Bestiaria Latina Blog: October 15: Proverbial Lolcat.

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History of the Ancient World: Divorce in Classical Athenian Society: Law, Practice and Power.

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idus octobres

• festival of Jupiter — all ides were sacred to Jupiter
• Rite of the ‘October Horse’ — one of the many rituals which makes the study of Roman religion so fascinating. On this day a race between two-horse chariots would be held in the Campus Martius, and the right hand horse of the victorious pair would be sacrificed by the flamen of Mars on an altar (in the Campus Martius, of course). After the sacrifice, people who lived in the Via Sacra neighbourhood would fight the people who lived in the Suburra for the right to the head. If the ‘via sacranites’ won, they’d display it on the Regia; if the Suburranites won, it would be displayed at the Turris Mamilia. Meanwhile, the cauda (tail – genitals) would be rushed to the Regia so the blood would drip on the sacred hearth; the Vestal Virgins also probably kept some of the blood for use at the Parilia on April 21.
• ludi Capitolini — a somewhat obscure day of games which was unique in its not being ‘public’ (in the sense of being put on by a magistrate) but rather the ballywick of a collegium of ‘Capitolini’. Not much is known about what went on at these games save that an old man wearing the bulla of of a young boy was paraded about and mocked; there were possibly competitions in boxing and running as well.
• 55 B.C. — death of Lucretius
• 70 B.C. — birth of Publius Vergilius Maro, a.k.a. Vergil, a.k.a Virgil
• 1999 — death of Don Fowler, fellow of Jesus College, Oxford and frequent contributor to the Classics list almost from its inception, among other things, of course

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versicolor (Dictionary.com)

Latinitweets:

adverb: multo , indeclinable => much bit.ly/IKAclf #Latin #Vocab #LatinVocab—
  (@LatinVocab) October 15, 2012

invenire: to find, to discover: verb. Example sentence:Ubi civitas viros bonorum morum inveniet?Translation:Wher… bit.ly/TQVRxe—
Latin Language (@latinlanguage) October 15, 2012

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Thirty years ago – on  11 October 1982 –  the Tudor warship Mary Rose was dramatically raised to the surface, more than four centuries after she sank accidentally during an engagement with the French fleet in 1545.

But after three  decades of research into the ship and its contents there is still much that can be learned, especially by the application of new technology -  and this is exactly what is happening at the University of Huddersfield in collaboration with The Mary Rose Trust.

The University is home both to the International Institute for Accelerator Applications and an Arms and Armour Research Group. Their combined expertise is leading to new discoveries about the weaponry and ammunition on board the Henry VIII’s flagship.

Early projectiles

Many of the early projectiles for the small guns found on the Mary Rose are unlike anything used in later centuries. They are made of lead but almost all of them have a lump of iron in the centre. Specialists have long argued as to why they were made this way.

Was it simply for cheapness, to save on expensive lead?  Did the projectiles have special ballistic properties that, in some way, made them more effective when fired? Or did the gunner just want to make the rounds lighter to reduce the pressures and so avoid the early guns exploding?

“There are many different suggestions,” says the leading battlefield archaeologist Dr Glenn Foard, of the University of Huddersfield.

“But until we know exactly what is inside – how big, what shape and what material it is made from – we won’t be able to answer the question.  Although  X-ray radiography was used to show differences in the density of different metals, understanding the structure and form of what lay within the shot could only be confirmed by sectioning several of the projectiles  - but we couldn’t  go around destroying such a unique collection!”

Advanced neutron techniques

However, researchers from the Arms and Armour Research Group and the Institute for Accelerator Applications at the University of Huddersfield have now been able to apply advanced neutron techniques to answer these questions without cutting open the shot.

The experimental team led by Professor Sue Kilcoyne, used neutron radiography and neutron tomography at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland to carry out a non-destructive analysis of the internal structure of 20 roundshot.

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The above images show (a) a radiography image of a 1kg lead cannon ball and (b) a 3D neutron tomograph of similar shot.  In both images the cubic iron inclusion is clearly visible within the lead sphere.  However the second image can be rotated, and the lead and the cube examined from all angles.

These, and further neutron measurements will enable the team to quantify the dimensions and detailed composition of the shot and inclusions and ultimately allow them to determine the significance of such a construction in terms of cost, ballistic properties or weight.

