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https://theconversation.com/sudans-national-treasures-have-been-stolen-we-spoke-with-the-director-of-museums-243825>
"In September, amid the ongoing war in Sudan, reports began to surface of the
looting of the Sudan National Museum in the capital, Khartoum. The museum is
internationally celebrated for the breadth of its collection. It illustrates
powerful and unique African kingdoms from the ancient and medieval past in a
world stretching from the sands of the Sahara to the grasslands of the Sahel.
Its artefacts range from the distant stone age, to one of sub-Saharan Africa’s
earliest metropolises in Kerma (2500-1500 BCE), to the extraordinary objects of
the Kushite empire (800 BCE-350 CE). There, powerful kings built large stone
temples, cities, and fields of pyramids.
The collection chronicles millennia of change under various rulers, religions
and climatic regimes. It contains whole temple edifices, colossal statues of
Kushite kings, and mysterious inscriptions in the undeciphered Meroitic
language. The museum is also famous for its medieval Christian frescoes and
inscriptions from Islamic sultanates. These unique artefacts put a spotlight on
the untold stories of Christianity in Africa and the arrival of Islam. It’s a
museum communicating a thousand diverse stories.
The looting was reported to have taken place at the hands of the Rapid Support
Forces (RSF). They are an armed militia who have became an increasingly
powerful force. Since April 2023 they’ve been locked in open hostilities with
the Sudanese Armed Forces after negotiations between the two groups broke down
in the wake of the ousting of former dictator Omar al-Bashir. The RSF has
captured large parts of the country including much of Khartoum.
The museum, in the midst of the warzone and in an area controlled by the RSF,
has suffered from the “fog-of-war”. This means that very little clear
information is escaping from behind RSF lines about what is happening inside
the museum. One of the few events that is known is from a video posted to
social media by RSF fighters in June 2023. It shows them breaking into the
museum’s bioarchaeological lab where ancient human remains were stored and
analysed. The museum was being renovated before the conflict, so many of the
objects were packed away and put in storerooms. These were possibly looted but
this cannot be determined.
The reported looting is in violation of international law, which considers
museums protected spaces in times of war. This is a status even non-state
actors like the RSF are technically supposed to respect.
One of the major concerns now is that looted objects will be smuggled out of
the region and sold on the antiquities market. This is what happened when Isis
fighters ransacked the Mosul Museum in Iraq in 2014.
While it’s difficult to say for certain, given the proximity of Sudan and South
Sudan (where the thieves were reportedly headed) to the Gulf, it’s possible the
stolen objects will be smuggled there to be shipped to Europe, the US and Asia.
Smaller objects may even be sold online through auction sites and sent to
buyers via couriers or even through the post. If these important artefacts are
sold to private collectors, there is a chance they may disappear and never be
returned.
Aware of this possibility, the United Nations has condemned the looting. It has
urged all parties to respect cultural heritage, while calling on the art market
to boycott the buying and selling of Sudan’s cultural heritage.
We are archaeologists who study the region and also the sale and forgery of
antiquities from it.
Concerned with the limited attention that has been given to this event in wider
western media, we sat down with Dr Ikhlas Abdel Latief, Sudan’s director of
Museums for the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums, in Cairo,
Egypt. We asked her about the impact of this episode."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
