Archaeology was institutionalized by a reification of the past into governmental branding, such as through images of Palmyra on the national currency, or school textbooks. Although Palmyrans wrote and probably spoke in Aramaic, they are frequently called ‘Arabs’ by Syrian regime historians. Ancient ruins, intrinsically free of ideology, were thus saddled with the institutionally approved secular, Syrian-Arab nationalism of the Assad regime. This ideology is specifically designed to suppress expressions of dissenting mainstream Syrian identities. Hatred of and desire to destroy archaeological ruins comes from the frustration on the part of disenfranchised Syrians who were first forcefully moved out of their dwellings to make room for French archaeologists subsequently never identified with regime discourses of archaeology, which they saw as an extension of the colonial disregard for their livelihoods. In a much under-noted paper written on the eve of the Arab uprisings, Laurence Gillot took a look at the actual social impact archaeological practices by foreign excavators linked to governmental agencies had on local communities in Syria:

On the one hand, these groups [Syrian private cultural and tourist groups, as opposed to institutional researchers] are still considered to be intruders and not stakeholders, and their activities are still regarded as a threat to heritage conservation. On the other hand, the recognition and tolerance of alternative views about heritage (other than the official and archaeological one) remains low. Consequently, archaeology is, at the same time, regarded by Syrian society as a tool of cultural imperialism by the European and Western countries, and as an instrument in the service of the Syrian regime, as part of the imposition of an official national memory and identity. These negative perceptions are illustrated by various behaviours, such as the refusal to acknowledge a national heritage, the plunder of archaeological sites, or indifference towards their preservation.

from: http://www.archaeologybulletin.org/articles/10.5334/bha.20102/



Vacant theatricality; regime ideology setting the stage for demonification of archaeology.

The past 200 years of large-scale archaeological excavations in Syria have been mainly dominated by patrimonial French, British, and more recently American excavators in partnership with the Syrian government's supervision, the overwhelming majority of whom were interested in the region's pre-Islamic past.



There is a basic lesson here: associating archaeological sites with a repressive regime, archaeological institutions causes people to hate historical sites. Neither the Syrian nor the Russian government cares any more about historical knowledge than does Daesh (they both are in fact responsible for much unrecorded and unspectacular destruction), and their desire 'to preserve' has been accepted with open arms by European and American news agencies, politicians, and even archaeologists 'protecting the past'. Yet by re-capturing Palmyra and re-infusing the site with Syrian state apparatus, history is only repeating itself. The travesty of the Russian concert on 2016 May 5th was followed by performances by the Syrian National Symphony, the National Ensemble for Arabic Music, the Mari Orchestra, and al-Farah Choir— all government funded.



Much like the Persepolis festival celebrating 2,500 years of Iranian kingship on top of Iran's most iconic ruins, the Palmyra concert used an ancient site to glorify Western-styled music, secularism, Ba'ath nationalism, all in all, the triumph of 'civilization' over 'barbarism'. Two years after the Persepolis festival, the revolution of the ulamas overthrew the shah, archaeology was banned from universities, and the site was vandalized. The speeches at the Palmyra concert may have promulgated a victory, but the theatrical display of the Syrian regime's definition of 'civilization', supported by UNESCO attendees, only means its eventual demise at the hands of the disenfranchised 'barbarians'. The hypocrisy is well described in the words of Michel-Rolph Trouillot: “Celebrations straddle the two sides of historicity. They impose a silence upon the events that they ignore, and they fill that silence with narratives of power about the event they celebrate.”