Alexzandra Hildred from The Mary Rose Trust said:  “The battle of the Solent in 1545 resulting in the loss of the Mary Rose, has provided us with a ship and armaments and a huge number of projectiles  - over 1600 round shot and 2500 complete arrows –  from a period of great change in warfare both at sea and on land.

“This sort of combined research project with the University of Huddersfield demonstrates how the underwater resource can be integrated into the study of battlefield archaeology and increase our understanding of the warfare at this pivotal time, and provides us with far more detailed information on our artefacts than we have been able to obtain so far.”

Source: University of Huddersfield

More Information

The Mary Rose Trust

Arms and Armour Research Group

International Institute for Accelerator Applications

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For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

From the Sophia Globe:

Archaeologists working at the site of the Roman baths in Deultum, an ancient settlement about 17km south-west of Bourgas on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, have found a ceramic lamp in the shape of a dog, a find described as one of kind not seen before in Europe.

Deultum was founded in the first century CE as a Roman colony. It grew over the subsequent three centuries and from the second century was protected by large fortified walls. The baths are said to date from the first century and archaeologists believe they were renovated some time in the third century.

The site of Deultum, known in early medieval times as Develt, is today’s village of Debelt.

The dog-shaped ancient lamp was found in the baths part of the site, at a spot believed to date from the middle of the third century. The object is almost intact and will be restored.

Local media said that the director of the Sredets historical museum, Krasi Kostova, had checked with colleagues elsewhere in Europe and established that no similar find had been made, but the discovery elicited excitement because the dog depicted is believed to be a North African breed depicted in Egyptian papyri as a cult object, later associated with Artemis, ancient Greek goddess of the hunt.

• via: Archaeology: Ancient lamp in the shape of a dog found at Bulgaria’s Deultum Roman site (Sofia Globe)

… no photo, alas. Some of our previous coverage of finds at Dueltum … still waiting to hear about what they found in the tombs they uncovered a month or so ago:

• Remains of Ancient Bourgas From Bulgaria
• Roman Tombs from Debelt
• More From Debelt

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From the Cyprus Mail:

ARCHAEOLOGISTS exploring the Agora (market) of ancient Paphos have found a small tablet with the name of an official in Greek and a plethora of other artefacts including a golden pendant, it was announced this week.

“The most spectacular finds are a golden earring or pendant, ending in an ivy leaf, bronze objects such as a jug, a ladle with an iron handle, bronze ring, numerous coins, pins and other artefacts,” the department of antiquities said. “The most notable artefact among the lead objects – apart from a ladle with an iron handle, similar to the one uncovered last year, and weights – is a small tablet with Greek inscription mentioning the official –- Seleukos, son of Agoranomos (market administrator) Ioulios Bathylos.

Paphos was the capital of Cyprus in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

The research took place between August 17 and the end of September.

The archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, also unearthed numerous other objects including fine wares, plain wares, cooking pottery, transport amphorae, storage vessels, dated to the Hellenistic, early and late Roman, as well as Byzantine periods.

One section of the Agora, contained material – mostly pottery — of a purely Hellenistic origin, as well as walls, floors and habitation levels, which means that this area had certainly been in use during the Hellenistic period,” the department said.

Architectural remains dating back to the Roman period were also uncovered in the same area.

In 2011, five rooms were uncovered and partly explored and during the current excavations more rooms were found, bringing the number up to 12. “Most of them possibly functioned as shops (tabernae) in the early Roman period,” the department said, adding that they were probably destroyed in an earthquake.

Beneath a collapsed wall in one room, archaeologists found a bronze jug and broken vessels on the floor, including a finely preserved mortarium – a large bowl with two producer stamps and writing with the owner’s name.

• via: Archaeologists explore ancient market

Previous coverage:

• Finds from Nea Paphos (June, 2011)

• Latest from the Paphos Dig (November, 2011)

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Cambridge University had some hype for a conference on Linear B this past weekend:

When during the early 20th century archaeologists excavated some of the most famous sites of Ancient Greece – notably Knossos on the island of Crete and Mycenae and Pylos on the mainland – they found large numbers of clay tablets inscribed with a type of script that baffled them. It was significantly different to any other script known at the time. Moreover, it was immediately clear that there were at least two variants of this type of writing.

