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Archaeology or archeology[a] is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes.
Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.
The discipline involves surveying, excavation, and eventually analysis of data collected, to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research. Read more...
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Aren't these guys conservatives? You'd think that conserving the past would be a goal of theirs.
Conservatives always cherry pick what to upheld.
They're religious. They destroy history in order to make their insane delusions fit better.
Like chimpanzees running amok in a museum
Muslim militant radicals looted artifacts under soviets, under americans, in Iraque, in Siria and now. Not as much for hate (but they have a base for it too, and ISIS did it for PR sometimes), but to fund themselves and buy more resources, weapons. I remember the article about them being bored to death by routinely living and going to work, executing andministrative functions, instead of living in camps and fighting enemies. Seems like they still don't feel like they are the owner of Afganistan and that it'd last for long, or just to profit. Or they just had a hit of a nostalgia. I'd imagine, securing these sites, even if they wanted to, isn't the top priority of Talibs.
I'd abstain from linking it to Muslims exclusively because we all know where things in museums of previously colonial empires came from. And there are still people who buy looted stuff from war-thorn countries.
This isn't anywhere close to being an Islamic thing tbh. The Persians and Ottomans loved historical and foreign stuff, the Taliban is just a bunch of ignorant goat herders. Afghanistan has never had a tradition of scholarship and academia so it's no surprise that a lot of people there don't care about their history.
Taliban is just a bunch of ignorant goat herders. Afghanistan has never had a tradition of scholarship and academia so it's no surprise that a lot of people there don't care about their history.
The Taliban is an import from Saudi Arabia which is why they call themselves the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan....... So of course they don't care about afghan history, their ideology is based on Arabic supremacy.
Seems like they still don't feel like they are the owner of Afghanistan
Mostly because the leaders of the Taliban aren't typically afghan nationals. Most of them are Saudi Arabs who came to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and never left. The cultural differences between different ethnicities in Afghanistan are pretty stark, but the cultural difference between Pashtuns and Arabs is much greater.
I'd imagine, securing these sites, even if they wanted to, isn't the top priority of Talibs.
It's mainly because they are trying to erase the cultural history of the Afghan people. Afghanistan throughout history has been a huge historical cultural melting pot, with influence ranging from ancient Greece, Iranian, Indian, and Mongolian culture. This fact is represented by the vast array of tribal people still living there.
The Taliban are Arab, and they have a penchant for Arab nationalism/supremacy. And are participating in the same ethnic violence and cultural erasure that any white supremacist would love to mimic.
They don't like these historic sites because it's not their history. It stands as evidence that Afghanistan is not a monoculture.
I'd abstain from linking it to Muslims exclusively because we all know where things in museums of previously colonial empires came from.
Also, the west kinda propagated the extremes we see in Islamic extremism we see today. During the Soviet afghan war we had a deal with Saudi Arabia where the Saudi would match every dollar the CIA invested in the conflict.
We weren't only sending stinger missiles and arming and training the mujahideen, we were also building Wahhabi based Madrasa run by the Saudi. The Madrasa were shipped extremist educational materials for children, textbooks such as “The Alphabet of Jihad Literacy". Which was put together by the CIA and printed in Texas and Nebraska, some of which are still being utilized today.
I feel really bad for the people of Afghanistan. They've gotten the rough end of the stick throughout all of written history, and yet they remain such a kind and generous people. Their culture puts such an importance on hospitality and being overly gracious, it's to the point where it's almost overwhelming.
I am lucky enough to live in a state where a lot of the people who were evacuated during the last days of the war were relocated. I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation and was able to get my hospital to do approve some probono care with the help of an NGO I volunteer with.
I've gotten to care for a couple of the translators that worked with the US military and were injured by IED. They came here with nothing, not even their health. But oh boy, they do not take to favours lightly. At one point one of them saw me leaving a grocery door a couple months after his operation, the dude followed my car home and demanded that me and my wife come to his house immediately for dinner. Like, the guy didn't even want me to finish putting our groceries away.
It shames me to know how my country helped perpetuate the destruction of their country, their people, and their culture. I think we all have a duty to confront it any way we can.
Wow, thank you for that insight.
With a grocery thing - yeah, I encounter it in some of people I meet, and it made me a little sad many of my random communications comes off so automated and heartless. We have something to learn or even remember from them. Nowadays I'm surprised if someone call me to say that I forgot something on the cashier's table or dropped something on the floor. This alienation isn't healthy at all.
Things in museums that still exist in preservation and study, though, instead of being destroyed. As a somewhat related example, when I read about Egypt getting on the British for stealing "their" artifacts and refusing to return them to the nation they're from, I'm kind of baffled. Modern Egyptians have exactly as much conquering relation and unconnected culture to the ancient Egyptian civilizations who created those artifacts, as the British did who collected those artifacts when Egypt was part of the British Empire (well, Ottoman, but actually controlled by Britain), and no more right to them. At least the Brits make them available to others for study and educational purposes.
I don't have any more "native right" to any artifacts I might find buried in my back yard than the nomadic tribes who lived here 300 years ago, and I've lived here my entire life and "own" it according to current laws here. Those artifacts are from a tribal civilization that hasn't existed for 700 years and when I find them, I photograph them in place and give them to a local archeological/historical society tied to a university that catalogues and studies them. With Egypt, it's the same, but that culture hasn't existed for multiple millenia. These things ought to belong to all people who wouldn't destroy them.
Things in museums that still exist in preservation and study, though, instead of being destroyed.
Yeah, but that's not what happens in a lot of cases. A lot of these cultural relics were stolen from countries that were already preserving their own history.
A lot of the stuff currently in European museums weren't items "saved" by old timey history professors. A lot of it was captured directly from cultures europeans were attempting to colonize from the 1500-1800s.
For example see what happened when France attempted to colonize Korea In 1866. They were chased out of the country, but on the way out they stole one of the countries most important royal artifacts. Something the French only recently returned "on lease".
Modern Egyptians have exactly as much conquering relation and unconnected culture to the ancient Egyptian civilizations who created those artifacts, as the British did who collected those artifacts when Egypt was part of the British Empire (well, Ottoman, but actually controlled by Britain),
You don't understand how modern Egyptians are more connected to ancient Egyptians than the British?
You do know that Egyptian is not an ethnicity right? That the Egyptian empire spanned thousands of years and was headed by multiple different ethnicities throughout that time? Egyptians are people who live in Egypt, it's not a racial or ethnic designation. So yes, modern Egyptians are more connected to Egypt than people currently living in London.
I really hate people who destroy history. Fucking idiots ruining it for all of time
To be fair, the Taliban are extremely primitive incest-driven shit-for-brains.
They are barely above our most primitive monkey ancestors.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Researchers at the university’s Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation identified 162 ancient settlements that faced devastation at an alarming rate between 2018 and 2021, continuing at 37 sites since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
Most of these sites are located in the Balkh region, formerly the central territory of Bactria, which boasts a storied past dating to the 6th Century BC during the Achaemenid Empire era.
The Taliban returned to power after overthrowing the Ashraf Ghani government and promised to respect the country’s ancient heritage among its other assurances of maintaining a more moderate rule.
Professor Gil Stein, the director of the Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation at Chicago university, told the British broadcaster that they have identified a new pattern of destruction in the region since 2018.
These looted artefacts could have been smuggled out of Afghanistan through Iran, Pakistan and other countries, he said, adding could end up being displayed in museums or auction houses in Europe, North America, and east Asia.
Atiqullah Azizi, the Taliban’s acting deputy minister for information and culture, told BBC that 800 units have been assigned to safeguard the sites of historical importance.
The original article contains 529 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!