Iconoclasm Means the Destruction of Heritage

The Sun overshadows the golden bull calf as a sign of divine appointment. 

This is a Messianic image that iconoclasts attempted to obliterate.

Alice C. Linsley

A great threat to the preservation of antiquities comes from groups seeking to destroy images of which they disapprove. This is called "iconoclasm" from the Greek Eikonoklasmos meaning "image-breaking."

Today we read about statues of Confederate soldiers being damaged or removed because some find them offensive. In most cases, the statues are safely stored or placed in a less public place. The historical value of these statues and monuments is recognized by more resilient minds.

Smashing images or destroying places of historical value does not erase the tragic events of the past. It almost insures that similar events will happen again. It is better that Auschwitz be preserved as a reminder of Nazi hatred and genocidal actions.

Iconoclasm and the destruction of monuments and antiquities is prompted by prejudice, hatred, and ideological fervor. Religious extremism also leads to smashing images in an attempt to destroy the religious tradition of others. The destruction of artifacts of historical and anthropological value leads to the destruction of a people's social and religious heritage. It is difficult for a people to recover from the loss and it may take many generations to recover.

In the sixteenth century, the Puritans stripped the churches in England of crosses, statues, icons, and stained glass windows. Under Oliver Cromwell, thousands of sacred objects were destroyed. Items of value such as precious metals and gems were re-purposed and sold to fund Cromwell's wars in Scotland and Ireland.

Iconoclasm is endorsed by the Deuteronomist in the Bible.

"...  ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire." (Deuteronomy 7:5)

The main targets to be smashed were the bamot (high or exalted places). These "high places" were originally royal places of worship. Under the guise of opposing "idolatry" the places of worship that competed with the high place of Jerusalem were to be destroyed.

King Josiah destroyed the solar horses that had been a sacred symbol among the ancient Hebrew for many generations (II Kings 23:11). Iconoclasts attempted to remove the Messianic image of the Golden Calf which was fabricated by the ruler-priest Aaron and which were found at the high places of Israelite worship at Bethel and Dan.

In 2001, Islamic fundamentalists destroyed images regarded as world treasures in Afghanistan. Extremists smashed three hundred of the 2,500 objects that had been painstakingly reassembled at the Kabul Museum and looted thousands of artifacts.

Recently, ardent opposition to the controversial Amazon Synod led some Roman Catholics to toss indigenous Pachamama figurines into the Tiber River. Though the figurines are not appropriate in the context of a Christian church, they should not have been destroyed. They have historical, religious, and anthropological value.


Related reading: Graven Images and Idols; Fundamentalism and Syncretism in Hebrew History; Looting and Burning of Churches and Images in Chile

Priceless Manuscripts Saved

Timbuktu has become a byword for the farthest corner of the earth. But it was once an important cultural and artistic center

In 2012, jihadists—armed to the teeth with weapons seized in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi—overran northern Mali and established a brutal, sharia regime in Timbuktu. Once a center of learning and culture, the city housed a priceless collection of manuscripts: volumes of poetry, encyclopedias, and even sexual manuals that invoked the name of Allah. Threatened with destruction, the manuscripts were spirited out of the city to safety in a thrilling, cloak-and-dagger operation.

Speaking from his home in Berlin, Joshua Hammer, a former Newsweek bureau chief in Africa, recounts the tale of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts—and explains how the Timbuktu manuscripts disprove the myth that Africa had no literary or historical culture, why Henry Louis Gates had an epiphany when he saw them, and why the jihadists found them so threatening.

In the chaos of the uprising against Qaddafi, the jihadists raided the armories of Libya, took the weapons into Mali, and quickly swept across the northern part of the country, occupying all of the major towns in the north, including Timbuktu. They imposed sharia law and began to destroy every symbol of moderate Sufi Islam that almost all residents of modern Timbuktu subscribe to. Shrines to Sufi saints were destroyed; whippings and amputations were carried out in the public squares of the city; and, of course, the manuscripts were threatened.
 

Read it all here.

Islamic Extremism and Iconoclasm

2000-year-old temple in Palmyra, Syria
destroyed by IS in August 2015

In early June 2016, Islamic State (IS) insurgents posted a video on the internet showing a 3,000-year-old temple being blown up at the Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq. This is the latest example of radical Islamic iconoclasm. The Nabu Temple is one of the world's archaeological and cultural treasures.

The United Nations confirmed in a statement that satellite imagery showed "extensive damage to the main entrance" of the temple of Nabu, the Babylonian deity of wisdom.

Nimrud was a 13th century BC Assyrian city located about 20 miles south of the modern city of Mosul. Islamic State militants took control of Mosul in June 2014.

The IS video also shows scenes of bulldozers razing the ancient Gate of Nergal, part of the historic Nineveh city wall in Mosul. The fanatical Islamic group considers all pre-Islamic culture idolatrous, along with any religion outside its own radical interpretation of Sunni Islam.

IS has systematically destroyed many sites of archaeological and historical importance. Islamic State militants destroyed the 2,000-year-old temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra, Syria in August 2015.

Related reading: Fundamentalism and Syncretism in Hebrew History; Graven Images and Idols; Taliban Destroys Priceless Buddhas of Bamiyan; Iconoclasm: The destruction and loss of heritage reconsidered