Heritage in the Landscape of War - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Heritage in the Landscape of War	August 16, 2006

Scholars Eric Cline and Sandra Scham discuss their experiences--and the fate of ancient monuments--during times of conflict in the Levant.

To date, the terrible violence that erupted in Lebanon and northern Israel less than two months ago has claimed more than 1,000 lives, displaced between 1.2 and 1.4 million people on both sides, and destroyed at least $3.5 billion worth of property. It has almost certainly affected the region's cultural heritage as well--there are reports of missiles hitting Tel Kabri in Israel and of bombs damaging a Roman temple in the Lebanese town of Baalbek--though the full extent of this is not yet known. The Levant, encompassing Israel and Lebanon, is rich in historically and culturally significant sites, and numerous archaeological excavations are conducted across the landscape every year. In late July, as the fighting escalated, the Archaeological Institute of America and American Schools of Oriental Research issued a joint statement deploring the violence and urging the combatants to avoid targeting cultural sites. ARCHAEOLOGY spoke with scholars Eric Cline, of George Washington University, and Sandra Scham, editor of Near Eastern Archaeology, who are familiar with Lebanon and northern Israel, to learn of their experiences before and during the conflict, and the implications of war for the region's cultural heritage.

Archaeologist Eric Cline, during the excavation at Megiddo (Courtesy Eric Cline) [LARGER IMAGE]

Eric Cline, George Washington University

Briefly, what is your background in the archaeology of the region, and what major projects have you been involved with there?

I have an M.A. in Near Eastern Archaeology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania. I have been involved with the excavations at Megiddo since their renewal by Tel Aviv University in 1994, and have now risen to the position of associate director, USA, while The George Washington University has become the Senior Consortium Partner within the excavation. I am also the co-director, with Tel Aviv University's Assaf Yasur-Landau, of the renewed excavations at Tel Kabri in Israel, which features a Canaanite palace with Minoan, or Minoanizing, frescoes. I have also written two books concerned with the military history of the region, one on Megiddo (The Battles of Armageddon) and one on Jerusalem (Jerusalem Besieged), both published by the University of Michigan Press.

At the orders of George Washington University, you recently returned home, along with your students, from your dig at Megiddo. What factors led to the decision to leave the dig? What were your days like leading up to your departure?

The university asked us to leave after they heard that a katyusha rocket had landed near Afula on Sunday night, July 16th. At that point, since I did not know how rapidly things might escalate, we made plans to leave. The days and nights leading up to our departure were extremely interesting, with airplanes and helicopters flying overhead constantly, even during our evening lectures! It didn't help matters that I and many of my students were receiving emails and phone calls from home as well, from worried family members and friends asking when we were coming home. We tried to tell them that the Israeli home-command had assured us that we were safe where we were, but they were still pretty worried for us back in the States.

What was the reaction of your students to the situation and the decision to leave the dig?

There were definitively mixed feelings; some were eager to leave, some wanted to stay. Only six of my students were still present; the other 24 had been on the first session of the excavation and had returned home as scheduled on July 1st. I had mixed feelings myself, of course, but I needed to follow the orders from my university.

Before the evacuation from Megiddo, excavations there included work on the ninth-century B.C. chariot stable built by King Ahab, but nicknamed "Solomon's Stable." (Courtesy Eric Cline) [LARGER IMAGE]

Despite the departure of the American students from Megiddo, digging there continued under archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and with the help of their students. Why did they elect to continue for another week? Have you heard from them recently as to the status of the excavation and their safety?

The majority of the team members elected to stay because they were assured by the home-front command that they were safe, and indeed they have been. Indeed, I am happy to report that, even after we left, life at Megiddo and Ramat Hashofet continued to be peaceful and the 75 people who remained on the excavation--of whom more than 40 were foreign students and staff--had a wonderful time. The dig continued normally and with great results and a happy atmosphere. In the end, despite the hostilities in the north, 2006 has been declared the best season ever at Megiddo.

Your excavation at Tel Kabri took several direct missile hits. Can you talk briefly about what happened there?