These scripts – characterised by about 90 different characters, and on the clay tablets interspersed with signs for numerals as well as the depiction of every-day objects and commodities such as pots, cloth and grain – acquired the name ‘Linear’. Linear because they were more abstract and characterised by a more linear style than the earlier hieroglyphic type of writing, also found on Crete. The two variants were given the names Linear A and B. It was clear that Linear A was the earlier type, much rarer and restricted to the island of Crete. The younger type B was found in significantly larger numbers and found at Knossos, Mycenae and Pylos. Since the original excavations evidence for the same type of writing has come to light at other places, including Thebes and Tiryns on the Greek mainland and Chania on Crete.

Today scholars are gathering at Cambridge University for a conference marking the extraordinary story of the decipherment of Linear B, a narrative that brings together some of the 20th century’s most brilliant minds in the fields of not only classical archaeology but also specialist areas ranging from philology and epigraphy to experts on Greek religion and economy. While celebrating what is often seen as the greatest advances in classical scholarship in the last 100 years, the scholars taking part are also looking at the challenges that remain in piecing together the story of the Mycenaean world, a civilisation known for its stunning art and complex and highly developed economy.

In the wake of some of the most famous excavations in history, the classicists who put their minds to the tantalising puzzle of deciphering Linear B included the best-known names in the field. After the German scholar Heinrich Schliemann had excavated Troy (or a site compatible with Homer’s famous city) and Mycenae and thereby opened the door to Greek archaeology of the second millennium BC, the British archaeologist Arthur Evans discovered these inscribed tablets in large numbers at Knossos in the year 1900. Evans and other scholars knew that the tablets held the key to a fuller understanding of the Mycenaean civilisation. But deciphering what was inscribed on them seemed an impossible task, given that both the script and the language behind it were unknown.

After many unsuccessful attempts by would-be decipherers from all over the world, it was a brilliant British amateur called Michael Ventris who was to prove pivotal in the unlocking of the secrets of Linear B. Ventris was an extraordinary scholar, largely self-taught, with a phenomenal talent for languages. His first encounter with the script occurred when as a schoolboy he was shown some of the clay tablets found at Knossos by Arthur Evans.

This chance meeting prompted a fascination that lasted right up until Ventris’s tragic death in a car crash in 1956. He set himself the task of working out the nature of the writing system and deciphering it. He worked largely alone on making sense of the script but circulated all his thoughts to the greatest scholars in the field in a series of “Work Notes on Minoan Language Research” while pursuing a career as an architect. Then, on 1 June 1952, he sent around his Work Note 20 entitled, with typical modesty, “Are the Knossos and Pylos tablets written in Greek?”. Building on earlier work, notably by the American scholar Alice Kober, he had – through a combination of sober considerations, the development of a rigorous methodology, the ingenious integration of clues of very different kinds, brilliant assumptions and patient experimentation – singlehandedly deciphered the script.

Much against his own original assumptions, Ventris was able to show, ever more clearly over the months that ensued, that the language behind the script was Greek – in his own words “a difficult and archaic Greek, but Greek nevertheless”. Lacking the necessary background in Greek philology and linguistics, in July 1952 he turned to John Chadwick, a newly-appointed lecturer in classics at the University of Cambridge, for professional support. Chadwick was an outstanding classical scholar who had worked on code-cracking in the Second World War. He helped to develop Ventris’s original decipherment and was able to elucidate the historical linguistic background and provided many interpretations of individual tablets.

In this way, Cambridge soon became established as one of the world’s leading centres for Mycenaean studies and Dr Chadwick continued to work on Linear B right up to his death in 1998.

“The decipherment of Linear B opened up, and indeed created, a whole new branch of scholarship. It added about 500 years to our knowledge of Greek, catapulting our understanding of early Greek history and society back into the second millennium BC, to the end of the Bronze Age at about 1200BC,” said Dr Torsten Meissner, organiser of today’s conference. “Suddenly the places of the figures of Greek mythology – like the legendary King Minos of Knossos or Homeric heroes like Nestor, king of Pylos, or Agamemnon, king of Mycenae – could be placed in a real setting through the clay tablets that record their administrative and political organisation.”

