Focus:  For several years, the trafficking and smuggling of heritage items from libraries and archives has been steadily increasing, especially in the MENA and West and Central Africa regions which have often been plagued by politica upheaval and or military conflicts. 

This event will focus on documentary heritage, which is often at risk and in some cases less protected by various national legislations.

During this event, the hosts and guest speakers will discuss and present on the specific issues and challenges, in addition to the "Himaya" project suggested by Qatar National Library to support efforts to counter the trafficking and illegal circulation of the documentary heritage. 

Speakers: 

Dr. Rajaa Ben Salamah, General Director of the National Library of Tunisia 

Dr. Alsharqi Dahmali, Member of the Advisory Council of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Morroco 

Stephane J. Ipert, Director of the IFLA PAC at Qatar National Library 

Moderator: Maxim Nasra, Book Conservation Specialist at Qatar National Library 

Spaces are limited, please click the link to register for the VoiceBoxer event. 

Two massive earthquakes, registering 5.3 and 5.1 on the Richter scale of earthquake intensity have caused untold damage to Croatia's capital city Zagreb  in the midst of a nationwide lockdown for COVID-19. 

At present no fatalities have been reported however massive damage has occurred at Zagreb's Muzej za Umjetnost i Obrt, the country's Museum of Arts and Crafts housed in the Hermann Bollé-designed palace built in 1888.  While assessments are still in progress, Croatia's Cultural Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek has confirmed damage to the building structure itself, to objects on the second and third floors of the museum, and to the museum's restoration laboratory, responsible for conservation works on metal, ceramics and glass, textiles, painting and polychrome sculpture.  

At the time of this natural disaster the MUO is said to have held some 100,000 objects from the 13th century to present. The MOU's Director, Miroslav Gašparović, hopes that with the help of the City, the Ministry of Culture, UNESCO and other international institutions, his team will be able to repair the damage to the museum's external structure and to secure and conserve the collection. 

Like the MOU, the quakes also heavily damaged the physical structure of the  Vranyczany-Dobrinović Palace where the Arheološki Muzej u Zagrebu (AMZ), the Archaeological Museum of Zagreb is housed just off Zrinski Square.  This museum houses important objects from  Prehistory, Egypt, Antiquity, and the Middle Ages.  

Documenting the damages, the AMZ has posted some 65 photos depicting objects impacted by the quake, only some of which have been reproduced here. The images show cracks in gallery walls and plaster, display cases cracked or completely shattered, statues and sarcophagi toppled or tipped over, and hundreds of objects smashed or severely tossed about. 

The Muzej Suvremene Umjetnosti, the Museum of Contemporary Art, which houses some 12,000 works of domestic and foreign artists also reported significant damage to its own structure as will as to the collection.  In this museum, the anti-fire mechanisms caused flooding in some exhibition rooms, and water damaged has been reported in both the ceiling and floors.

Probably one of the most complicated heritage rescue missions to date, damage inspections and the securing of objects after this national disaster are being carried out during a world-wide pandemic, a situation which creates a perfect storm of events that makes salvaging collections and shoring up sites all the more complicated.  One of the strongest earthquakes to hit Zagreb in 140 years, there are more than 600 buildings impacted and in keeping with government rules, this means that the cultural ministry and city authorities will be utilising as few staff as possible, in accordance with the decisions of the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia, with the aim of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

By:  Lynda Albertson

Heritage Researcher,  Lt. Col. (retired), International Military Cultural Resources Working Group and Senior Researcher, Centre for Cultural Heritage Protection, University of Vienna

The Hague, Netherlands

The world’s shared cultural heritage is under threat. Substantial damage has already been inflicted during armed conflicts that have taken place or are still ongoing, especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East.  To protect the world's heritage, it is important to gain knowledge about key concepts and mechanisms that underpin heritage destruction and protection including new phenomena, stakeholders and concepts such as urbicide (a term which literally translates as "violence against the city."), the military roll in heritage destruction and or preservation and the psychological warfare of heritage destruction.

‘Cultural property’ that is, the legal term used  to describe the world's cultural heritage, is currently not only threatened by time, nature, and man-made development, but increasingly by armed conflicts and upheavals. In this context we see the return of iconoclasm driven and legitimised as an excuse for eliminating perceptions of heresy as well as the ‘’recycling’’ of antique monuments originally built as defence works like the Crusader castle, Krak de Chevaliers, Palmyra’s Fakhr-al-Din al-Ma'ani Castle or the now destroyed Temple of Bel in Palmyra which the Burids transformed into a citadel in 1132.

