While notorious for public beheadings, ISIS also attacks Syrian and Iraqi artifacts and ancient sites. ISIS follows a strict Salafi interpretation of Islam that prohibits worship of shrines, tombs, and idols, and this interpretation leads ISIS to destroy churches, mosques, and even artifacts and antiquities deemed idolatrous. In 2015, ISIS territories were situated next to several world heritage sites (Figure 1), many of which they destroyed. Irina Bokova, the head of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, refers to the destruction of antiques as “cultural cleansing”, and says that destroying artifacts “adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people” (Hartmann 2015).

ISIS employs the brutal war tactic of publically destroying the culture of those who disagree with their ideals, including posting a photo showcasing the destruction of a religious site (Figure 2). ISIS is attempting to erase history. They are symbolically trying to disconnect their enemies from the past and the land, and they are trying to pave the way for a future in which the only history of Syria and Iraq is the history of ISIS.

ISIS’ attacks are demoralizing, horrific, and profitable. Selling and looting antiquities is ISIS’ second highest source of funding after oil, making the destruction of culture both a profitable escapade and a form of cultural warfare. In light of this news, in 2014 the U.S. sought to implement a bipartisan cultural protection czar to reduce the amount of smuggled antiques into the U.S. in order to curtail ISIS funding (Muñoz-Alonso 2014). Both the U.S. and Germany have started imposing laws that would catch smuggled artifacts at their respective borders.

In recent years, ISIS has lost 96% of its territories (Bendaoudi 2018). Still, the sites and antiques ISIS destroyed can never be truly rebuilt, which is why the impact of cultural warfare is so tragic. If the past is forgotten, those in the future can never look back to where they came from, and the connection to the land, the culture, and the people of the past could be lost. Governments and the UN must defend antiques and world historical sites from terror, and their importance must never be forgotten. For this reason, archaeology and the study of the past remain relevant and important subjects today.

Figure 1. ISIS territories in proximity to world heritage sites. Graphic by New York Times. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Nimrud is on the Tentative World Heritage List); Institute for the Study of War (control areas); Satellite image by Landsat via Google Earth

Figure 2. A photo by ISIS showcasing the destruction of a religious site. Photo by Hyperallergic

Works Cited:

Muñoz-Alonso, Lorena

2014  Could US Cultural Protection Czar Stop Rampant ISIS Looting? Electronic document, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/could-us-cultural-protection-czar-stop-rampant-isis-looting-173972, accessed November 9, 2018.

Hartmann, Margaret

2015  ISIS is Destroying Ancient Art in Iraq and Syria. Electronic document, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/03/isis-destroys-ancient-art.html, accessed November 9, 2018.

Bendaoudi , Abdelillah

2018    After the “almost 100 percent” Defeat of ISIS, What about its Ideology? Electronic document, http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2018/05/100-percent-defeat-isis-ideology-180508042421376.html, accessed November 9, 2018.

Additional Content:

“How Antiques Have Been Weaponized in the Struggle to Preserve Culture”

How Antiquities Have Been Weaponized in the Struggle to Preserve Culture

“The Race to Save Syria’s Archaeological Treasures”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/race-save-syrias-archaeological-treasures-180958097/

Though archaeologists can come up with good guesses about the date of artifacts through different processes, most methods of dating are trumped by a relatively new technique called radiocarbon dating. Developed in 1949, it is considered the most useful way of determining the dates of artifacts for archaeologists.

Radiocarbon dating was discovered when chemist Willard Libby realized radioactive carbon-14 (¹⁴C) is made in the Earth’s atmosphere, and then absorbed into plants and entered into the carbon cycle. Since ¹⁴C is radioactive, it decays at a relatively quick exponential rate (Figure 1), while non-radioactive carbon (¹²C) does not. By measuring an artifact’s ¹⁴C to ¹²C ratio, chemists can determine the date of any organic material that was part of the carbon cycle (Bahn and Renfrew 2010:210).

While Libby noted that radiocarbon dating remains effective because the amount of ¹⁴C produced in the atmosphere does not vary with time, this may not always be the case.

Fossil fuel emissions have undoubtedly raised the amount of ¹²C in the atmosphere, with there being an upward trend in in the metric tons of Carbon in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution (Figure 2). CO₂ emissions have increased by 90% since 1970 (EPA 2017), and it is therefore important to consider the effects of this new carbon in the atmosphere on radiocarbon dating, the effectiveness of which remains contingent upon the fact that the proportion of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere does not vary.

When fossil fuels are released into the atmosphere, they release ¹²C, and not ¹⁴C. This changes the ratio of ¹²C to ¹⁴C, which is what is measured to date artifacts. If the excess C¹² in the atmosphere brought about by global warming enters the carbon cycle, the ratio of ¹²C to ¹⁴C increases greatly, making new organic material read as much older (Graven, Heather D. 2015). With an excess of ¹²C in the atmosphere, new organic materials will have the same ¹⁴C : ¹²C ratio as organic material from 1050.

If humans continue to release carbon into the atmosphere, many methods of radiocarbon dating will no longer be viable, and will not be able to provide absolute dates for artifacts up to 2,000 years old (Graven, Heather D. 2015).

Though there are other methods of dating, radiocarbon is favored, and many methods must be used in tandem to provide the most accurate dates possible (Bahn and Renfrew 2010).

Dating as we know it will change if the carbon being released into the atmosphere cannot be managed.

Figure 1. The carbon cycle and the decay of 14C. Sketch by The University of Waikato

Figure 2. Million Metric Tons of Carbon in the atmosphere vs. year. Graph by Boden, T.A., G. Marland, and R.J. Andres 2017

Works Cited:

Bahn, Paul and Colin Renfrew

2010   Archaeology Essentials. 2^nd Edition Thames & Hudson Inc., New York, NY.

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

2017  Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data. Electronic document, https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data, accessed September 22^nd, 2018

Graven, Heather D.

2015  Impact of fossil fuel emissions on atmospheric radiocarbon and various applications of radiocarbon over this century. Electronic document, http://www.pnas.org/content/112/31/9542, accessed September 22^nd, 2018

Additional Content:

“The Future of Radiocarbon Dating”

https://www.naturphilosophie.co.uk/the-future-of-radiocarbon-dating-and-an-overview-of-the-ams-technique/

“How Carbon-14 Dating Works”

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geology/carbon-14.htm