The second fall of Pompeii

It was destroyed 2,000 years ago, but now Italy's ancient Roman city of Pompeii is facing ruin once again.

Not by a volcanic eruption like the one that buried the city in 79 AD, but by years of "neglect" and "mediocre" management by the Italian government, according to heritage groups and archaeologists.

The UNESCO World Heritage site came under scrutiny in early November, when one of its archaeological treasures, the "House of the Gladiators," crumbled.

Since then, the walls of four more buildings have been reduced to rubble because their ancient mortar is unable to cope with recent heavy rainfall, says Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei, the organization charged with the site's upkeep.

Pompeii, near Naples in the south of Italy, is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in the country. It was destroyed when a volcanic eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius buried the city in ash. The ash preserved the remains to an astonishing degree, which is why Pompeii is such a treasure.

The site receives more than 2.5 million visitors each year, and according to Antonio Varone, director of excavations at the site, it generated $23.8 million from tourists in the first 10 months of this year alone.

So why is one of the world's most treasured and historically significant sites in such a lamentable state?

"The current state of conservation in Pompeii is mediocre," said Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, former Superintendent and archeologist at Pompeii. Guzzo retired in August 2009 after 15 years in the post.

"The financial resources available for restoration and conservation have always been negligible," he said. "Instead it is preferred to dig, rather than preserve what has already been discovered."

According to Guzzo, remains would be safer left buried. Inadequate funds are not enough to protect all of the site's fragile ruins -- most of them are held together by ancient mortar so delicate "even the rain does damage."

In fact, says Guzzo, Pompeii is so starved of funding that the Soprintendenza don't even have enough cars and gasoline to travel around inspecting the various sites.

Despite the Soprintendenza collecting revenue from ticket sales and receiving funds from the government, Guzzo says its not enough to make up the estimated €260 million ($343 million) needed to restore the site completely.

"You also have to note that the Soprintendenza of Pompeii is also responsible for the archeological sites of Herculaneum, Stabia, Oplontis (and) Boscoreale, which also need to be maintained," Guzzo added.

So desperate is the situation, Italy's oldest heritage charity, Italia Nostra, has issued a red list consisting of over 50 sites in need of urgent attention.

"There has been no maintenance for decades," said Alessandra Mottola Molfino, President of Italia Nostra. "We have 47 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It's an enormous responsibility, but one not taken seriously."

Mottola Molfino places the blame squarely at the feet of the Italian government .

The problem, she says, is twofold -- a dramatic reduction in the Ministry of Culture's budget and a siphoning of funds within the Ministry towards showy events at the expense of conservation.

According to the research group l'Associazione per l'Economia della Cultura, allocated spending for Ministry of Culture departments in charge of conservation was halved over eight years from 2000 to 2008, though there is evidence of investment in other departments.

Mottola Molfino thinks that Culture Minister Sandro Bondi's department is also funnelling cash in the wrong direction.

"The ministry has spent enormous quantities of money on ephemeral events," she said. "In Pompeii, they've spent money on theatre and shows, not on the maintenance of the area."

Guzzo agreed, saying the promotion of events at Pompeii, such as the anniversary of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, had taken priority over the "silent and daily" work of conservation.

CNN put these allegations to the Ministry of Culture and was still waiting for a response at the time of publication.

However, five days after the collapse of the House of the Gladiators the President of the Chamber of Deputies Commission for Culture, Valentina Aprea denied allegations of neglect by the government and defended Culture Minister Bondi.

"The exceptional nature of the site of Pompeii has never been neglected by an Italian government and in particular by Minister Bondi," who's management of the site, she said in a news release, has been extraordinary.

Since the House of the Gladiators collapsed, the ministry has put in place emergency measures at Pompeii, giving the Soprintendenza stronger powers to protect the site, as well drawing up plans to increase the number of archaeologists and skilled workers on site, according to a statement on the ministry website.

For Mottola Molfino the measures can't come soon enough.

"We have the means to do it. We have enough knowledge and enough money -- why should we not care for our best assets?"

From CNN

Selling Stonehenge and other World Heritage Sites

Here’s a novel suggestion for how the government can help reduce the massive public deficit: sell Stonehenge. A survey of 500 estate agents, among other monuments studied, has placed the price of the ancient stone circle at a cool £51 million. It’s a drop in the ocean of the £156 billion gap between government income and expenditure. But it’s a start.

