades.

The Getty online exhibit records: “These archaeological projects significantly changed the physical landscape of Palmyra. Prominent buildings, like the theater, baths, and banquet halls, were unearthed as the streets jutting off the Colonnade Street were traced out from the ground.”283 The local population came to depend largely on the tourist potential of the site and it became a primary source of revenue for many inhabitants who were eventually removed from the city limits. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the local significance of Palmyra, not only as a cultural site but also as a tourist site on which the local economy depended. Palmyra’s reality as a war zone today and its global status as the West’s patrimony comes at the expense of its local inhabitants and their cultural, economic, and religious practices.

Historically, the West has used the term civilization as a highly exclusive term that referred mainly to Western civilizations. As scholars of postcolonial theory have pointed out, notions of civilization are embedded in imperial/colonial formations. Edward Said, for instance, was a vehement critic of the Eurocentric concept of civilization. Said critiques the concept of

282 Rubina Raja and Annette Hojen Sorensen, Harald Ingholt and Palmyra (Aarhus: Faellestrykkeriet Aarhus Universitet, 2015), 24.

283 Terpak and Bonfitto, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra, Palmyra in the Modern Era,” Accessed January 14, 2020, http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/palmyra_today.html.

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Orientalism for its narrow framework and exclusive approach towards other cultures and civilizations, especially of the East. Robinson, in Exorcising Translation: Towards an

Intercivilizational Turn, uses the concept of “civilizational memory” to explain it as a collective process similar to the collective memory of remembering things collectively or as a group.284

Since the digital recuperations of Palmyra have become a patrimony of the West, I use the term to convey a sense of how these digital productions of Palmyra have become a means by which the West claims custodianship of the civilizational memory that Palmyra has historically represented to the West. Therefore, civilizational memory is the memory surrounding the ancient civilization of Palmyra as imagined by the West and reclaimed by it.

Historically, the term “civilizational memory” in a broader or non-Western framework can be also applied to other artifacts that are destroyed in the middle of an armed conflict. These include but are not limited to the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas in March 2001 by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.285 The attack on civilizational memory during the Gulf War in Iraq after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in the wake of the US-led invasion resulted in the looting of the Baghdad Museum, the Iraqi National Library & Archives and the Library of Islamic manuscripts attached to the Ministry of Religious Endowments, resulting in the destruction of priceless artifacts over 7,000 years old.286 The cultural and civilizational genocide involved in the destruction of Sarajevo’s numerous mosques, churches, and libraries which dated back to

14th & 15th centuries as well as the damage caused to Croatia’s Dubrovnik, a city with over 400

284 Robinson, Exorcising translation: towards an intercivilizational turn, 111-15.

285 Kristin M. Romey, “Cultural Terrorism,” Archaeology 54, no. 3 (May/June 2001).

286 David Tresilian, ““Cultural Catastrophe” Hits Iraq,” Al-Ahram Weekly, April 24-30, 2003, https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/167/35481.html.

168 monuments, during the Kosovo War, are all recent examples of the destruction of civilizational memory as a result of an armed conflict.287 When I use the term “civilizational memory,” I indicate the fact that the ancient site of Palmyra is a great civilization as imagined by the West and I extend its meaning to include a genealogy of memory of Western civilization. As previously discussed, in using the term civilizational memory, I also draw on this exclusive sense of civilization to denote the West’s historical archive of memory.

Palmyra has been exposed to domestic and foreign invasions and various encroachments throughout its history mainly because it was geographically positioned in the middle of the desert and also connecting the silk route. In the introductory chapter, I briefly mentioned how this is not the first time that Palmyra has been invaded, looted, and transformed. The Roman invasion of

Palmyra that ended Queen Zenobia’s legacy includes one of these transformations. There are records of how and why Palmyra is considered “a ruin of ruins” and how the city has been conquered by the West and the East. In 2016, the news of Syrian backed Russian troops conducting a live orchestra in the Roman theater of Palmyra grabbed headlines in international media. TIME’s

Tara John reported the news with the title, “Russian Orchestra Plays Bach Amid Ruins of

Palmyra.” The report read: “A Russian symphony orchestra played a surprise concert in Syria’s ruins of Palmyra, on the site where ISIS killed 25 people in 2015.”288 This was on May 5, 2016, right after Syrian- backed Russian forces evicted ISIS from the area. John also added how Russian

President Putin praised the performance and said that it gave “hope for Palmyra’s revival as the

287 Par Eduard Serbenco, “The Protection of Cultural Property and Post-conflict Kosovo,” Revue Québécoise de Droit International 18, no. 2 (2005), 91-126.

288 Tara John, “Russian Orchestra Plays Bach Amidst Ruins of Palmyra,” Time, May 6, 2016, http://time.com/4320723/russia-orchestra-concert-syria-palmyra/.