Many parts of the jigsaw that is the Mycenaean world are still missing – for example the relationships of the various sites with one another. However, the ways in which Ventris and Chadwick worked across disciplines and specialisms laid the foundations for scholarship that is seeing the pieces come together, one by one.

• via: Cracking the code: the decipherment of Linear B 60 years on (Cambridge University)

… not sure if there will be any followups …

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Philip Freeman talks to St Louis Public Radio about his book How to Win an Election:

• Ancient Campaign Advice For Modern Politicians

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Is reading about women better than sleeping with them? (This passage might not be entirely without irony.)

τίς δ’ ἂν ἡσθείη συναναπαυσάμενος τῇ καλλίστῃ γυναικὶ μᾶλλον ἢ προσαγρυπνήσας οἷς γέγραφε περὶ Πανθείας Ξενοφῶν ἢ περὶ Τιμοκλείας Ἀριστόβουλος ἢ Θήβης Θεόπομπος;

Who would take more pleasure in sleeping with the most beautiful woman than in sitting up with what Xenophon wrote about Pantheia, or Aristobulus about Timocleia, or Theopompus about Thebe?

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Over the past day or so, several bloggers have responded to, mentioned, or built upon things I've written here or said elsewhere on the topic of religion and science fiction.

At Political Jesus, Rod the Rogue Demon-Hunter shared several tongue-in-cheek explorations of the idea of Jesus as Sith Lord. Below is one of the images he shared (another is at the end of this post):

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Of course, elsewhere Jesus is depicted as saying the opposite – that anyone who is not against him is for him. I don't think Anakin ever did that…

Fred Clark responded to the IO9 article that I was quoted in, suggesting that it would be interesting for science fiction to explore a “Calvinist dystopia.” Click through to read more about his idea.

John Morehead likewise looks at ways that science fiction can be useful for the purpose of theological and ethical exploration and reflection.

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And since young-earth creationism is science fiction, I can also mention Josh's response to my post about what “most Christians think” over at Unsettled Christianity.

But “seriously” (to the extent that anything about this post is “serious”): does it or would it trouble you if your own religious viewpoint turned out to be closer to what is attributed to Sith than to Jedi in the Star Wars films and other Star Wars materials?

Information signalée par Marie-Karine Lhommé

Passeurs de savoir(s)

Journées d'initiation et de formation à la recherche sur l'Antiquité (octobre-novembre 2012)

Jeudi 18 octobre 2012
14h30 : Ouverture et introduction 

I. L'ATELIER DE LA RECHERCHE : Complexité des sources et complémentarité des disciplines
14h45 : Sylvie Pittia, Pr. Université de Paris I La philologie, science auxiliaire de l'historien : étude de cas à partir des « Verrines » de Cicéron 
15h45 : Guy Labarre, Pr. Université de Franche-Comté, ISTA Lire et éditer une inscription. Problèmes de méthode 
16h45 : Discussion

Jeudi 15 novembre 2012
9h00 : Accueil des intervenants
9h30 : Ouverture et introduction : Marie-Rose Guelfucci, Antonio Gonzales, Pr. Université de Franche-Comté

I. L'ATELIER DE LA RECHERCHE : Complexité des sources et complémentarité des disciplines
10h00 : Thomas Schmidt, Pr. Université de Fribourg Faire parler un papyrus : à propos d'un petit fragment de Genève
10h30 : Julien Demaille, Université de Franche-Comté, Doctorant ISTA Étudier une société d'époque impériale à partir de sources épigraphiques : le cas de la colonie romaine de Dion (Piérie, Macédoine)
11h00 : Pause
11h20 : Ugo Fantasia, Pr. Université de Parme Pausanias et l'histoire du Vème siècle : le portique des Athéniens à Delphes
11h50 : Discussion
Déjeuner