Okay, so we’re not really advocating putting one of Britain’s most prized historic monuments up for sale: UNESCO would have some angry words to say about that. And it doesn’t even bare thinking how the druids will react. But the survey does shed light on just how much heritage sites are worth. Elsewhere, a price tag of £5.2 million was placed on 10 Downing Street, while Windsor Castle’s value was reckoned at £391 million.

But are the sums on Stonehenge correct? Shouldn’t such an internationally-renowned, popular and iconic monument be worth so much more?

In recent years Christie’s auction house has sold the likes of the Egyptian statue of Ka-Nefer and his family for a tidy £1.9 million, the Canford Assyrian relief for the princely sum of £7.7 million, and the Jenkins Venus for a whopping £7.9 million.

Counting just the 18 large standing stones, the 10 giant stones of the inner circle and the central altar stone at Stonehenge, by a very unscientific breakdown, that £51 million price tag on the Neolithic monument gives its 29 key constituent parts an approximate value of just £1.7 million a piece. That’s lower than each of the Christie’s sales listed above.

Theoretically speaking, don’t these figures at least suggest the total price tag should be a bit higher? Surely a super-wealthy antiquities collector would be prepared to pay megabucks to have a Stonehenge megalith in their living room? Or possibly even a trilith framing their front door?

And what about admission fees? Stonehenge presently attracts around 900,000 visitors a year, at an average price of about £5 per head. Multiply that long-term – by 25 years, say – and that means the monument is worth over £112 million. Consider too that visitor figures will most likely increase in years to come, and factor in revenue from merchandising, and £51 million begins to sound like a snip.

“It’s quite a challenge for estate agents more used to valuing suburban semis to put an accurate valuation on a royal castle or ancient monument,” commented Nigel Lewis, a property analyst at FindaProperty.com, who ran the survey. “But there was a surprising amount of agreement between the different agents we spoke to.”

Clearly estate agents have done their sums, too. They consider many different factors when it comes to judging the value of a property – location, age, whether it’s in need of improvement and so on. Stonehenge doesn’t lack for a good spot, situated on sheep-nibbled rolling Wiltshire countryside. But at 4,500 years vintage it could hardly be described as a new build, while its state of repair is questionable to say the least. And then there’s that ugly car park plonked right across the road since the 1960s (although it’s soon to be removed).

Also, unless Stonehenge’s new owners were to scrap already scaled-down plans for a new visitor centre – current cost £25 million – then that’s a big chunk of change they’ll need to lay out straight after being handed the keys to the front gate. But £51 million still sounds like far too low an asking price.

Someone buying a historic British monument isn’t actually as ridiculous as it sounds. Missourian businessman Robert P. McCulloch in 1968 purchased the old 19th century London Bridge designed by engineer John Rennie (or at least its stone cladding) from the City of London for $2 million dollars. He then shipped it to the United States, where it was rebuilt across Lake Havasu in Arizona as the gateway to a mock-English community. Legend has it that McCulloch mistakenly believed he was actually buying Tower Bridge – a story he vehemently denied.

It’d be a tragedy to see Stonehenge similarly packed-up and shipped off elsewhere. But Number 10 or Windsor Castle? Times are tight, after all.

From The Independent

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Here in America we've got our own budgetary gaps to fill.  If the Stars and Stripes were to follow suit (remember this is all theoretical) what would we be able to bring to the auction block?  Off the top of my head I can think of a few World Heritage Sites that may fetch a pretty penny from the right buyer.

First up is Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were both signed.  Ultimately the birthplace of American government, wouldn't it do wonders to inspire fair forms of government in other parts of the world, say the Middle East?  Could we part with it knowing that the building could possibly inspire other nations to develop a free and equal way of living?  Or would we be wrapped in fear that Independence Hall may end up as a trophy piece on the mantle of some communist nation?

Next, the Statue of Liberty.  Imagine if France were to buy back this long-standing symbol of freedom and new beginnings.  Since 1886, Miss Liberty has sat at the entrance to New York Harbor welcoming immigrants to a land of freedom.   With the way our country (sorry, I mean Arizona) is cracking down on immigration, maybe it's time we let this one go.  Some things just don't fit like they used to.  Perhaps it would look better on the coast of England as the pin-up girl of the EU.  Hell, maybe BP can buy it and use it to stop the leak in the Gulf.  Whatever works...

