History Disappearing

History Disappearing

    There was a piece in a recent issue of Smithsonian, one which showed the wanton destruction of historical sites and monuments by ISIS saying: ...Never has more history been willfully destroyed in one swath of the world than in recent years...The group’s annihilative psycho­pathy seemed to peak in August, when it publicly executed Khaled al-Asaad, Palmyra’s 82-year-old head of antiquities for more than 40 years and a beloved archaeologist.  ISIS beheaded al-Asaad and hung his body from a column in the city, condemning him as a “director of idolatry.”  But according to some reports, the Islamists killed him because he had refused, during more than a month of captivity and interrogation, to reveal the location of antiquities that his staff had hidden away.  One can imagine the thoughts of watching something dating back to a god from Mesopotamia being toppled, history falling before one's eyes, and giving one's life to protect further destruction.

    Much of this has happened before, of course.  One only has to view what few remains of the Roman or Greek empires or the Celts or Mongols remain, conquests that stretched much further geographically than people tend to realize.  From Harry Oliver's book Flying By the Seat of Your Pants, comes this about Edinburgh in Scotland: A fort and small settlement was established during the Bronze Age between 1500 and 1000 BC by the Picts on the site of what is now Holyrood Park.  Around the time of the Roman occupation, the Gododdin tribe are thought to have named the place Dun Eidyn, meaning simply "hill fort."  The town was never captured by the Romans, and it is one of the sites in Europe that has undergone the longest continual occupation.  After it was attacked by the Bernician Angles in the sixth century, its name was changed to Edinburgh--burh meaning town.  The spelling was later modernized to Edinburgh.  Or this on the city of Paris: The name of the city is derived from the people who first settled there around the third century BC.  They were Celtic and known as the Parisii, which means "boat people."  They were successful as river traders, and it is believed that they built a fortified town somewhere on the Ile de la Cite--the island on the Seine where the cathedral of Notre Dame stands today.  In 51 BC, the inhabitants participated in the ultimately unsuccessful uprising against Julius Caesar.  The Romans referred to the settlement as Lutetia Parisiorum, which approximates to "the mud city of the Parisii...(the city) expanded rapidly under the Romans and, in AD 212, it was wisely decided to drop the mud bit and just call the city Paris.

    If you're not that much of a history buff, the names of peoples such as Gododdin and Picts or places such as Yang Na (the original Indian village that became Los Angeles) or Beal Feirste (a Gaelic term which means "approach to the sandspit," later to become the city of Belfast) may sound quite strange, buried but for those whose work and interest is to discover them or keep them alive.  Statues of former rulers are soon toppled as a sign of conquest much as American tanks pulled down that of Saddam Hussein or the many depictions of Lenin being destroyed in Ukraine; but earlier time periods show that each succeeding Roman ruler did much the same with many of the more elaborate Greek sculptures now considered lost foever.  The rise of Emperor Constantine and his ruling of his Council of Nicaea ordered all copies of the Gnostic Gospels destroyed so as to promote Constantine's version of what we now consider Christianity; his efforts were successful but for a single set of scrolls that were missed, having been buried by monks and not discovered until 1945 (many of the scrolls were unknowingly burned until archeologists got word of the discovery and quickly rescued what they could...many of the scrolls were written decades earlier than Constantine's version of today's Bible).  Much the same thing happened with the writings of the poet Soppho whose works were publicly burned on the orders of Pope Gregory VIII.  Disagree with the current emperor or ruler or religion and your life and life works might just be eradicated...which might just be how ISIS is attempting to justify its destruction.

    In Timbuktu of all places a destruction along the lines of what was lost in the ancient libraries of Alexandria might be occurring.  Located in Mali in the southern part of the Sahara desert, Wikipedia writes: Hundreds of thousands of manuscripts were collected in Timbuktu over the course of centuries: some were written in the town itself, others – including exclusive copies of the Qur'an for wealthy families – imported through the lively booktrade.  Hidden in cellars or buried, hid between the mosque's mud walls and safeguarded by their patrons, many of these manuscripts survived the city's decline.  They now form the collection of several libraries in Timbuktu, holding up to 700,000 manuscripts: In late January 2013 it was reported that rebel forces destroyed many of the manuscripts before leaving the city.  The New York Review of Books reviewed a new book by Joshua Hammer and had a more extensive review of what was happening:...In Timbuktu as in Florence, large collections of written texts attracted scholars and men of letters to the city.  At some 150 schools, there were debates on science, philosophy, and jurisprudence...This efflorescence of study and the written word lasted for over two centuries, as two successive West African states, the Mali and Songhay empires—both of which granted to Timbuktu a remarkable degree of autonomy—were able to maintain stability in the region.  But internal divisions weakened the Songhay dynasty, and in 1591 a mercenary army sent from Morocco crossed the desert and conquered the city.  Timbuktu came under harsh rule and the age of book production came to an end...But other manuscripts remained, preserved from decay by the dry Saharan climate and stashed away by families who, in many cases, no longer read or understood them.  They remained in tin trunks and camel-skin satchels as Timbuktu declined into a place whose name came to stand for distance and inaccessibility.  During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries French colonial authorities took over local property.  This made manuscript owners more wary and drove the texts deeper underground—in some cases quite literally, since burying them beneath the desert sand proved an effective way to protect them from termites.  Monks there made the decision to smuggle many of the precious manuscripts out of the country for safekeeping (and have been relatively successful in doing so).  Perhaps that is what the ancients were trying to preserve, to simply say "don't forget," that there is something to learn from history.  And perhaps the opposite is what each new ruler or religious order is trying to do, to make you forget such history or beliefs ever existed (imagine never knowing anything about mythology or legends). 

    I couldn't help but think of this vanishing of such rich histories, especially as I sat quietly at the service of my Irish friend.  Friends and family had gathered to pay their last respects and their religious rituals were quite respectful as many churches in today's world are; but as one person mentioned to me, the post-service dinner gathering at her house --attended by so many-- would likely prove to be the last.  She was now gone and with her went her unique personal touches and her eccentric galas, for as much as she was quirky enough to drive away even her closest friends for a time, so too was her magnetic personality a draw.  But as the days would pass, things would likely settle down and sink in; and just as with the cites and possibly civilizations now being discovered underwater, her once-lively presence would probably slowly wear away and perhaps be buried as well.  She didn't need a statue to be toppled, or a monument to be blown to the ground.  She, as with so many millions before her and so many millions to come, would need only the occasional person remembering her.  But generations later, when she would become "just" a great, great grandmother, who would remember?   Who would remember any of us?