II. L'ATELIER DE LA RECHERCHE : Lire, analyser, décrypter un texte. Problèmes de méthode et d'interprétation
14h00 : Perrine Mangin, Université de Franche-Comté, Doctorante ISTA Confronter Tite-Live et Polybe : problèmes méthodologiques
14h30 : Daniel Battesti, Université de Franche-Comté, Doctorant ISTA Sources “intégrales” et fragmentaires : écarts et dissonances
15h00 : Bernard Mineo, Pr. Université de Nantes Problèmes de méthodes pour déconstruire les récits historiques concernant les débuts de l'histoire romaine
15h30 : Discussion
16h00 : Pause
16h15 : Isabelle Cogitore, Pr. Université de Grenoble Traces possibles d'une opposition augustéenne dans les « Suasoires » de Sénèque le Rhéteur?
16h45 : Eugenio Amato, Pr. IUF Université de Nantes Recherche(s) et découvertes
17h15 : Discussion

Vendredi 16 novembre 2012

III. TEXTES EN DIACHRONIE : Problèmes d'interprétation(s), refigurations et lectures synchroniques
9h00 : Pierre Voelke, MCF Université de Lausanne L'hymne à Dionysos des femmes d'Elis (PMG 871) : problèmes interprétatifs
9h30 : Laurène Leclercq, Université de Franche-Comté, Doctorante ISTA κατὰ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον (« en vertu du caractère humain qui est le leur », I, 22, 4) : Chercher l'humain chez Thucydide
10h00 : David Bouvier, Pr. Université de Lausanne Savoir regarder la poésie homérique : Homère à la Renaissance
10h30 : Pause
10h50 : Discussion
11h15 : Ruth Webb, Pr. Université de Lille III Cours de rhétorique au présent
11h45 : Michel Pretalli, MCF Université de Franche-Comté, ISTA Construire un projet de recherche collectif (BQR Jeunes Chercheurs)
12h15 : Discussion
12h30 : Conclusions

Lieu : UFR SLHS 
20 rue Chifflet 
Salon Préclin 
25000 Besancon

Contact : marie-rose.guelfucci@univ-fcomte.fr

Programme complet

Source : ISTA

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Clik here to view.The New York Times has reported that the organization that calls itself the “American Family Association” is opposing Mix It Up Day – a day during which children are (get ready for it) encouraged to sit with someone that they would not normally, outside of their comfort zone.

American Family Association, and anyone who keeps their children home from school at their advice, I am talking to you:

The Jesus you claim to follow ate with tax collectors and sinners. He went to spend time among the Samaritans. He touched, and allowed himself to be touched by, the unclean and marginalized. He encouraged women to learn at a time when that was controversial. He broke down boundaries, and his earliest followers followed in his footsteps and went even further down the path of eliminating distinctions between slave and free, Jew and Greek and other ethnicities, rich and poor, male and female – specifically working to accomplish this by bringing them together at meals.

If you oppose having your children sit next to someone they don’t normally, someone who is different from them, the values you are standing for are not Christian but anti-Christian. And by your actions, you are not only instilling anti-Christian values in your own children, but giving a bad impression about Christianity to everyone who hears about what you are doing.

To those who actually understand who Jesus was and actually seek to follow him, I think the best thing that we can do is to (1) speak out about this, and (2) promote Mix-It-Up Day. I’ll be mentioning it to everyone I know who works in education – I hope that you’ll do the same!

Despite a multidimensional crisis that has created ideal conditions for the trade in conflict antiquities from Mali, there appears to be no evidence of organised criminal, or religious or nationalist paramilitary, antiquities looting.

Unfortunately, the lack of looting may actually indicate that the humanitarian crisis is too severe to be exploited by the illicit antiquities market: the most desperate communities have become refugees unable to engage in subsistence digging; and the religious extremist paramilitaries do not need or want to profit from the smuggling and sale of cultural property, as their sole interest is in its destruction.

Background

Malians’ cultural heritage has long been endangered by their deep poverty and chronic insecurity. Their severe economic problems have been caused or worsened by increasing environmental challenges; together, they have created resource challenges for displaced and host communities, and trapped populations; and all of those difficulties have been worsened by frequent political instability.