I know only what I have been told by others, that the tel [mound] of Kabri itself, located in the western Galilee near Nahariya, took at least three direct katyusha missile hits during the first week of the conflict alone. Assaf Yasur-Landau was working with a team conducting a survey of the region and a re-mapping of the Canaanite palace when the first katyusha rocket hit the site. They were actually on their way out to the site at the time that the first missile hit. They immediately returned to their base camp and then decided to evacuate, coming to us at Megiddo as refugees for a few days before abandoning all hope of returning to Kabri when the site was hit several more times by additional katyusha rockets. We do not know the extent of the damage yet, but are hoping for the best.

Do you know of any other sites that have been damaged as a result of the fighting? Have many archaeologists and students left the region?

I am not certain what other sites have been directly damaged, but I do know that both Hazor and Tel Dan stopped work and sent their volunteers home when the fighting began. I can only assume that other sites close to the border, such as Tel Kedesh, did the same.

What are some of the overall risks to, or implications for, cultural heritage in the region? Will there be any way to assess the damage?

The risks to cultural heritage in any region during wartime are great, of course, which is one of the reasons why the AIA and ASOR recently issued a joint statement on that topic. We will not be able to assess the damage to the cultural record until after the current military activities have come to an end.

Instead of four horsemen, a helicopter: A military aircraft flies over Megiddo, the biblical site of Armageddon (Courtesy Eric Cline) [LARGER IMAGE]

Megiddo is mentioned in numerous ancient texts--most famously in the New Testament as the place of Armageddon, the final battle between the forces of good and evil at the end of the world. Can you comment on Megiddo's significance, as well as the irony of it's currently being threatened by terrible violence?

Megiddo is an archaeologically unparalleled site, with its stormy history covering over six millennia, from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period in the seventh millennium B.C to the Persian period in the mid-first millennium B.C. It is the only site in the Land of the Bible with the remains of 30 cities built one on top of the other. It, and the surrounding Jezreel Valley, has been the site of 34 bloody battles over the past 4,000 years, not counting the battle of Armageddon which John describes in the Book of Revelation. It is these battles that I discuss in my book, The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age (University of Michigan Press, 2000). I think that I will now have to write a new chapter and put out a revised edition, incorporating this latest battle into the text--but I shall have to admit that I slept through it when the missiles hit on Sunday night!

Sandra Scham, Near Eastern Archaeology

What is your background in the archaeology of the Middle East?

I've been working in the archaeology of the Middle East since about 1988 or 1989. I got a master's degree in archaeology; I actually came to archaeology kind of late because I worked for the government for a long time. I did civil rights work for the government and legal work; I also worked in pension law. But I finally went back to school, got my Ph.D., and then went back into the field and I've been working ever since. I lived in Jerusalem for about six years, teaching and doing archaeological work there. I taught at Jerusalem University College, which is a school for American students.

What are some of the major projects you've worked on?

In addition to teaching, I've worked on a number of projects. I've worked at Caesarea, I worked in the Negev Desert, I did my Ph.D. work in Jordan. I actually think I got one of the first American grants to do work on the same project in Israel and Jordan, because it was right after they signed the peace agreement (laughs). Other people applied for the grants at the same time, but it seemed to me that I was the only archaeologist I knew that had a grant to work in both places. I lived in Jordan while I was doing my work there, and I've gone back to Jordan and done subsequent survey work there. And as far as other projects go, I guess I've spent more time not in fieldwork but on research projects, particularly the kind of research projects that bring archaeologists together. I worked on a conference in 2000 that had participants from Israel, Jordan, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia--that was before everything exploded in the Middle East. So, I've done a lot of political archaeology, if you can call it that (laughs). I don't think it's political; in fact we avoid the political, but some people would call it political.

Sandra Scham outside the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul (Courtesy Sandra Scham) [LARGER IMAGE]

You had recently planned to visit a number of archaeological sites in Israel, but elected to change your plans after the violence escalated. Can you discuss the purpose of your trip and the sites you planned to visit?

