Palmyra: Bridging Past and Future

Abstract

Targeting and destroying Syria’s cultural heritage have become a common concern, especially in the case of Palmyra. The ruined city enjoyed a significant position in the country’s history and bore a large share of the violence in Syria’s protracted tragedy. Since 2014, militants of ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) have committed many acts of terrorism, claiming thousands of lives and shattering others, looting antiquities and destroying historic sites, including World Heritage sites. In 2015, ISIS extremists destroyed Palmyra’s major monuments, and, since then, this destruction has been the focus of debates on the academic and professional levels and in the media. This chapter has two parts. The first part briefly reviews Palmyra’s long history, in which monuments have been subject to selective narratives and official instrumentalisation. The second part looks at the current debates on Palmyra’s heritage loss in the light of the actual conflict, in which the local community has been unheeded. This chapter suggests that future efforts need to (re)consider the role of local communities in heritage debates and the right(s) to their heritage to bridge the discontinuity between the past and the future caused by the terrorism and conflict.