Since the French colonial occupation of Mali in 1891, there have been ethnic and religious communal clashes; at least one or two minor and five major Tuareg rebellions; a popular revolution; and two (or three) military coups. They comprise:

• the (limited) KelAtaram rebellion of 1911, a revolt against French colonial rule over Ménaka;
• the Kaocen Revolt (or Kawousan War) of 1916-1917, a struggle (an anti-fanatical Senusian Sufi jihad) against French colonial rule;
• the Alfellaga of 1962-1964, a Tuareg secessionist insurgency against the free Malian state;
• the 1968-1991 coup (and rule) of the Malian Military Committee of National Liberation (Comité Militaire de Libération Nationale (CMLN)) and its political party, President Lieutenant Moussa Traoré’s Democratic Union of the Malian People (Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien (UDPM));
• (possibly another (limited) Tuareg rebellion in 1985, against the “re-election” of the government of the one-party state, but possibly only dissidence, as it is absent from other timelines of Malian history Image may be NSFW.
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• the Malian Civil War of 1990-1995/1996, which comprised conflicts initiated first by Tuareg autonomists and then by the Songhoi Malian Patriotic Movement (Ganda Koi [Land-Owners]);
• the Events (les Événements, or the March Revolution) of 22nd-26th March 1991, a popular uprising against military dictatorship, at the end of which Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré deposed Lt. Traoré and established the civilian Transitional Committee for the Salvation of the People (and led to the achievement of democratic government in 1992);
• clashes between Kunta and Arab communities in October 1999;
• clashes between Islamic sects in August 2003;
• the (Bahanga) Tuareg Rebellion of 2006/2007-2009, an insurgency driven by the Niger-Mali-Tuareg Alliance for Change (Alliance-Touareg-Niger-Mali pour Changement (ATNMC))/North Mali Tuareg Alliance for Change (Alliance-Touaregue-Nord Mali pour Le Changement (ATNMC)), which was/is a splinter group from the 23rd May Democratic Alliance for Change (Alliance Démocratique du 23 Mai pour le Changement (ADC)), in the self-governing Tuareg-majority region of Kidal; and
• the ongoing Azawad rebellion of 2011/2012, comprising the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (Mouvement National de Libération d’Azawad (MNLA)), (Islamist) Ansar Dine(1) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM); and, thereby
• the 2012 coup (and indirect rule) of the National Committee for the Recovery of Democracy and the Restoration of the State (Comité National pour le Redressement de la Démocratie et la Restauration de l’État (CNRDR/CNRDRE)).

The present troubles in Mali are very complicated; every community, movement and institution is split. Basically:

• the largest Tuareg tribes are set against each other, the Ifogha and Chamanamasse against the Imghad (who receive preferential treatment for having suppressed the Ifogha-led 2006-2009 rebellion);
• the rebels at least partly fund their activity by smuggling, and include Gaddafi-armed and -trained Tuareg fighters/mercenaries who fled from Libya;
• the predominantly anti-extremist, Sufi Tuareg rebels had declared northern Mali to be an independent state; then, to consolidate their position, they entered a tactical alliance with the extremist, Salafi Ansar Dine (with the support of AQIM), and declared northern Mali to be an Islamic state; but Ansar Dine and AQIM, which want all of Mali to be under Shari’a law, broke the alliance, took the major urban territories in northern Mali and started a programme of destruction of (ideologically-unacceptable, primarily) Sufi cultural heritage;
• in response to a(n alleged) counter-coup to reinstall the democratic state, the CNRDRE effectively held another coup of its own, deposing its own civilian administration;
• as well as all of the other movements, local youth militias emerged to protect their neighbourhoods from the larger paramilitaries;
• subsequently, a government of national unity was established; but
• yet another Islamist paramilitary, Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mouvement pour l’Unicité et le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest (MUJAO)), defeated yet another secularist militia, the Gandakoy, and took over the central Malian city of Douentza; so
• Mali continues to slip and slide ever closer to civil war.

No evidence of crisis-driven subsistence digging, no evidence of conflict-funding antiquities looting

Historically, dealer-employed ‘teams’ of Malian diggers would “trench” entire sites; they were paid ‘a pittance’ but, in a crisis, ‘any money was better than none‘. Making a bad situation worse, when fighting erupted between the MNLA and Ansar Dine, it erupted in Kidal. That region has the highest poverty rate in the country; (more than elsewhere) it lacks food security, water security, basic infrastructure. Now, ‘[t]here’s very little food at all and hardly any fuel or water’; there’s ‘not enough… food, water, or basic medicine‘. Yet there is no sign of a looting spree.

