Editorial: Archaeologies April 2015

Abstract

The huge stone statues of winged bulls with human heads at the gates of Assyrian palaces are among the most iconic symbols of ancient Mesopotamia. They were meant as protective spirits. They protected the land between Euphrates and Tigris almost for three millennia but now they were beaten by the evil spirit of ISIL (ISIS). The statues have guarded the gates of Nineveh near present-day Mosul since the palace was built in the 7th century BC. They stood during the glory and fall of the Assyrian empire and survived in their original location even when excavated in the 1840s and when many of its treasures were carried off to Britain and America. On Thursday, 26th of February 2015, they fell to men with a power drill and a mission to erase every trace of Iraq’s pre-Islamic history. Shortly after the capture of Mosul in June 2014, ISIS started systematic and spectacular demolitions of the city’s architectural and cultural heritage as a part of the ideological war against Iraq’s integrity, historical memory and civilization. The civilian citizens of Mosul have several times peacefully opposed this vandalism and often successfully. The so-called Caliphate’s policy is to destroy the large monuments in the most theatrical way and show off their crimes on social networks, while the smaller portable artefacts they hypocritically sell abroad, mainly to dealers and immoral collectors in Western Europe and America. The powerless feeling amongst the global archaeological community is devastating. To many of us, who believe in decolonizing principles, it raises a painful question: why are these monuments safer in museum collections in London, Paris or Berlin, where they E D IT O R IA L