It is
nearly impossible today to imagine Gaza as a thriving port on the sparkling
Mediterranean, where a rich socioeconomic exchange took place over thousands of
years of human history. Yet for millennia, Gaza was an essential stopping point
on the overland route between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Rich archaeological
treasures found in the area indicate that trading was brisk throughout the
Bronze Age — including finds indicating a close relationship with Ancient Egypt
— to Hellenic and Roman times, and it remained important for both Byzantine and
Islamic rulers. Ships loaded with amphorae carrying grains, dried fruit,
vegetables, and wine set sail from the ancient port of Anthedon, while caravans
bearing incense and myrrh from Yemen and Oman transited through Gaza. Silk from
as far away as China and scented woods and spices from India passed by on their
way to the Greco-Roman world. Gaza was a unique meeting point between
civilizations.
Fast
forward to today, when we see a broken Gaza, its people battered in a cataclysm
following decades of continuous tragedy. Since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7,
Israel has reportedly dropped more than 65,000 tons of bombs on the
140-square-mile territory, killing over 25,000 Palestinians, with 7,000 still
buried beneath the rubble, and injuring over 63,000. The United Nations
estimates that 1.9 million people have been displaced, and more than half of
the area’s buildings have been destroyed according to an analysis of satellite
data. Infrastructure necessary for daily life has been demolished.
Amid
the devastation, an estimated 200 cultural and ancient historical sites have
been damaged or destroyed in this territory that French archaeologist Rene
Elter, who has been working in Gaza since 2001, describes as one “enormous
archaeological site.” Last weekend a video and stories on Instagram showed that
pillaging on the ground might be taking place too: Israeli soldiers were
rummaging in a warehouse where Elter and his team stored archaeological
artifacts.
Elter
has been the only archaeologist working in Gaza full-time since he moved there
permanently in 2019, having shuttled back and forth for nearly 20 years. He
came to Gaza at the behest of French archaeologist and Dominican priest
Jean-Baptiste Humbert of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of
Jerusalem. Shortly after the 1993 Oslo Accords, Humbert began working with the
Palestinian Authority and its Department of Antiquities on several excavations
in Gaza, which marked the beginning of a relationship between the French
Biblical and Archaeological School and Gaza that has lasted until today. Its
work in Gaza with local teams has revealed extraordinary sites — most recently
a mammoth Hellenistic or Roman necropolis, which was still being excavated in
October 2023.
Both
Humbert and Elter describe their experience in Gaza as a great human adventure
that altered their way of working, going above and beyond field archaeology and
becoming a collective experience shared with the local people.
I
met with Elter in Paris last December following his evacuation from Gaza via
Egypt, having spent a month under Israeli bombs, constantly moving from area to
area. Since then, he has been in contact with his team in Gaza every few days,
connection permitting, and for the moment what is most important to him is that
the entire team is alive.
Even
though the Gaza Strip is incredibly rich archaeologically, it is relatively
unexplored because of the enormous social and political problems it has
experienced since 1948. The year the state of Israel was created, nearly 80,000
Palestinian refugees streamed into the Gaza area, at the time inhabited by
50,000 people. Gaza has steadily become one of the most densely populated
regions in the world, with two-thirds of the population registered as refugees
who, for the most part, live in camps. The burden of urbanization and coastal
erosion, combined with decades of Israeli occupation, repeated bombings, and
the siege, has led to internal political strife, extreme poverty, and
overcrowding, which in turn has meant that buildings were often erected on top
of historical sites.
Humbert
said in an interview in 2008 that he chose to work in Gaza because no one else
had expressed an interest in going there and that the lack of competition would
be salutary. “People said that I was crazy, that Gaza was difficult, far from
Jerusalem, and that the Israelis wanted to close the area, which would make it
difficult to get in and out. But I chose it anyway. And in the end, it turned
out to be one of the most beautiful archaeological experiences of my life.”
Even though the Gaza Strip is incredibly rich archaeologically, it is relatively unexplored because of the enormous social and political problems it has experienced since 1948. The year the state of Israel was created, nearly 80,000 Palestinian refugees streamed into the Gaza area, at the time inhabited by 50,000 people. Gaza has steadily become one of the most densely populated regions in the world, with two-thirds of the population registered as refugees who, for the most part, live in camps. The burden of urbanization and coastal erosion, combined with decades of Israeli occupation, repeated bombings, and the siege, has led to internal political strife, extreme poverty, and overcrowding, which in turn has meant that buildings were often erected on top of historical sites.
