The Attitudes of Palestinian Religious Scholars and Institutions toward the Looting of Palestine's Archaeological Heritage

Abstract

Over the past several decades, Palestine’s archaeological heritage has faced serious challenges caused by the looting of antiquities. This ongoing phenomenon has resulted in the partial or total destruction of thousands of archaeological sites and features, and the extraction of hundreds of thousands of heritage objects. Despite the tremendous efforts made toward the protection of these archaeological resources, the Palestinians must redouble their endeavors and begin to create new, appropriate and practical measures in order to safeguard their homeland’s heritage. This paper focuses on the attitudes of Palestinian religious institutions and religious scholars toward the looting of archaeological material by Palestinians from heritage sites located within the Palestinian National Territories. It consists of two parts: (a) a fieldwork project carried out by the author over a significant period to examine the religious attitudes of Muslim and Christian religious institutions and their scholars toward this issue, and (b) presentation of the results in a workshop organized by the Institute of Archaeology of Al-Quds University, under the same title as this paper, held on November 21st, 2011 on the Abu Dies campus. The principle aim of this study is to inquire into the official attitudes expressed by the Palestinian religious institutions and scholars regarding this problem and then to make this information available to the public.

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“…Turkey's archaeological loss through illicit excavations has been reported in several studies, in which inadequacy of law enforcement and poverty have been introduced as main causes of the problem (Özdoğan 2005, 111-123;Özel and Karadayı 1998, 1-14;Özgen 2001, 119-120;Rose and Acar 1995;Lawrence and Main 1995, 150-160;Brodie 2002, 2-3;Atwood 2004, 144). Few have emphasized the impacts of culture and folklore on cultural heritage protection and preservation (Matsuda 1998;Moses 2015;Bauer 2015;Al-Houdalieh 2012a, 2012b, 2012cAtwood 2004;Shapiro 1994;Karataş 2021).…”

Bucharest, 1969: The 5th Congress of the “International Society for Folk Narrative Research” (Facsimile Papers, Part VIII)

“…Turkey's archaeological loss through illicit excavations has been reported in several studies, in which inadequacy of law enforcement and poverty have been introduced as main causes of the problem (Özdoğan 2005, 111-123;Özel and Karadayı 1998, 1-14;Özgen 2001, 119-120;Rose and Acar 1995;Lawrence and Main 1995, 150-160;Brodie 2002, 2-3;Atwood 2004, 144). Few have emphasized the impacts of culture and folklore on cultural heritage protection and preservation (Matsuda 1998;Moses 2015;Bauer 2015;Al-Houdalieh 2012a, 2012b, 2012cAtwood 2004;Shapiro 1994;Karataş 2021).…”