Humanitarian situation in Mali

Mali was already ‘in the middle of a food emergency‘ in which three million Malians were ‘at risk of hunger’. Then, during the coup, government ministries were looted, so administration of vital services was disrupted or prevented; and, during rebel groups’ takeovers of towns including Kidal, ‘hospitals, health clinics, government buildings, and most NGO and UN offices and warehouses were looted, and in some cases destroyed, leaving the bulk of humanitarian operations suspended’.

The president of the local youth association, Issa Mahamar Touré, told how in Gao, the ‘hospital… closed and doctors… fled… [There was] complete desolation, despair’. As the head of the Malian office of Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), Julia McDade, said, the rebels’ own ‘relatives are dying in the field’.

And that’s just within Mali.

Humanitarian situation in Malian refugees’ host communities

Already in the spring, when there were 300,000 Malian refugees (both within Mali and) in Algeria, Burkina Faso, (Guinea,) Mauritania and Niger (and Togo), where the locals faced ‘starvation, [and] lack of water‘, there were fears of inter-communal conflict.

By the summer, there were 440,000 internally or internationally displaced Malians. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR(2)) tried to supply both refugees and host communities with water, sanitation, shelter, ‘core-relief items’, etc.; but it could not provide ‘even the most basic assistance, such as water, sanitation, shelter‘.

In the crisis-stricken Sahel region, ‘more than 4 million children [are] at risk of acute malnutrition, including nearly 1.1 million who will face life-threatening severe acute malnutrition‘.

Looting situation

The Director of the National Museum of Mali, Dr. Samuel Sidibé, is right that the conflict ‘creates conditions favourable for all illicit activities [créent des conditions favorables à toutes les activités illicites]‘, and he is right that we must be vigilant. And the Coordinator of the Africa Codicology Institute, Dr. Jacques Habib Sy, has reported that ‘drug dealers from neighbouring areas including Libya have moved in and are offering money for manuscripts…. [with which] “to launder drug money“‘.

Moreover, clearly, looting continues; illicit antiquities are still for sale. Yet, remarkably, from news reports to professional and regional blogs and tweets (in English and French), there appears to be no evidence of crisis-driven subsistence digging; and there appears to be no evidence of organised criminal, or religious or nationalist paramilitary, antiquities looting either.

Early in the conflict, ‘local libraries’ were ‘looted’, but there were ‘no significant [cultural] losses‘. In April, Ansar Dine repeatedly ransacked the Institute of Higher Learning and Islamic Research (Institut des Hautes Études et de Recherche Islamique – Ahmad Baba (IHÉRI-AB/IHÉRIAB)); but their attacks on IHÉRIAB appear to have been attempts to destroy rather than steal historic documents.

Explaining the lack of looting

The President of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Disaster Relief Task Force, Dr. Thomas Schuler, has confirmed that manuscripts, libraries and museums are otherwise ‘safe’; ‘[t]hanks to’ owners’ and curators’ secret storage of cultural property and rebels’ and civilians’ protection of heritage sites, ‘there ha[ve] been no thefts reported so far‘. And all of the people involved do deserve praise.

Beyond that, though, there may be one reassuring reason, and three less comforting reasons, for the lack of illicit digging. Optimistically, aid supplies have satisfied people’s minimal requirements; however, even the aid suppliers have said that has not happened; and the aid is only for refugees and their hosts, not for people still resident in their original communities.

Alternatively, the most desperate communities have been forced to seek asylum and, thus, cannot engage in subsistence digging; the ‘kidnap economy‘ is sufficiently profitable; and/or the Salafist paramilitaries do not “only” want to cleanse Mali of its pre-Islamic and non-Salafi cultural heritage (and profit from its smuggling and sale to Western private collectors), they actively want to eradicate all supposedly sinful material from existence. The humanitarian crisis may indeed be too severe to be exploited by the illicit antiquities market.

The desecration of the City of 333 Saints, and the destruction of a history of shared life

On the 4th of May, either AQIM or Ansar Dine or both attacked the tomb of Sufi saint Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar; they ‘broke the door and window, and tore and burned the immaculate cloths around the tomb [ont brisé porte et fenêtre et déchiré et brûlé les tissus immaculés autour de la tombe]‘ (via Bastien Varoutsikos). At some point, the Gina Dogon Monument in Douentza was ‘damage[d]‘.