But
long before Humbert and then Elter arrived in Gaza, the British Egyptologist
Flinders Petrie had excavated a major site called Tall al-Ajjul several miles
south of Gaza City between 1931 and 1934, during the British Mandate. His
discoveries showed that Gaza had been a northern frontier for Egypt as far back
as the third millennium BCE. Petrie published his findings in a two-volume set
called “Ancient Gaza.”
Petrie’s
work was halted by the advent of World War II, and excavations only began again
after the Israeli occupation of Gaza in 1967. Israeli archaeologists excavating
in Gaza between the 1960s and 1980s discovered, among other rarities, 50 unique
clay sarcophagi in a necropolis not far from where Petrie had excavated that
showed both Egyptian and Phoenician influences. Marc-Andre Haldimann, former
head of the archaeology department at the Museum of Art and History of Geneva
and co-curator of an exhibition of Gaza archaeology in 2007, noted in an
interview in 2008 that the sarcophagi, among other artifacts, were carted off
to Israel, never to be returned.
When
Humbert first arrived in Gaza, he began working on a site near a hospital in
the Jabaliya refugee camp, which revealed a fifth-century Byzantine church. In
1995, the next important site that was discovered was Blakhiyah, along the
coast next to the Al-Shati refugee camp. The famous Hellenistic harbor and city
of Anthedon were uncovered there, revealing layers of civilizations such as an
Iron Age rampart, Hellenistic houses with painted walls, a Roman water fountain
with mosaic decorations, and large Roman houses with Nabataean influences.
This
same port of Anthedon, which had been painstakingly excavated for nearly 30
years despite damage from both coastal erosion and Israeli bombings, was
surveyed just two years ago by the London-based research agency Forensic
Architecture, in close collaboration with Humbert.
Forensic
Architecture investigates state and corporate violence, human rights
violations, and environmental destruction using, among other methods, 3D
animations and digital and physical models. Led by the Israeli architect Eyal
Weizman, author of the groundbreaking 2007 book “Hollow Land: Israel’s
Architecture of Occupation,” the team presents their investigations in
courtrooms and truth commissions; they are also part of the Technology Advisory
Board of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Forensic
Architecture’s analysis of satellite images revealed several large craters and
damage to the Anthedon site caused by Israeli bombings in 2012, 2014, 2018, and
2021. In 2022, Forensic Architecture and the Ramallah-based nongovernmental
organization Al-Haq called on the prosecutor of the ICC to consider the ongoing
Israeli destruction of cultural heritage as amounting to war crimes and “to
evaluate their potential contribution to apartheid as a crime against humanity
under the Rome Statute.”
In
an update from December 2023, the Forensic Architecture investigation concluded
that most of the Anthedon site has been destroyed.
There
have been attempts to hold Israel to account, most recently by Euro-Med Human
Rights Monitor, which has claimed that the destruction amounts to systematic
military attacks against heritage sites. Whether the damage to archaeological
sites was intentional or collateral in the effort to destroy Hamas, the fact
remains that huge amounts of Gazan history have been destroyed, more than we
can ever really understand.
Fadel
al-Otol, who works closely with Elter, spoke directly from Gaza on Jan. 23,
2024, in a Zoom webinar organized by the Critical Ancient World Studies
Collective and Everyday Orientalism. The connection was spotty at times, with
planes and drones audible and a baby crying in the background. Al-Otol said he
hadn’t slept for three days since the Israeli army had occupied their storage
facility. “I would need days to talk about all the destruction of the
archaeological sites that we are witnessing. We are documenting every form of
assault on these sites,” he said, adding that he had photographed more than 30%
of these areas, in particular in the old part of Gaza City.
Back
in 1997, Humbert and his team discovered the vestiges of a fourth-century
paleo-Christian monastery south of Gaza City. Umm el-Amr, as it is called, is
spread over 25 acres of the coastal dune. Sensing that the site could be
exceptional, Humbert called Elter for backup. Elter, who had worked in France
for 20 years for an archaeological research institute before co-directing a
site in Jordan for the French Institute of the Near East, says that he wasn’t
very enthusiastic at first, “but then I simply fell into it.”
