Saturday, April 18, 2015

Destroying Our Heritage Officially in Alexandria

I feel sad and angry that I did not blog about this earlier.
A Hellenistic-era archaeological site in Alexandria was demolished in Alexandria last week according to Egypt’s Heritage Task Force which campaigned unsuccessfully to stop this crime online.

This site is or rather was al-Abd Theater in Camp Shizar district in Alexandria. The site was discovered in 2013 only and it looked amazing. I see that it included a cemetery.
The site dates back to the Hellenistic era. Here are photos of the site before demolishing it. "Photos : Egypt's Heritage Task Force" 








It was demolished on Thursday. According to Egypt’s Heritage Task Force , the site was demolished because the land owner wanted to sell it and the ministry of antiquities approved the selling of the land to some Construction company.



Alexandria Antiquities Director Mostafa Roshdy told Youm 7  the site built in 323 B.C was demolished after residents complained it threatened the architectural stability of the adjacent buildings.
Well Constructing a new building for sure won’t affect the stability of the adjacent buildings !!! This is just sad !!

From what I understood the archaeologists transferred some of the ruins and artifacts they found in the site but honestly I feel it need to be preserved not to be demolished for further demolished.

Already what is difference between the officials in Alexandria and ISIS when it comes to destroying ancient cities and sites ??

The governorate officials as well the ministry of antiquities do not understand that we are not speaking about an Egyptian heritage but rather about world heritage. That site was part of the world’s history , we share it with the rest of the world for God’s sake !!

UNESCO launched #UNITE4Heritage campaign to protect the archaeological sites in areas of armed conflict especially in the Middle East. I think this campaign should include archaeological and world heritage sites in Third World Corrupted countries as well. 

Yesterday we got a ministry of education official who burns books in schoolyard and defends her decision and today we got antiquities officials who are okay with demolishing archaeological sites.

2 comments:

  1. So sorry to see this :( At least I got to see the one underground catacombs on my trip to Alex in 2011. I would have loved to have seen this next time. Too late now.

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  2. I really agree and do think this campaign should include archaeological and world heritage sites in Third World Corrupted countries as well. It would be unfair to only save other famous structures and just ignore these other buildings. They are, after all, part of our history as well.

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