The whole idea fostered by The Independent article is how do you place monetary worth on ultimately invaluable landmarks?  By what criteria is value judged?  While these places may have value in the form of materials or architectural design, the intangible value they have to people and nations can never be calculated.  Ultimately, is the idea of owning a piece of another country's cultural heritage just too much to consider?

Comments welcome.

Neues Museum reopens, not without controversy

Berlin's Neues Museum, boasting ancient treasures such as a famous bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti and a magnificent Bronze Age golden hat, is finally reopening to the public after standing for decades as a bomb-damaged shell.

The museum opening will mark the first time since World War II that the whole of Berlin's neoclassical Museum Island complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been open.

"It is a special day ... 70 years after it was closed, this building can be handed over to the public again," Hermann Parzinger, the head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees Berlin's museums, said Thursday. "It is, in a way, the end of the postwar era for the Museum Island."

The museum's best-known exhibit is the limestone-and-stucco bust of Nefertiti, which dates back to about 1340 B.C.. The graceful, delicately detailed piece was found by German archeologists in 1912 and went on display at the Neues Museum in 1924.

Also given pride of place is the "Berlin golden hat," a tall, conical artifact made of hammered gold and decorated with astronomic symbols including the moon. It dates back to about 1000 B.C. and may have been used as the ceremonial hat of a high priest or ruler.

The Neues Museum, designed by Prussian architect Friedrich August Stueler, first opened to the public in 1855.

Stueler worked "to bring art collections with differing directions and from different origins together here in such a way that it was possible to take a walk through the earliest cultures of humanity," Berlin museums director Michael Eissenhauer said.

The restored Neues Museum reflects that approach, bringing together Berlin's Egyptian collection with its artifacts from the prehistoric and later eras, along with some of the city's classical antiquities.

The museum shut at the beginning of the war in 1939, and the contents were put into storage. Major bomb damage went largely unrepaired by cash-strapped East Germany, and it has taken until now for the exhibits to return.

British architect David Chipperfield's $298 million restoration, completed in March, incorporates original material that survived wartime bombing and decades of exposure to the weather.

A faux-Egyptian painted ceiling hangs over a room dedicated to the history of Egyptology, while monumental sarcophagi are exhibited below 19th-century murals depicting scenes from the Nile Valley.

The museum "is a palace for things marked by history that itself is marked by history," said Matthias Wemhoff, who is in charge of the prehistoric collection. Link.

As exciting as it is the see the museum reopened after 70 years, it isn't without controversy as this article from the New York Times points out.

Culture lovers reveled in the reopening of the Neues Museum in the heart of Berlin on Friday, the culmination of decades of efforts to renovate the site, which was destroyed during World War II.

But the celebrations have been marred by a growing dispute between the German and Egyptian governments over the star of the show: the 3,500-year-old limestone-and-stucco bust of Queen Nefertiti, a wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Nefertiti has been in Germany since 1913. But now Egypt is demanding that the fragile object, perched alone in a domed room that overlooks the length of the museum, be returned home.

Zahi Hawass, general secretary of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told German newspapers over the past few days that Nefertiti belonged to Egypt.

In interviews with Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger and Spiegel Online, Mr. Hawass said an official investigation had been started into how Nefertiti arrived in Germany. “If she left Egypt illegally, which I am convinced she did, then I will officially demand it back from Germany,” he said.

German art experts deny that Nefertiti was taken out of Egypt illegally.

Mr. Hawass made his comments just weeks after Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, complained over his failure to win election as the new director of the United Nations culture agency, UNESCO, based in Paris.

Once considered a front-runner, Mr. Hosny stirred controversy because of remarks made in 2008, when he told the Egyptian Parliament that he would burn Israeli books if he found them in a library in Egypt.

Even though he distanced himself from those remarks, the United States, France and others fought his appointment.

A German Foreign Ministry official said there was “no connection between the Egyptian request to have Nefertiti returned and the outcome of the Unesco vote.” The official, who requested anonymity according to diplomatic protocol, would not say how Germany voted.

Days after Mr. Hosny’s defeat, Mr. Hawass accused France of stealing antiquities — including five painted wall fragments dating from the Pharaohs that ended up in the Louvre in 2000 and 2003 — and insisted that they be returned.