He
fell headfirst into his work in Gaza because in 2003, very soon after arriving
on the Umm el-Amr site, Elter and his team discovered a tomb and inscription
affirming that the monastery was founded in 329 by St. Hilarion. St. Hilarion
is recognized as the father of Palestinian monasticism, and the fourth-century
biblical translator and priest St. Jerome wrote about him: St. Hilarion was
born 5 miles south of Gaza, studied in Alexandria, and became a hermit before
establishing his monastery, which is considered the oldest in Palestine and is
the largest ever found in the Middle East.
Field
archaeologists work inch by inch; it requires exacting labor, utmost patience
and care, and a dedicated team. Gaza kept revealing extraordinary vestiges of
the past, and training for Palestinian workers was needed. Humbert’s findings
had become so important that an exhibition was organized in 2000 at the Arab
World Institute in Paris called “Mediterranean Gaza,” which presented research
and artifacts from digs going back to 1994.
When
Gaza became his focus, Humbert began organizing training for the local people
working on the archaeological sites. One day, at the Anthedon port location, a
shy but curious teenager from the nearby Al-Shati refugee camp approached the
team and asked if he could work with them. It was al-Otol. Humbert took him
under his wing and eventually arranged for him to travel to France and
Switzerland to take part in archaeology-related seminars.
Today,
al-Otol is in his early 40s and has five children. He began working with Elter
early on, and over the years they have developed a strong relationship. Elter
says of al-Otol: “He is my left and right hand. He is self-taught and it is he
who best knows archaeology in Gaza. He knows how to restore mosaics, and metal
objects and do stonecutting. He carries on my work when I’m not there.”
Fifteen
to 20 years ago, excavations had been progressing on the various sites, but
internal Palestinian politics, lack of funding for the projects, and the
Israeli “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008 and 2009 slowed progress. Funding came in
fits and starts until al-Otol linked up with Jehad Abu Hassan, field
coordinator for the Gaza Strip for the French NGO Premiere Urgence
Internationale.
Abu
Hassan, whose parents were refugees in Gaza, is also a French citizen. He spoke
to New Lines from France, where he
was evacuated with his wife and triplets a month after the Israeli onslaught
began. He still remembers the exact number of days he spent under Israeli
bombings in the past: eight days in 2012, 51 days in 2014 and 11 days in 2021.
In the 1980s Abu Hassan studied relief work and development in France and
worked in Africa for several years before returning to Gaza in 2011 to be close
to his family.
Premiere
Urgence’s mission is to help civilians affected by natural disasters, war and
economic collapse. In Gaza they have helped farmers, fishers, people injured by
snipers and shelling, and upgraded substandard housing, but they had never
worked in cultural heritage. When they met in 2013, al-Otol told Abu Hassan
about his work, including how he had learned restoration work, and to train
others. “I thought this was interesting and that we should stay in touch,” Abu
Hassan says.
Things
came together in 2017, when Abu Hassan learned of a grant from the British
Council Cultural Protection Fund. “I thought we could put two and two together,
linking the humanitarian aspect with the archaeological heritage,” Abu Hassan
says.
Abu
Hassan for Premiere Urgence and Elter representing the French Biblical and
Archaeological School worked on a proposal that brought together cultural
heritage preservation with long-term economic, cultural and social development:
Premiere Urgence would provide training for unskilled or semiskilled people on
labor-intensive projects in exchange for cash (a program called Cash for Work).
Elter drew up professional training programs. They submitted a three-pronged
proposal that included restoration, training and public awareness.
“We
didn’t think we would get the grant,” Abu Hassan says. “But we were hopeful. We
had experience in coordination and logistics and the humanitarian aspect, and
Rene had the expertise. Then in December 2017, surprise! We got a grant for
£1,755,000 [approximately $2 million]. It was the biggest grant given that
year.”
Besides
professional training and Cash for Work projects, the grant covered two sites:
St. Hilarion and the Byzantine church near the Jabaliya refugee camp, which had
over 4,000 square feet of extraordinary mosaics that needed to be renovated and
protected.
