The ancient city of Palmyra was irreparably destroyed by Isis in 2015. No amount of climate control would have protected it from the explosive charges that destroyed it.
Reburying sites like these will better protect them from deliberate damage and incidental damage from wars and such. Archaeologists deal with a timescale that often can’t assume political stability of the area where they dig stuff up. It’s better to not assume that future generations will pay the electric bill to keep the site preserved.
Also, I'm guessing that the sand encasing the site is a temperature/climate controlled structure when buried properly. No sunlight and no air, for starters.
Most regions have databases full of known sites that are unexcavated because there's never been a justification for digging.
So in programmer terms, most potential sites never make it out of the priority queue
Radar, X-ray, that sort of thing
And "geophysics" were used to decide what and where to dig in most of them. They're making new episodes now, as well.
> In some cases, resources (like money, staff and proper materials) are not available to properly maintain the site.
1) It was first established by European men and women looting to fill their “curio cabinets,” which makes it hard to position it as a noble field.
2) digging something up later (with more advanced technology) will always be better than digging it up now. There’s even some people who believe the only ethical archaeology is that which occurs before an area would be otherwise destroyed (i.e. before a construction project happens)
The above makes career archaeologists (at least the good ones) a bit neurotic. This seems like an example of that, I just hope their preservation methods aren’t accidentally destructive.
There is a clear difference there.
Imagine if the British Crown Jewels were in a museum in Iran right now!
I recall when Siberia melted (yes, it melted) ephemera were appearing as the snow and ice disappeared. Even here on HN folks argued emotionally about "leaving it all where it was" instead of collecting it. Even though it would be gone in literally days (fibre bags, lost arrows with fragile fletchings, and on and on) and not collectable later, as it immediately rotted or the wind blew it to pieces.
There's a cult of "leave it where it is!" that defies rationality. So that's part of the equation too.
It wasn’t a celebration of history. It was a dragon’s hoard.
Btw things like isis are a direct consequence of actions taken by the English colonialists when they created artificial boundaries.
On the same topic, I don't think that people of modern Turkey or Greece have more valid claim on the remains of Troy or Mycenae just because the people who have left these remains have one occupied the plot of land that now lies within their borders.
The Turks were the ones that conquered all those completely unrelated people in the first place. The British inherited their problem after World War I. But go on, I love this game of “brown people can’t have moral agency.”
But go on.
or brest-litovsk.
a bad peace treaty is not an excuse for barbarism.
Regarding the region.
The societal rot had already set in way before that. The whole ottoman empire was on a down trend, ever since the trade went around them. Which is a good indicator how low value was whatever they themselves had to produce and to offer.
To life in the shadow and ruins of the glorious past, it burns all men for what are they but lowcast creatures, fallen from up high..
What does economic performance have to do with the British museums being filled with looted cultural artifacts? You could have thrown in Greece in there (EU member), but Greece also wants it's looted artifacts back.
China's case was very different as well, the majority of the population (Han Chinese) were ruled by a foreign race (Qing) that were racist towards them in 1800s. Many Han Chinese fought alongside foreign powers and they did loot a lot.
And it doesn't matter anyway, CCP rise to power and smashed everything in the name of Cultural Revolution.
"By the 19th century, people were no longer consuming mummies to cure illness but Victorians were hosting "unwrapping parties" where Egyptian corpses would be unwrapped for entertainment at private parties."
What a weirdly condescending comment.
You guys are too stupid to take care of this obelisk so we’re just going to take it. K bye.
Even if you’re 100% right you look like an asshole, and if you don’t repatriate it when the place has a stable government then you’re just proving your rationalization was fully self-serving.
As far as I'm aware, there's never been serious discussion of the safety of things in Berlin though. Considerations of safety really only go one way.
I couldn’t blame them for wanting a famous work back for their own museum, but it was a major bummer all the same. But Spain is not iron curtain era Berlin, or a tumultuous Middle East, so it’s hardly a fair comparison. It’s difficult to find a balance, but what we know of peak British Empire, from every emancipated colony, is that they just didn’t care.
People like to complain about how arrogant the US is and I just think of that old anti drug commercial, “I learned it from watching you, Dad.” Parents who do drugs have kids who do drugs.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/150901-is...
If only it preserved human rights and lifes of it's citizens as fine. The only thing that US and coalition did wrong with Iraq was not killing off Saddam in '91 and leaving Iraq under his reign of terror for 12 more years.
Unfortunately, it looks like appeasing bloody dictators is a West's thing lately.
Insofar as radical Islamists, the English sided with and supported radical Islamists in Iran against Mossadegh and then against the secular left under the Shah. The English supported Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Watch Lawrence of Arabia, they do it and celebrate it. The English saving secular socialist pan-Arab nationalism against radical Islamists? Please.
The real destruction of artifacts was the destruction of Iraq Museum during the UK's unprovoked invasion of that country. Which they of course blamed on Iraqis. These people are transparent.