Cultural destruction – a little noticed crime

On the book “Damned and Destroyed”

by Robert Seidel

(17 July 2021) In his latest publication, “Verdammt und Vernichtet. Kulturzerstörung vom Alten Orient bis zur Gegenwart“ (Damned and Destroyed. Cultural Destruction from the Ancient Orient to the Present), systematically deals with the looting, robbery and destruction of cultural monuments.

One stands in awe before artefacts from times long past. A visit to a museum can bring the viewer closer to one's own past or perhaps even to the past of humankind. Sometimes it is an inconspicuous fist wedge several hundred thousand years old, sometimes it is a richly decorated chalice, or it is photographs of building complexes of long-gone advanced civilisations.

History is being erased

How painful is it to experience when these treasures are looted or even destroyed. Unique pieces of art from human history disappear. How criminal must someone be to order a theft from a museum in a war zone? This in the knowledge that the objects can no longer be adequately protected and that a theft will be concealed in the confusion of warfare. For example, during the Iraq war, museums were systematically and meticulously looted, and millennia-old pieces from the first advanced civilisations were and sold under the counter.

Violent, criminal processes

The renowned prehistorian Hermann Parzinger is trying to grasp these violent processes. He, who is involved all over the world in excavating ancient testimonies of human life, researching them and ultimately making them accessible to the public, has to witness time and again how monuments are destroyed or looted. Such losses deprive us of a part of our human identity. The destruction of cultural heritage represents a radical intervention in our knowledge who we are.

Without any black-and-white thinking

In his latest publication, Hermann Parzinger tries to understand the motives and circumstances of such cultural destruction in more detail, using some examples. To do so, he reaches back to antiquity. With a selection of examples, he establishes that the deliberate erasure of a cultural identity, as well as plain vandalism, and sheer greed for profit can be motives for destruction and looting. Parzinger describes the initial situations in a well differentiated way in each case, so that the reader does not succumb to any simple black-and-white dualism, yet without relativising the facts as such. For example, one learns that during the Reformation not only one side pillaged and robbed. Church treasures were also sold by both sides to finance their warlike conflicts, far from any religious confession.

Hermann Parzinger describes the circumstances during the Zurich Reformation in a highly nuanced way, how not only religious but also political motives determined the actions of the Reformed authorities towards the people. For the reader, the accounts are a profitable read that allow a different view on many events.

International efforts to improve protection mechanisms

The author takes the reader through different centuries. In addition to the turmoil and destruction during the French Revolution, he refers to the simultaneous emergence of museums for the general public. After some time, cultural artefacts, including those that came from the hated authorities, were moved from secret storage facilities to specially established places (e.g. the converted Louvre). Through these newly established museums, a fresh awareness arose that these exhibits were also part of one's own culture.

In this way, the reader learns how a modern awareness of cultural heritage came about in the first place and how this ultimately resulted in efforts to adequately protect each country's own heritage. Over the past 160 years, various international agreements have been reached to protect cultural relics worldwide. In view of the continuing looting, Hermann Parzinger is thinking about improved international protection mechanisms. This is a sadly neglected topic, not only because today awareness of the uniqueness of a culture is often relativized, but also because there is hardly any awareness of it.

Parzinger, Hermann. Damned and Destroyed. The Destruction of Culture from the Ancient Orient to the Present. C.H.Beck, Munich 2021. p. 368

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint“)