169 heritage of the whole community.” Since UNESCO declared Palmyra as a World Heritage Site and elevated it from its local status to a global one, the West has assumed that Palmyra belongs to the whole community, which includes the West as well as the local community. Putin has also echoed the rhetoric used by the West to address Palmyra as belonging to the West and its patrimony as reconstructed through the digital recreations. The rhetoric used by Putin as a representative of one of the strong Western forces reinforces the prevalent ideology that Palmyra’s revival is somehow “the heritage of the whole community” and is iconic of Western values and cultures. As a result, Putin, including many others such as Michel, the current Director of IDA, are reinforcing the ideology of “civilization” that equated with the West, with the “uncivilized” as the East, “the

Other.”

The recapture of the city by ISIS again in 2016 right after the musical concert staged by

Russia seems politically and symbolically motivated. Kristy Campion argues, “The symbolic importance of Palmyra for IS became evident in late 2016 again when it reconquered the site from which it had earlier been expelled.” Campion adds that ISIS’s “effort to overwrite the

Russian image that IS decided to have a second go at Palmyra – a symbolic slap in the face of

Russia,” probably as a reaction to the “Russian’s staged musical concert among the ruins to celebrate its victory” which is publicized widely through media.289 ISIS was also staging a kind of “performance” when it destroyed the ancient sites of cultural and archaeological prominence such as the Temples of Bel and Baal Shamin. What predominantly motivates these conquests is the message they convey mostly through social media and how social media becomes a medium to construct their newly gained identity. The Russian army is able to send out a strong message

289 Kristy Campion, “Blast through the Past Terrorist Attacks on Art and Antiquities as a Reconquest of the Modern Jihadi Identity,” Perspectives on Terrorism 11, no. 1 (2017), 34.

170 to the world about how Palmyra will be regained as the patrimony of the West when it is recaptured from ISIS. On the other hand, ISIS, by taking Palmyra back from the Russian forces, is conveying an equally bold message to its followers that it is recreating a new world order and identity for its supporters.

This dissertation, “Civilizational Memory: The Transformation of Palmyra as a Cultural

Patrimony of the West,” uses memory theory to analyze the transformation of Palmyra as West’s legacy in the aftermath of the ISIS invasion and in the hand of the West. I have also briefly explored other related topics such as digital memory studies and digital archaeology and the importance of my dissertation in relation to these disciplines. I have also discussed the nexus between the West and visual colonialism and used postcolonial readings in connection with digital archaeology to understand how Palmyra becomes a pawn in the hands of the West and its advanced digital tools. In this chapter, I have discussed how the digital reconstructions of

Palmyra have become a patrimony of the West and the different ramifications when the West claims custodianship of Palmyra’s memories in digital space and elsewhere. A Marxist analysis will further help to understand how mainly because of an unequal distribution of wealth, there is an ongoing international trade of antiquities in the world market. There are numerous unexplored areas such as the downfall of Palmyra, the people of Palmyra, their professions, and social lives that one can possibly explore to get a better picture of the city and its memories. Since my dissertation aligns with the discipline of digital memory studies and its related digital archaeology, I have also focused on how preserving the Palmyrene monuments through digital media contributes to sustaining the memory of the city and its monuments.

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Conclusion

By March 2016, Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra from ISIS with the help of the Russian military. However, merely recapturing the city of Palmyra has not meant that it has been reclaimed. The New York Times reported that ISIS fighters laid mines as booby traps around the ancient ruins before they retreated, and Russian forces were planning to send around 100 mine- clearing engineers to clear the site. Expelling the ISIS forces from the city was an arduous task, and as The New York Times reported, “an enormous propaganda victory for President Bashar al-

Assad of Syria and the Russians.” Russia has portrayed the expulsion of ISIS as a triumph of civilization over barbarism. There were also plans, as confirmed by the UNESCO director general Irina Bokova, to initiate the reconstruction of Syria’s cultural heritage by the end of April

2016.290 As various plans of restoring the monuments, as assured by the Western-backed forces, are on the pipeline, the situation begs the question: How can the West restore the East and, if it does, whose memories are being restored and for whom in the long run? As I argue in chapter three, there is an attempt by the West to recover the city and its architecture but there has not been an initiative to restore the memory of the city or the people of Palmyra as such. Therefore, recapturing Palmyra and restoring it with the help of Western forces have complicated the process of preserving Palmyra to posterity.