But Iconoclasm is not only directed at immovable heritage, it also aimed at written heritage making manuscripts and books equally at risk. The majority of today's warring parties are guilty of abuse and destruction whether intentionally or by accident, disregarding that cultural property is ‘’protected’’ under (inter)national laws. To make matters worse there has been an increase in the looting and illicit traffic of artefacts, the revenues of which are used to finance, and thus extend conflicts.

Within this framework, written heritage has a dual status: libraries, archives and manuscripts are material cultural properties but simultaneously carriers of intangible heritage like ideas and by extension, identity. Dualism can be seen too in overlaps between cultural and natural heritage, such as cultural landscapes like Ayers Rock and in ivory that is often smuggled.

In general terms books and documents can be considered to be containers of identity. Simultaneously the material manifestation of a book or manuscript can be an artifact or a sacred and thus religiously sensitive object. Specifically, archives can contain cultural heritage for a national society or smaller community as well as information that makes them strategic targets for the warring parties e.g. working archives can hold tactical information about persons and political issues. Military experts connect this information with military intelligence.  Additionally, libraries and archives themselves can be historic monuments.

Apart from the fragile characteristics there are many more issues within the realms of heritage. They include shifting insights on conservation, restoration, authentication (forgeries) and developments concerning digitization, manipulation, political propaganda, illicit trafficking, and legislation. Current attacks on cultural heritage show elements of psychological warfare, cultural genocide and, as acknowledged by the United Nations, war crimes.

This makes Cultural Property Protection (CPP) a complicated multi-disciplinary topic with stakeholders that include the military, police, diplomats, legal specialists, auctioneers, antique dealers, and religious experts to name a few, all of which represent and defend their own interests. Transnational crime is also present, not to mention collateral damage inflicted during battle.

Considering the complexity and the seriousness of today’s heritage conditions it seems fair to acknowledge that safeguarding issues cannot be taken care of by only as small number of cultural experts or enthusiasts who are not afraid to be pro-active and often need to act as private individuals. The main concern is that there is presently no operational protection concept being implemented based on international cooperation and coordination. Legal obligations and sanctions are not sufficiently implemented and enforced – for instance,  some cultural war crimes could and should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.

Although there are moral and legal obligations, funding is not in place for CPP training, education, research, and the deployment of ‘’new’’ stakeholders like the military who are equipped to operate in war zones.  Most contemporary asymmetric conflicts in which (written) heritage is endangered take place in the Muslim World. A lot of the world’s heritage from antiquity is located there but it is also critical to pay special attention to protection and restoration of Islamic heritage before the cultural and historical memory rooted in these regions is erased from the world’s common consciousness and lost to future generations.

To meet some of these challenges, the Islamic Manuscript Association in partnership with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) has organised a course this coming October entitled Manuscript Collections in Conflict Zones: Safeguarding Written Heritage. This multidisciplinary course will also gives a general introduction about Cultural Property Protection and destruction in the event of conflict. The course will take place October 5th, 6th, and 7th at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall, London.

Confirmed speakers include:

Colonel Matthew Bogdanos,
Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan

Mr. Marco Di Bella,
Freelance Book and Manuscript Conservator and UNESCO Consultant

Mr. Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen,
President of the Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield

Dr. Joris Kila, Chairman,
International Military Cultural Resources Working Group

Professor Roger O’Keefe,
Chair of Public International Law, University College London

Mr András Riedlmayer,
Bibliographer in Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard University

Professor Franck Salameh,
Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Boston College

Dr Christos Tsirogiannis,
Research Assistant, Trafficking Culture Team, University of Glasgow

Dr Hafed Walda,
(Pending) Deputy Ambassador to the permanent Libyan delegation at UNESCO

Dr James Zeidler,
Associate Director for Cultural Resources, Colorado State University

For information about course lecturers and how to register to attend, please contact the Islamic Manuscript Association linked here. 

Al Ghat valley. Photo by Christiana O’Connell-Schizas

Our camp site on the plantation. Photo by Nehme El Jorr

A dilapidated house in Al Ghat. Photo by Costas S. Schizas

A caved in roof with more dilapidated  houses in the background. Photo by author.

Musée de Montmartre: 12, rue Cortot

Vintage cars attract crowd on Sunday in pedestrian area

Rear of the building under renovation, 10 Cortot

The caretaker's apartment at 10 rue Cortot was inhabited from 1866 to 1873 by Julien Tanguy, an art supplier. Pissaro, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh came to get their supplies at his shop in rue Clauzel. When they couldn't pay Tanguy they gave him pieces of their work.

Inside the museum is an exhibit: "Impressions a Montmartre: Eugené Delátre & Alfredo Müller", including a 1897 "Death in a Fur Coat".

Death in a Fur Coat, 1897

Vineyard overlooking cabaret, Au Lapin Agile (red building)