I had made some plans to work with a friend at a site called Dor, which is on the coast, below Haifa. I wouldn't say it's within rocket range, but a lot of students working there are from the University of Haifa. I was also going to visit Susita, which is in the Golan; not exactly the place to be. And I was going to do some work at the University of Haifa as well; they were a partner in one of our recently completed projects on the common heritage of Israelis and Palestinians that I worked on with Ann Killebrew of Penn State University, and we'd completed that project last year, and it was with the University of Haifa and the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange (PACE). And naturally, since a lot of my plans to visit sites were in the north, I was also going to visit Katzrin. In the south, I think, there's been little interruption. So, I hear from my friends that they're still working at Tell-es-Safi, for example, I just heard from my assistant editor at Near Eastern Archaeology; he's in Tell-es-Safi and he's still working. In more southern areas, things are still going on, and I could have visited the southern sites, but the fact is for the purposes of the article [that I was researching for ARCHAEOLOGY] and talking about site preservation, the northern sites are more key, because those are the tourist areas; those are the areas that people go to. That's where the Christian sites are, for example, and also a lot of well known Jewish sites and biblical sites, like Megiddo and Hazor. So naturally, for the purposes of an article on site preservation, I really couldn't have done it very effectively, just visiting the sites of the south.

What were your days like leading up to your departure?

You know, I lived there for six years, and quite honestly, I went to Israel to do archaeological work during the Gulf War, when the scuds were still landing. I can't say that I ever really believed they posed a danger. I'm not saying I'm intrepid, but everybody I know has worked there during times of turmoil and I think most people, including Israelis, don't get hysterical over these things, not in Israel. I wouldn't call it stoic; I mean obviously everyone gets upset, but it's almost like, "Oh, yes, this again." That's basically the way people in Israel approach things. Now, obviously, I also talk to people who live and work in Lebanon, and things are very different there. The truth is, the destruction there is far greater than in Israel. Obviously, I deplore what's happened on both sides: the loss of life, and the destruction is just horrific. But people no longer get hysterical over these things, no in Israel and not in Lebanon as well. But war in the Middle East is nothing new, unfortunately.

How did you come to your decision to finally not go to Israel?

I made my decision at the very last minute, the day before. I might have gone, if a lot of my itinerary hadn't been the sites in the north. If I was going to work in Jerusalem, I wouldn't have changed my plans necessarily. My family thought I was nuts. The person that I was going to work with was the same way as I was. She made her plan changes at the last moment. There was communication; we discussed it, obviously, so that's how it went.

Do you know of any specific sites in the north of Israel or in Lebanon that have been damaged?

The places in the Golan have not really been affected, as they border Syria. I haven't heard about sites being extensively damaged. Now, the rather nasty nature of the katyusha rockets is that they probably do more damage to human beings than places, whereas the kind of bombing that Israel is doing does damage to everything. So, I don't think that sites in Israel are really being impacted that much, in terms of destruction. I have wondered about Tyre, because Tyre has been effectively carpet-bombed. Tyre is an archaeological site of importance, but I don't know how close the areas that have been destroyed are to the site.

Are there any sites that you think might potentially be at risk?

As I said, I don't think there's going to end up being much damage from the war in Israel. The truth is it seems almost callous worrying about sites when there are people being killed at this time. Sometimes we use these sites as symbols, like the Mostar Bridge that was destroyed during fighting in Bosnia, and became symbolic, or the looting of the Baghdad Museum became symbolic for people. It's not that we care more about artifacts than people, but it's just that it's hard to comprehend the real misery, the real loss of lives on a daily basis, so then you have these symbols that sort of stick out in your mind. That's part of it. Baalbek has been truly in danger, because that was a Hezbollah stronghold, but as far as Israel is concerned, there might be more damage from site neglect. There is, obviously, some danger to sites, the ball-bearings [packed in] the katyusha rockets can really do damage, but in terms of actual widespread destruction, probably not. The one thing I'm worried about is people who are doing ongoing work. You have a whole group of people in one place and a rocket lands on them. The whole idea is horrific. It seems unlikely at most archaeological sites and I think a lot of the digs within range of those rockets have been canceled.

