BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

ISIS Destroys Antiquities in Mosul, Iraq

Scholar calls the filmed destruction a ‘staged performance’

winged-bull

Pictured is a lamassu sculpture from the palace of Neo-Assyrian King Sargon II (ca. 721–705 B.C.E.) in modern Khorsabad, Iraq, now housed at the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago, IL. This lamassu is similar to the one in Mosul destroyed by ISIS militants in a recently released video. Photo: Oriental Institute Museum.

The extremist group ISIS has released video footage documenting the destruction of antiquities in Mosul, Iraq. The video takes place in the Mosul Museum as well as at the Nergal Gate, one of the gates to Nineveh. Located near present-day Mosul, ancient Nineveh was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the seventh-century B.C.E. With sledgehammers and drills in hand, the ISIS insurgents toppled, smashed and defaced millennia-old antiquities as well as modern replicas. Among the destroyed relics was a seventh-century sculpture of a lamassu, an Assyrian protective deity depicted as a human-headed winged bull, that guarded the Nergal Gate.

Lynda Albertson, chief executive officer of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, said in a statement that the Mosul Museum “specializes in antiquities from the Assyrian Empire [and] houses a significant collection of sculptures and other stone relics from Hatra, the capital of the first Arab Kingdom.”

The assault on antiquities enacted in the recently released video footage is part of ISIS’s objective to destroy anything—from humans of different beliefs to the cultural legacies of ancient civilizations—deemed idolatrous and outside of the extremist group’s narrow interpretation of Sunni Islam. Given that looted antiquities are one of ISIS’s sources of funding, it’s possible that in this new video, the militants were just destroying whatever was too big to smuggle out, as journalist Sam Hardy suggested on his cultural heritage blog Conflict Antiquities.

However, Brian Daniels, director of research and programs at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, cautions against underestimating ISIS’s ideological aims.

“We should not confuse archaeological site looting with ISIS’s commitment to destroy artifacts in such a way that it can realize its millennial beliefs and score a propaganda victory,” said Daniels in an email to Bible History Daily. “We have seen that ISIS is willing to destroy portable objects, like valuable antique books, for example, that could otherwise be sold to collectors. Many commentators have observed that ISIS is media-savvy. I think what we are seeing is that ISIS believes that the destruction at Mosul is more valuable to their core interests than money.”


In the Middle East, archaeological looting and the deliberate destruction of archaeological sites and monuments are rampant. What, if anything, can be done? Read more >>


That the new video footage from ISIS was circulated so quickly and widely, however, is in itself unsettling, according to Ömür Harmanşah, associate professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In an email to Bible History Daily, Harmanşah expressed his concern:

“These videos of the enactment of violence—whether they are against human bodies, buildings, archaeological sites or museum antiquities—are clearly fabricated as staged performance. I find it dangerous to take these video footages as if they were documentations of acts of violence. I am convinced that some of these destructive acts are precisely being carried out to be able to produce the films, which were then disseminated through social media.”

“We need to think of ISIS sort of like a reality show, where the show is the primary goal for the production, and the depicted events are the consequence of it,” Harmanşah continued. “Disseminating ISIS videos means serving as a medium for ISIS’s propaganda machine and contributing to the harm inflicted on the bodies, buildings and things that are impacted by these enactments.”

Many believe it’s imperative that ISIS’s course of cultural destruction be reported and documented as thoroughly as possible. What does that mean for these videos ISIS releases?

“We and the media use caution most of the time in publicizing and broadcasting videos of violence on human bodies,” said Harmanşah.

“They are offensive and degrading and dehumanizing, besides the fact that they propagate a culture of violence and inflict actual physical violence for the sake of the production of the footage. The media needs to treat the videos of destruction of heritage likewise.”

“My strategy is to speak about these videos in their staged, fabricated nature through verbal description, strictly not sharing the imagery,” Harmanşah explained. “I consider that imagery as violence, whether it is a moving or non-moving image. It is part of ISIS’s rhetoric.”

In a joint statement released by the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Society for American Archaeology and the American Schools of Oriental Research, the professional organizations called for action from communities around the world:

“We urge all members with appropriate expertise to provide professional support to the archaeological community to repair damaged works to the degree possible and to identify and reclaim missing objects. We call on authorities, even in these unsettled times, to do what they can to protect the world’s archaeological and cultural materials. And we urge museums and archaeological communities around the world to alert the appropriate international authorities if they believe they have information regarding objects recently stolen from Mosul.”

FREE ebook: From Babylon to Baghdad. Ancient Iraq. Learn about Iraq and its cultural heritage. Download now.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily:

Hanging Gardens of Babylon … in Assyrian Nineveh

Archaeological Looting and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage

ISIS Captures Syrian City of Palmyra

ISIS Plants Explosives in Ancient City of Palmyra

ISIS Executes Antiquities Scholar in Syrian City of Palmyra

Digital Humanities and the Ancient World

Temple of Baal Shamin in Palmyra Blown Up by ISIS

Satellite Images Confirm ISIS Destruction of Temple of Bel and Other Monuments in Palmyra

Ancient Coins and Looting

Sold to the Highest Bidder: Antiquities as Cash Cows

Endangered Heritage: Archaeological Looting in Turkey


 


