The paradoxes that create the space for treating archaeological heritage as a target in war

This article aims to put considerations of threats of damage and destruction to cultural heritage in periods of conflict into a wider context, looking at the nature of war itself as a cultural form. Taking a long-term perspective derived from other work on conflict archaeology, it will start from the premise that a concern for the fate of ‘things’ (however ancient) is a particular pathology of modernity and it is this pathology that creates the conditions under which objects of cultural value are chosen for attention by aggressors and for particular protection by defenders. We shall address war as a realm where violent destruction – of people and places – is the paramount aim, and thereby the equation of people with objects representative of those people becomes an essential part of the discourse of war-making: this in part explains how cultural objects become targets. There is more to war than destruction however: it is an aspect frequently overlooked that wars also create new things – among them new classes of people, new artefacts, new landscapes and new forms of cultural expression. The aftermath of wars also allows things that were destroyed to be remade and re-modelled. As a cultural activity, war is both destructive and creative. Taking this deliberately provocative approach raises important issues about contemporary attitudes to the destruction of heritage and its protection in wartime.