Responding to UNESCO’s 28th of June listing of the city of Timbuktu and the Tomb of Askia as World Heritage in Danger, on the 30th of June, Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Boumama declared:

Today [i.e. now] Ansar Dine will destroy all of the shrines in the city. All of the shrines without exception. There is only one God. All that [non-Salafi Islamic cultural heritage] is “haram” [forbidden in Islam]. Us, we are Muslims. Unesco, what is it?

[Ansar Dine va détruire aujourd'hui tous les mausolées de la ville. Tous les mausolées sans exception. Dieu, il est unique. Tout ça, c'est 'haram' [interdit en islam]. Nous, nous sommes musulmans. L’Unesco, c’est quoi?]

Nominally in retaliation against the UNESCO listing, they decapitated the independence monument of Mali, the patron djinn of Timbuktu, al-Farouk. Using ‘pickaxes, hoes and shovels [de pioches, de houes et de burins]‘, thirty Ansar Dine fighters destroyed the mausoleums of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar (or Sidi el Moctar) and Alpha Moya.

However, since they had attacked shrines before the UNESCO decision and are ideologically committed to the eradication of anything that violates the Salafi interpretation of Islamic law, it seems that the UNESCO listing was an excuse for the intensification of the destruction rather than the cause of the destruction.(3)

Indeed, Boumama told Radio France Internationale (RFI) that ‘[w]hen the Prophet entered Mecca, he said that all the mausoleums should be destroyed. And that’s what we’re repeating.’ Thus, Ansar Dine will not be influenced by International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s warning that the destruction of civilian buildings/cultural property is a prosecutable war crime.

Still, teacher/eyewitness Amar Maiga has told how local men and youths have successfully guarded the Tomb of Askia and the mosque in Gao; on the 25th of June, a ‘human chain of residents‘ saved the Tomb of Askia. Two Arab Malian ‘vigilance brigade[s]‘ protect mausoleums in Araouane and Gasser-Cheick. So, remarkably, even now, there is some small cause for optimism. It can only be hoped that their presence continues to deter attacks, that they are not forced to prevent attacks through a violent clash. Nevertheless, inevitably, this cannot suffice for protection.

On the 1st of July, Ansar Dine attacked four more shrines, including two in the cemetery of Djingareyber Mosque, one of which was the mausoleum of Sheikh el-Kebir (see also Tahir Shah, via Derek Fincham). On the 2nd of July, in order to challenge a Sufi legend that Sidi Yahya Mosque should not be opened until the end of the world, Salafists ‘smashed down the door‘. Over the course of the month, ‘several’ – more? – ‘tombs of Sufi saints were pick-axed and pounded to rubble by al Qaeda-linked Islamist groups’.

On 15th of September, the mausoleum of Sheikh el-Kebir (Cheik El Kébir), which is especially sacred to the Kunta community, was finally, completely demolished.

More than 200 Sufi saints’ tombs and mausoleums are at risk of destruction. Up to 700,000 ancient manuscripts are at risk of theft(4) for sale to private antiquities collectors or, more simply, destruction by Salafist extremists.

Footnotes

1: Ansar Dine means “Defenders of the Faith”; it is also transliterated as Ançar Deen, Ançar Din, Ançar Dine, Ansar ad-Din, Ansar al-Din, Ansar Eddine and Ansar ul-Din.

2: also known as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

3: Obviously, UNESCO (which has established a fund) and its World Heritage Committee (WHC) are not alone in their concern. The programme of destruction in Mali has been condemned by the School for African Heritage (l’École du Patrimoine Africain (ÉPA)) and allied agencies and cultural heritage professionals (like the Toumbouctou Manuscripts Project); (the International Committee of) the Blue Shield (comprising the International Council on Archives (ICA), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the Co‐ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations (CCAAA)); the United Nations Security Council; the World Archaeological Congress (WAC); countries from Russia to Turkey; everyone from the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa (SCOLMA) to African American Evangelical Christian movements; and Ansar Dine’s momentary allies, the MNLA…

4: Grimly ironically, alongside its programme of destruction, Ansar Dine has also imposed Shari’a law, including ‘the punitive mutilation of thieves‘, the chopping off of their hands.

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