6 Responses

  1. Isis Destroys Iraq Museum | isisvideotape says:

    […] ISIS Destroys Antiquities in Mosul, Iraq – Biblical … – The extremist group ISIS has released video footage documenting the destruction of antiquities in Mosul, Iraq. The video takes place in the Mosul Museum as well as at … […]

  2. Ro Palmer says:

    Were the planet truly civilized the U.N. would have a reliable police unit to rush in and save relics such as these. Same thing with the Red Guard from China crushing relics of Tibet a few years ago. Makes me feel that Marxism is just another religion; there to breed arrogance among it’s followers. Karl Marx himself was off the beam with later developments; rather than author Das Kapital, my appraisal is that he should have produced “die Aktien Gesellshaften” warning the astute populace of various societies of the evils of large corporations when allowed to go unchecked. Nothing wrong with capital, but corporations?? A corporation isn’t even a person.

  3. Andrew says:

    This of course, along with the looting and destruction of museums in places like Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, is an excellent example of why those relics housed in the West should stay exactly where they are. The treasures of Kabul Museum have been completely lost as have many that were looted from Cairo and Baghdad.
    Perhaps those people who advocated “returning artefacts to their original countries now” would care to comment?

  4. Wiseoldlady says:

    Specifically being located in the Middle East should alert you to realize that all Middle East locations containing archeological and or pertinent historical data should be locked up behind doors invented for bank vaults…why was this not done???? Or have the rothschilds made duplicates and hidden the real treasures???? Whichever this is dispicable.

  5. Paul Ballotta says:

    The lamassu statues are none other than the cherubim in Genesis 3:23 and the ever-turning fiery sword in this context represents the violent propaganda that also serves as the serpent’s alternative form of entertainment that starkly contrasts with the image of the garden of God (Genesis 13:10, Isaiah 51:3, Ezekiel 28:13). In the J.P.S. Commentary on Genesis, the fiery sword is interpreted as the “glittering spear” that is likely an allusion to the customary “washing of weapons” performed by Mesopotamian kings upon their arrival on the Phoenician coast and it was basically an arms bazaar, and so I.S.I.S., like Al Qaeda, are basically franchises profiting on violence (but don’t expect their C.E.O.s to martyr themselves for their “cause” anytime soon).

  6. Islamic State has toppled, sledgehammered and jackhammered (drilled out) artefacts in Mosul Museum and at Nineveh | conflict antiquities says:

    […] site looting with ISIS’s commitment to destroy artifacts in such a way that it can realize its millennial beliefs and score a propaganda victory…. We have seen that ISIS is willing to destroy portable objects, like valuable antique books, […]

Write a Reply or Comment

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6 Responses

  1. Isis Destroys Iraq Museum | isisvideotape says:

    […] ISIS Destroys Antiquities in Mosul, Iraq – Biblical … – The extremist group ISIS has released video footage documenting the destruction of antiquities in Mosul, Iraq. The video takes place in the Mosul Museum as well as at … […]

  2. Ro Palmer says:

    Were the planet truly civilized the U.N. would have a reliable police unit to rush in and save relics such as these. Same thing with the Red Guard from China crushing relics of Tibet a few years ago. Makes me feel that Marxism is just another religion; there to breed arrogance among it’s followers. Karl Marx himself was off the beam with later developments; rather than author Das Kapital, my appraisal is that he should have produced “die Aktien Gesellshaften” warning the astute populace of various societies of the evils of large corporations when allowed to go unchecked. Nothing wrong with capital, but corporations?? A corporation isn’t even a person.

  3. Andrew says:

    This of course, along with the looting and destruction of museums in places like Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, is an excellent example of why those relics housed in the West should stay exactly where they are. The treasures of Kabul Museum have been completely lost as have many that were looted from Cairo and Baghdad.
    Perhaps those people who advocated “returning artefacts to their original countries now” would care to comment?

  4. Wiseoldlady says:

    Specifically being located in the Middle East should alert you to realize that all Middle East locations containing archeological and or pertinent historical data should be locked up behind doors invented for bank vaults…why was this not done???? Or have the rothschilds made duplicates and hidden the real treasures???? Whichever this is dispicable.

  5. Paul Ballotta says:

    The lamassu statues are none other than the cherubim in Genesis 3:23 and the ever-turning fiery sword in this context represents the violent propaganda that also serves as the serpent’s alternative form of entertainment that starkly contrasts with the image of the garden of God (Genesis 13:10, Isaiah 51:3, Ezekiel 28:13). In the J.P.S. Commentary on Genesis, the fiery sword is interpreted as the “glittering spear” that is likely an allusion to the customary “washing of weapons” performed by Mesopotamian kings upon their arrival on the Phoenician coast and it was basically an arms bazaar, and so I.S.I.S., like Al Qaeda, are basically franchises profiting on violence (but don’t expect their C.E.O.s to martyr themselves for their “cause” anytime soon).

  6. Islamic State has toppled, sledgehammered and jackhammered (drilled out) artefacts in Mosul Museum and at Nineveh | conflict antiquities says:

    […] site looting with ISIS’s commitment to destroy artifacts in such a way that it can realize its millennial beliefs and score a propaganda victory…. We have seen that ISIS is willing to destroy portable objects, like valuable antique books, […]

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