After Egypt threatened to suspend cooperation for exhibitions organized with the Louvre as well as any work done by the Louvre on the pharaonic necropolis of Saqqara, south of Cairo, France’s culture minister said his country was ready to return the antiquities if they were stolen.

In the case of Nefertiti, Mr. Hawass said that Egyptian officials may have been misled over how the bust had been taken to Germany in 1913, but several German art experts disagreed.

“There was a complete understanding about what would remain in Egypt and what would be taken to Germany,” said Monika Grütters, an art historian and cultural expert in the Christian Democratic Union, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel. She added, “The process was legal.”

According to Der Spiegel, a document written in 1924 that was found in the archives of the German Oriental Company recounted a meeting in 1913 between a senior Egyptian official and the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, who found the bust during a dig in 1912.

The secretary of the German Oriental Company, who was present at the meeting, said it had been called to divide up the spoils of the dig between Germany and Egypt. He claimed that Mr. Borchardt “wanted to save the bust for us.” Link.

UNESCO releases report on damage done to Babylon

On the 15th of January, 2005, the world woke to the BBC News headlines:

These were harsh words to swallow in a heavily critiqued and already unpopular war.  The United States was faced with rampant criticism not only from the fledgling Iraqi government, but from the global community.  As an investigation was launched to examine the extent of the damage, specific details soon came to light.

The initial 2,000 US troops and contractors, notably from KBR — then a Halliburton subsidiary - who were deployed in Baghdad set up camp amidst the ruins of old temples, including the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.   2,500 year old brick pavement was crushed by heavy military vehicles moving about and a helicopter pad was constructed on top of the site using compacted gravel and in some cases chemical treatment. The vibrations from helicopters using this same landing pad led to the roof of one of the buildings to collapse.

To top it all off, reports indicated that soldiers also filled their sandbags with archaeological artifacts, just because they were lying around and easy to pick up.

On Thursday, experts from UNESCO published the specifics from their survey in a report.

"There has indeed been a considerable amount of damage," said archaeologist John Curtis of the British Museum, who inspected the site just after U.S. troops handed it back to Iraqi authorities in late 2004.

He said nine of the dragon carvings from Babylon's landmark, 2,600-year-old Ishtar Gate, appeared to have been vandalized by looters while the site was under U.S. military control.

U.S. authorities have said the looting would have been worse had its troops not been there.

UNESCO officials stressed that the damage didn't begin with the U.S. military or fully end after it left. Many of Babylon's most famous artifacts were ripped off walls by European archaeologists during the 19th century and remain on display at the Louvre and Pergamon Museums in Paris and Berlin.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein also restored or distorted some of the ruins so badly that it prevented UNESCO from listing Babylon as a World Heritage site in the past, UNESCO officials said.

Looting and black-market trading has continued on a large scale since the site was handed back to Iraqis, they added.

The scale of the damage means it is too early to assess how much money will be needed to restore and fully protect the site, said Curtis and the other experts who prepared the UNESCO report, which caps five years of investigation and multiple findings by Iraqi and international academics.

"I'm happy to say we didn't actually find any sign of malicious damage," done after the departure of the U.S.-led coalition troops in 2004, Curtis told reporters.

There are, however, concerns that local Iraqi authorities are arguing with the country's Culture Ministry over control of the area, UNESCO said, and questions remain about a section of the site that was recently leveled to create a picnic zone.

The Iraqi ambassador to UNESCO said authorities were worried by all these problems and would try to solve them.

"(But) the priority of the government was, and still is, the security of people on the ground," said ambassador Muhy al-Khateeb.

It is not UNESCO's role to ascribe responsibilities for the damage, said Francoise Riviere, the agency's undersecretary general for culture. Damaging cultural artifacts is forbidden under the 1954 additional protocol to The Hague War Conventions, but the text has been largely ignored during conflicts around the world. (Read it here.)

Riviere said in Babylon's case, any possible financial settlement would be "left to the appreciation of the parties to the conflict."

The U.N. cultural body is leading efforts to reinforce the Hague rules "so that what happened to Babylon can't ever happen again," Riviere said.

UNESCO could coordinate funds and reconstruction efforts, Riviere said, hoping to improve Babylon's protection by making it a World Heritage site "possibly within two years."

From the Associated Press