Getting
the projects off the ground in 2018 wasn’t easy, Abu Hassan says. They had to
get Israeli permission to bring Humbert, Elter and other specialists to Gaza
via the Erez Crossing, and the French Consulate was nervous. They eventually
succeeded, and their presence provided an opportunity for new archaeology or
art history graduates to get a taste of fieldwork. Short training courses
lasting a week or two had been available in Gaza, but, Abu Hassan says, “in the
university curriculum they didn’t have the opportunity to get practical
training, and often ended up as professors.”
Local
teams began working on both sites, which in St. Hilarion’s case consisted of
restoring the ecclesiastical complex with churches, a crypt, a chapel, a
baptistery and accommodation for the monks, as well as a hospice reserved for
travelers and pilgrims, which included baths. The mosaics in the Byzantine
church revealed images of shrimp, smoked fish, a string of sausages, a plucked
chicken, bunches of asparagus, pigeon eggs, chicken eggs, pomegranates and an
apple from the Garden of Eden. In 2022 a shelter protecting the site was
inaugurated, with aerial walkways that allowed the public to visit the vestiges
of the church, the diaconicon, the large baptistery and the restored mosaics.
Part of this structure is now thought to be damaged.
Elter
focused on developing an entire chain of operations including a learning center
with community activities — children could work on a pretend excavation, for example.
All the while, a team of 40 people was being trained. Elter took care, despite
Gaza’s traditional society, to have both young men and women learn
multidisciplinary crafts necessary for the safeguarding and restoration of the
sites. Some learned 3D modeling and recorded 3D images of every excavation —
110,000 3D photographs of St. Hilarion were taken. They mastered stonecutting
or mosaic restoration to be able to choose the sector that interested them. “I
wanted to encourage team building and to bring sensitivity and a certain
gentleness to their daily life. There is no other team like this in Palestine,”
Elter says. “Hamas accepted us; there was a feeling of trust, and that meant
that we could move forward. It was a win-win situation for everyone.”
The
ultimate aim was for Palestinians in Gaza to manage the sites.
Besides
visits from students from the University of Palestine, Al-Quds University and
the Islamic University of Gaza (apparently at least two of these universities
have been destroyed), school trips became a large part of the activity at St.
Hilarion. Each month 1,000 children visited the site and were shown around by
male and female guides whom Elter had trained. Elter explains that because of
Gaza’s particular situation, society is unstructured, and young people have
trouble feeling like they are part of something. “I was surprised and then
comforted by the fact that the groups were exactly like groups in Europe. You
had the studious ones and the rowdy ones. They were just like my children, like
other children. These children are tomorrow’s decision-makers, and archaeology
is part of their heritage.”
The
next round of funding for St. Hilarion came in 2022. The French Development
Agency, linked to the French Foreign Ministry, invested approximately $12
million, which Elter says would have allowed them to work until 2028.
Responding to a local lack of skills, 15 young women and men were learning
French, and the best students were to be selected to study in France. Following
their return to Gaza, they were guaranteed two years of work on the St.
Hilarion site. The trained team was then to take charge of the sites, which
would become financially autonomous.
That
same year, as the ground was being cleared for a housing project in Beit Lahia,
near Anthedon, a Hellenistic or Roman necropolis was discovered. Construction
on the housing project was halted. The entire team moved over to the burial
site, where 150 tombs were uncovered. Nabataean pottery from Petra was found,
proving commercial trading within the Arab world, as well as objects in metal
and clay, which, Elter explains, can provide information about funerary rites.
“It’s interesting to compare with other rites in the Roman world or find
Egyptian or Eastern influences,” he says.
“We
were so lucky that the cemetery had not been destroyed or pillaged. It was
totally intact,” Elter says. “What’s interesting is that this was not a
prestigious burial site; it was the common man’s cemetery. There were some more
elaborate tombs with sarcophagi that perhaps belonged to wealthy merchants or
traders. One grave had painted walls decorated with garlands and wreaths made
with laurel leaves.”
Elter
called in Swiss anthropologist Tobias Hofstetter to examine the skeletons so
they could understand the hygiene of this population. They were curious: Was it
the same as in Rome, Athens, or Jerusalem? “It’s very important to understand
these mechanisms,” Elter says.