As the debate on the restoration of Palmyra continues around the question of restoring

Palmyra and its culture as a patrimony of the West rather than of restoring Syria and the

Palmyrene monuments to where they originally belonged, it is important to analyze how the memories surrounding Palmyra have been transformed in the hands of the West. What is

290 Gladstone and Saad, “ISIS Fighters Laid Mines Around Palmyra’s Ancient Ruins Before Retreating, Syrians Say,” 2016.

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Palmyra now and where exactly is it? Palmyra no longer belongs to the East as its sole cultural heritage that Syrians or the original inhabitants of Palmyra can exclusively claim or extol. Can we claim that Palmyra is completely lost to Syrians or is it annihilated from the geographic region of Syria where it was housed for thousands of years? Or, is Palmyra now housed within the monuments that we search for around the world in Danish and Polish museums, where they have been restored, including the prime artifacts of Palmyra such as the Lion of Allat, or in wealthy patrons’ houses in Russia, England, United States, and many more places around the world? Palmyra has been lost somewhere in the translation. Palmyra is lost somewhere in the transformation as well. When we think of Palmyra now, what is it really for the East, West, and the whole world? Is Palmyra an embodiment of the Syrian crisis or the military barricade for the

ISIS fighters? Palmyra can also be visualized and conceived as an invader’s space—the Roman amphitheater in Palmyra that hosted the Russian concert has also witnessed the execution of civilians and soldiers by ISIS.

I have always wanted to see, explore, and experience Palmyra. The Lion of Al-lat has always enchanted me. The emblematic statue of Queen Zenobia, destroyed by ISIS when it seized Palmyra, that once adorned the city as an embodiment of all strong women is a captivating figure that has always motivated me to pursue my dreams by overcoming my limitations. When I think and visualize Palmyra, I can no more recognize the Palmyra that I once dreamed about, conceived, and aspired to see. It is scattered all around from the East to the West.

I can no longer conceive Palmyra as a coherent whole. It seems the real Palmyra has been lost somewhere and what we perceive now is what is part of the Western patrimony. Palmyra thus stands victim to colonialism in its myriad and emergent forms, visual colonialism being one among them. The real Palmyra is somewhere lost in the translation and transference. 173

The impact of visual colonialism in a globalized world has taken its myriad forms.

Palmyra is no more a mysterious experience or an ancient archaeological treat that can be consumed if you have the will and resources to pursue it. Many artifacts from Palmyra, both real and fake, are available for purchase on e-bay and other online sites and in international and global markets. While Palmyra is renowned worldwide and has earned global heritage site status, it has also become commercialized in the process. The Western world became obsessed with

Palmyra and its artifacts and there was an attempt to save Palmyra, unlike the Bamiyan Buddhas, another target of cultural annihilation that remains ruined. Palmyra becomes a witness and victim of its own glory and tragedy.

A cursory review of the history of colonization will prove that there is always a hidden agenda in any form of colonialism including visual colonialism. As Mudie argues, “This intertwined relationship between digital technologies, the internet and imperial power structures that the Palmyra exhibition brings into play has further reaching implications when one considers the role played by technology in the Syrian conflict more broadly.”291 The dangers of visual colonialism may not be explicit but the hidden power structures and the agenda behind it are embedded in colonial ideologies of ownership. Bamiyan and Palmyra are two examples of cultural appropriation in the hands of the extremists, the former by the Taliban regime in

Afghanistan and the latter by ISIS in Syria. But what is disturbing is the cultural appropriation of the heritage of Palmyra by the West (through the structural and digital recuperations of Palmyra) and the West claiming it as its patrimony. Palmyra, the city, can never be restored to its original form and glory. Literally and metaphorically, rebuilding Palmyra is a two-level process that transforms the monuments. First, a copy of the original erases the memories surrounding the

291 Mudie, 144. 174 original. Secondly, this copy or the newer version invites an array of recent memories.

Metaphorically, the newer version erases the older version and therefore, there is a cultural appropriation of the monument as conceived and reproduced by the West and not by the original inhabitants of Syria. The West reasserts its imperial position in the global economy by further enhancing its power in myriad forms: through physically rebuilding Palmyrene monuments and displaying them across the globe, and through digital media by digitally rebuilding them as part of their Western visual repertoire.

One significant aspect of colonialism is the claiming and reclaiming of space/geographic area as part of creating a geographic mark on the area where the colonizing country invades or plans to invest. What the West has done with Palmyra is no different. When the Arc of Palmyra, an embodiment and symbol of Palmyra, Syria, in the East, has been rebuilt and reclaimed as part of the Western patrimony across the different parts of the world, the West, was trying to reassert its global authority on Syria, a country in the Middle East.