Scham at work in Jordan (Courtesy Sandra Scham) [LARGER IMAGE]

You contributed a piece to ARCHAEOLOGY in 2002 on efforts to bring Palestinians and Israelis together to work on preserving endangered heritage sites. Can you give us a brief update on that project?

That was a project that just ended--funded by the U. S. State Department--that I worked on with Ann Killebrew, and we're still in contact obviously, and we still have the same concerns. I was actually going to visit the West Bank [on this trip] as well, because Adel [Yahya of PACE] is still concerned about the ongoing looting because of the unemployment and poverty situation in the West Bank. We're still in contact, and we still have a concern about site preservation, but now obviously all of our attention is focused on the war. So the only update I could say would be that we have tried to apply for more funding to extend the projects, because we only worked on two sites in the West Bank, just small sites, and a large one in Israel--Akko, which is a World Heritage Site. And we are trying to get more money to extend the projects. We've stuck with this project through a lot of difficult times, and I think that the partners are good, and if we were able to extend it we would be able to work on it together as much as the other ones. So we are interested.

As far as anyone else, I think that there were some small efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians together for conferences and that sort of thing. Some Israeli archaeologists have been very interested in this in the past. As I recall, Gideon Avni of the Israel Antiquities Authority had thought about having a project to restore a mosque or an Islamic site in Israel, and bringing Palestinians and Israelis to work together on that, but I don't know how far he got before events made it difficult. I think we inspired a few people, so that's a good thing. And I think to the extent that people can get together to work on these sites, there's still a willingness in the archaeological community to do so. There are really few archaeologists who refuse to meet with other archaeologists because their countries are at war. I've actually seen Israelis and Palestinians talking together for years and years at conferences. Hopefully these contacts will continue in spite of the situation that has overtaken the Middle East.

You mentioned that you were in Israel during the first Gulf War. Can you talk a little bit about that experience, as an archaeologist, and how it compares to the current situation?

During the first Gulf War, I was doing research for my dissertation, and I went over there, and it was actually kind of great, because there weren't any tourists, and I could visit all of these sites, and people were still digging. The scuds didn't do much damage, to tell you the truth, other than to the economy and making people go into shelters, which is bad enough, but people were still continuing with archaeological work and I got to visit all of these sites quite easily. I drove around the country. They had to turn on the lights at the Megiddo Museum for me, because no one was there, and that's a site that's very well visited during usual times. So I got a lot of work done very easily. Israeli archaeologists were very nice; they weren't seeing that many people coming from elsewhere so I got to talk to a lot of people, and they had time. And in a way it was as good as an experience like that could possibly be, and not fearful at all, although I did carry my gas mask around with me, that's about the only thing I remember.

You were also in Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. How does that experience compare?

During the Intifada...the Intifada was pretty wrenching for me, because I lived in Israel at that time, and I was working with Palestinians before the Intifada, and continued to, and a lot of people saw that work as not valuable or even illegal as far as they were concerned. There was resentment on both sides, of course. We still continued our work, but it was a very depressing time. We had applied for this grant to do work with the University of Haifa and with PACE, and by the time we got the grant, two of the principles had moved back to the United States: me and Ann Killebrew, although the Israelis and Palestinians were still on board. So we rearranged things, we coordinated, and they did the on-the-ground work, and we had meetings together. But the second Intifada was extremely disruptive, obviously, because I moved back to the United States in September 2001, and not because I was trying to escape terrorism; it'd been going on for a while but it'd gotten worse at that point, with bombings every day, just about, in Jerusalem. But the worst thing for me was that I lost my job, because American students were no longer coming, so I had no work to keep me busy. Focusing on the situation and trying to pull these projects together was pretty depressing. I came back to the U.S. and started teaching at the University of Maryland.

A lot of people are saying that this current situation is worse than anything they remember. A lot of people are feeling very pessimistic about this particular war. So I have to say that this experience is a bit different. This whole situation is a bit depressing because I'm here [in the U. S. now], and I go to the Middle East all the time, and this is the first time I've ever felt I had to disrupt my work because of war. This is the first time I've even considered disrupting my work. I just hope it's not as bad as I think it is.