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 © 2020 Bincy Abdul Samad All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT 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. v 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. vi 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 ...........................................................................................................