Palmyra Now: Restoration Efforts

After ISIS was expelled from Palmyra by Syrian forces on March 2017, restoration of the city has progressed. International media sources such as Daily mail.com, Artnet News,

Smithsonian Magazine, and Lonely Planet etc., announced that despite the extensive damage by

ISIS, Palmyra would reopen in 2019, after massive restorations. Most of these restorations of the

Palmyrene monuments are taken up by Western countries (United States, United Kingdom,

Russia, Poland, Italy, etc.,) and affiliates such as the IDA.292 Talal Barazi, the provincial governor of Holms, Syria announced that “The authorities now have a project to repair all the

292 Brigit Katz, “Ancient City of Palmyra Gravely Damaged by ISIS, May Reopen Next Year,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 29, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart- news/ancient-city-palmyra-gravely-damaged-isis-may-reopen-next-year-1-180970160/. 175 damage caused to Palmyra’s Old City.” Barazi further added that “UNESCO, Russia, Poland, and Italy are among the countries and institutions which have pledged to offer assistance in

Syria’s efforts to restore the artifacts and historical value of Palmyra.”293 The West has reclaimed

Palmyra through a variety of means—the re-creation of Palmyra through physically rebuilding its artifacts and the virtual reclamation of Palmyra by recreating and transferring Palmyra onto a virtual medium with the help of initiatives such as IDA, PPP, “The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra,” and #NEW PALMYRA.

Conclusion: Palmyra “Lost” in Translation and Transference

Palmyra has been partly destroyed/transformed by ISIS but, as I have discussed in this dissertation, there are already initiatives worldwide and especially by the West to bring back this ancient city to life in some form or the other—physically and virtually. While understanding the relevance of the destroyed and looted artifacts of Palmyra as memory imprinted in stone, it is also important to study their structures, to recreate them digitally, and even display them in the metropolitan cities of the West. However, these efforts are irrelevant if we forget how antiquities have always remained present in the lives of Syrians as well as many other people across the world. As Press argues:

The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra [Getty’s online exhibit] gives us only one legacy of this city. There are other legacies too: the post-classical city, which thrived as a trading center for hundreds of years; the removal of the modern inhabitants and destruction of their village in the 1930s to make way for archaeologists; the modern town of Palmyra, with tens of thousands of people who have suffered greatly, killed or displaced by ISIS, many of their homes destroyed; the infamous Tadmur Prison; the Orientalism of Western explorers; the propaganda of the Syrian state. These are mostly ignored. Many, many articles over the last two years have dealt with the classical city and its Western

293 Sara Cascone, “Nearly Destroyed by ISIS, the Ancient City of Palmyra Will Reopen in 2019 After Extensive Renovations,” Artnet News, August 27, 2017, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/syria-isis-palmyra-restoration-1338257.

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inheritance, but other aspects of Palmyra are discussed rarely, and usually in less prominent outlets.294

The impact of the transformation of Palmyra as a result of the structural and virtual recreations of it by Western-based initiatives such as the “Legacy of Ancient Palmyra” is deep.

The memories surrounding these antiquities will be passed on from generations to generations, especially through these recreations. But the memories surrounding these antiquities have been transformed and the real Palmyra is somewhere lost in the translation.

Before concluding, I would like to revisit my argument in the introductory chapter where

I discussed how Palmyra has not been completely ravaged but transformed. Palmyra today stands tall in physical reproductions and digital recreations. However, it is transformed throughout.

Palmyra and the monuments within it are no longer the same. The memories attached to it have changed. How the world has perceived it has changed over the course of its history, of destruction, murder, and rape. Mudie explains this harrowing crisis:

While the death toll in Syria is estimated at around 470,000 lives lost during nearly eight years of combat, the classical ruins of Palmyra still occupy a powerful mythical status in the cultural imaginary of the West. It is a fascination evident in the global online circulation of before-and-after photographs documenting the deliberate destruction by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) of the city’s renowned monuments of antiquity, the sharp dissonance between then-and-now provoking horror and disbelief at the hyperviolent targeting of ruins that form part of what is increasingly (although not unproblematically) perceived as the common heritage of not only the people of Syria but of the world-at-large.295

Thus, with Palmyra, it is significant to realize how colonization and imperial power can create deadly geographies within the city and how power plays into the transformation of Palmyra, especially as devised by the West.

294 Press, “The Getty’s Online Palmyra Exhibition Falls into Orientalist Traps,” 2017.

295 Mudie, 140. 177

This dissertation poses numerous questions. We are not yet sure what will happen to

Palmyra, the place, in the near future. As people behind the Western-based Palmyra restoration project such as Michel have confirmed that there are already projects on the way, will it be restored forever? Will ISIS come back with its iconoclastic agenda? Will there be a Russian or

Western coalition to protect Palmyra and if so, until when? The fate of Palmyra is sealed. To borrow Huyssen’s phrase, Palmyra becomes a “palimpsest” and stories and memories will continue to be written over and over it. The local culture of Palmyra at the time of ISIS’s invasion will be erased and new stories written on it by the West, but until when and by whom is the question that is going to haunt us. These stories might include the glory of Palmyra itself, its fall in the hands of ISIS, the story of Khaled Assad and many more who have been attached to the city and how they have been detached by the ravages of war on culture in its ugliest form: material and cultural appropriation of Palmyra by ISIS, and the West too. The real Palmyra that once stood majestically in the Syrian desert is lost in translation and transference.

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