As ISIS smashes history, curators battle to save threatened antiquities

Using hammers,bulldozers and explosives, Islamic State militants can beseen smashing thousands of years of history in a purportedISIS video posted online earlier this week.

• ISIS destroys ancient ruins of Nimrud, video shows

After standingfor more than 3,000 years, theancient IraqiAssyrian city ofNimrud,including itspriceless stone friezesandarchaeological riches, appear tohave fallen to the hands of militants and theideology of ISIS.

Its just the latest historical site ravaged by thegroup, whichnow holdsa third of Iraq andneighbouringSyria in its self-declared caliphate.

ISISsays the relicspromote idolatry andviolate Islamic law.

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• ISIS fighters destroy priceless Iraq antiquities

ClemensReichel,Canadian archeologist andassociate curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, calls the destructiona cultural genocide.

"You can kill people on the ground, but if you destroy their heritage, you also kill their soul, and I just think that's something that we really need to come to terms with."

Butnot all ofReichel'scontemporaries agree on what needs to be done in the face of the eviscerationofUNESCO heritage sites in Iraq and Syria.

In fact, the fighting hasre-ignited a battleamong Western museum curators and archaeologists over whether museums should be returningantiquities to theircountries of origin.

The push for repatriation

Decades ago, museums kept whatever they acquired even if it had been looted or bought from dubious sources.But that practice is now largely seen as shameful and colonialist.

More recently, there has been a growing acceptance that artifacts should be repatriated to their countries of origin.

Thatshift in thinking has seen the return of many historicalartifacts, includingthe repatriation of aTurkishbust ofHercules, and the the return ofNazi-looted artworks to their rightful owners.

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The idea is also central toa dispute between Britain and Greece over the Parthenon Marbles, which Athens maintains were illegally removed while the countrywas under Turkish occupation.

Preserving the past

James Cuno,anAmerican art historian andcurator, is an outspoken critic of repatriation. Hebelieves that important artifacts should be considered the property of all humanity and shared across the globe.

"I'm concerned about preserving the past for the future and sharing that with the world,"saidCuno,who currently serves as president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which runs the Getty Museum and Getty Centre in California.

"It doesn't matter to me where they're preserved if they're preserved for the world."

Despite arguing thatmuseums should be allowed reasonable ways to acquire undocumented antiquities, Cunodoesn't think the world's cultural richesshould all be brought to Europe and North America.

In fact, he suggests that the more widelyimportant pieces aredistributed can help protect them from conflict in the long run.

No museum is safe

"Calamity can happen anywhere" said Cuno in an interview from Los Angeles, "but it's not likely to happen everywhere simultaneously. So the more you distribute the risk the more likelihood there is that things will survive the calamity that necessarily will happen at some point."

But forReichel, who hastravelled toIraq several times to assess the damage to artifacts caused by fighting and looting, the acquisition of goods from conflict zonesby Western collectors and museums is far from simple.

"The minute that these events in Iraq started," says Reichel,"voices came about again saying that we should open up acquisition policies of museums, making it easier to purchase artifacts, just to get them out of the area of conflict."

"But what these people do not discuss," Reichel adds, "is that these artifacts that you can buy on the market now ...they have been looted."

Reichel argues, the goodwill of collectors can helpstock the armouries ofISIS fighters.

He also points out thatno museum in the world is safe. "World War II was a great example," saidReichel. "You had artifacts from the Middle East being brought to Europe, to Berlin in particular, and these museums were bombed in the war, and a lot of it was lost."

From the Islamic State to Nazi occupied Europe, one thing history makes clearis that the loss of art and cultural heritageis an ugly fact ofconflict whether lootedfromnations, individual collectors or the presumed safety ofmuseums.