Replicas of an ancient monument in Palmyra that has apparently survived attempts by Islamic State to demolish it are to be erected in London and New York.
The 15m-high arch is one of the few remaining parts of the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel in the Syrian city. It was almost completely razed by Isis fighters as they systematically destroyed Palmyra over the past year.
The construction of a replica will be the centerpiece of a series of events around World Heritage Week, planned for April, with a theme of replication and reconstruction. It has also been characterized as a gesture of defiance against attempts by religious extremists to erase the pre-Islamic history of the Middle East.
Photo: Sandra Augers, Reuters
Founded in 32AD, the Temple of Bel was consecrated to the ancient Mesopotamian god Bel and formed the center of religious life in Palmyra. In keeping with many ancient temples, the site was converted into a Christian church during the Byzantine era, then subsequently into a mosque when Arabs brought Islam to the area.
Known as the Pearl of the Desert, Palmyra — which means city of Palms — lies 210km northeast of Damascus. Before the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, more than 150,000 tourists visited the city every year.
The Temple of Bel was considered among the best preserved ruins at Palmyra, until confirmation of the destruction in August. Earlier that month, the group beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, the 82-year-old Syrian archaeologist who had looked after Palmyra’s ruins for four decades, and hung his body in public.
3D technology
Building a copy of the temple’s entrance arch has been proposed by the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), a joint venture between Harvard University, the University of Oxford and Dubai’s Museum of the Future that promotes the use of digital imaging and 3D printing in archaeology and conservation.
In collaboration with UNESCO, the institute earlier this year began distributing 3D cameras to volunteer photographers to capture images of threatened objects in conflict zones throughout the Middle East and north Africa.
The images are to be uploaded to a “million-image database” that, it is hoped, can be used for research, heritage appreciation, educational programs and eventually 3D replication — including full-scale rebuilding.
The destruction of the Temple of Bel came too soon for the site to be included on the IDA’s database, but researchers have been able to create 3D approximations of the damaged site through thousands of photographs.
Alexy Karenowska, IDA’s director of technology, said the renderings would be used to recreate the arch through a combination of 3D printing computer-controlled machining techniques. The pieces will be made off-site then assembled in place in Trafalgar Square and Times Square.
Karenowska said it was hoped that the scheme would help to highlight the international importance of cultural heritage. While the Temple of Bel is an architectural treasure of the Middle East, its influence on architecture had a major impact on the classical styles spread throughout Europe by the Roman Empire, which once extended to the banks of the Euphrates, she said.
“We tend to think about cultural heritage in a somewhat parochial way,” Karenowska said. “We also think of other people’s cultural heritage as being something that’s particular to them. We see that very much with the Middle East. People in the West find it very easy to say that the Middle East has this great cultural heritage and this problem [of its destruction] is something that’s happening to them. The idea is to underline that cultural heritage is something that’s shared between people. It’s about people’s roots and it’s important to recognize also that this is something that as humans we do all understand on some deep level.”
Roger Michel, IDA’s executive director, said, “It is really a political statement, a call to action, to draw attention to what is happening in Syria and Iraq and now Libya. We are saying to them if you destroy something we can rebuild it again. The symbolic value of these sites is enormous, we are restoring dignity to people.”
Having been targeted already by zealots in its homeland, Karenowska accepted that building the arches could pose a security risk, although she downplayed its impact.
“A building like the National Gallery or Trafalgar Square, these are major targets by virtue of what they are,” she said.”Simply by placing a thought-provoking piece of art in one of those spaces, the level of heightened risk is very limited. This is something we are thinking about very carefully and that people involved are thinking about it on a day-to-day basis.”
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50