The
team had been particularly moved by the discovery of an adult couple clasped
together in an embrace. “We hadn’t had an example like this before,” Elter
says. “It allowed us to talk about it with the team, to talk about feelings
with people who are usually very discreet.”
Elter
says they were waiting to hear from Hofstetter about the sex of the couple and
then wanted to bury them again, “to leave them for eternity.”
Now,
having spent nearly 60 years in the Middle East, much of it going back and
forth to Gaza, the 84-year-old Humbert has heartbreakingly been recalled to
France by his religious order. He told the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour
that after seeing photographs of the Anthedon city and port site, “It appears
to have been completely bulldozed in search of tunnels. … We prepare ourselves
to accept the worst. But this is nothing compared to the genocide of the
Palestinian people which is taking place before our eyes in real time.”
There
have been numerous reports in the press about the destruction of most heritage
sites in Gaza, and some, sadly, have been verified, such as Anthedon (which was
on UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention Tentative List), the Great Omari Mosque,
the Hammam al-Sammara, and the Qasr al-Basha museum. While “the heart of
historical Gaza has been very severely hit, given the chaos on the ground you
have to be very careful about what you see in the media,” Elter says.
In
October, the Israeli army admitted to damaging the 12th-century St. Porphyrius
church. When asked about the heavy damage to the Great Omari Mosque, a military
spokesperson responded that the “target of the attack was terrorist
infrastructure which included a tunnel shaft, a tunnel, and Hamas terrorists.”
The spokesperson added that the army’s “actions are by international law.”
Elter
tries to examine the damage from satellite photos but prefers to rely on
firsthand accounts from those on the ground. Some of the younger team members
have been venturing out to the sites and sending him photographs. For the
moment, it seems that St. Hilarion has been spared, and in December he managed
to get the St. Hilarion complex provisionally inscribed on UNESCO’s
International List of Cultural Property Under Enhanced Protection.
In October, the Israeli army admitted to damaging the 12th-century St. Porphyrius church. When asked about the heavy damage to the Great Omari Mosque, a military spokesperson responded that the “target of the attack was terrorist infrastructure which included a tunnel shaft, a tunnel, and Hamas terrorists.” The spokesperson added that the army’s “actions are by international law.”
St.
Hilarion’s warehouse, however, where the team kept antiquities, supplies, and
tools, was robbed by Palestinians in need of daily necessities, Elter says. He
specifies that people took anything that could be useful for building
provisional structures or cooking utensils. Given the urgency of their
situation, they left behind the archaeological objects as they didn’t see much
use for bits of ancient pottery, he says. Perhaps, too, the work of Gazans to
excavate and preserve their heritage, as well as the educational efforts of the
St. Hilarion team, means they have a desire to protect these artifacts, even
amid extreme threats from violence and starvation.
But
on Jan. 21, Elter saw his warehouse in a video posted on Instagram by Eli
Escusido, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The video shows Israeli
soldiers walking around shelves of ancient amphorae or standing in front of
opened boxes. Escusido has commented on the video: “Good week, the deputy
director of the Antiquities Authority was rushed to Gaza to check a warehouse
full of antiquities. Thank you to warrior Moshe Ajami.” It is unclear whether
the objects in the warehouse, which come from the St. Hilarion site, are
protected under UNESCO’s protocol for provisional enhanced protection, which
would give St. Hilarion the highest level of immunity established by the 1954
Hague Convention. But the fact the video was posted by the head of the Antiquities
Authority has added to fears about the official attitude toward the theft of
heritage.
Instagram
stories posted by Israeli soldiers that same day surfaced in which they were
holding stone plaques with inscriptions on them from St. Hilarion.
Elter
doesn’t know much about the fate of Gaza’s first archaeological museum,
Al-Mathaf, either. The museum was built by Gazan engineer and businessperson Jawdat
Khoudary, in 2008. Utterly passionate about Gaza’s history and archaeology,
Khoudary developed a precious collection over his lifetime, which became the
basis of the museum, reflecting his desire to share the heritage with his
fellow Gazans. Over many years, Khoudary worked closely with Humbert and the
Swiss archaeologist Haldimann, lending his artifacts for the exhibit in Geneva.
Khoudary’s daughter Yasmeen had recently hoped to begin some underwater
archaeology along Gaza’s coast. Elter has tried to find out the condition of
the museum; there has certainly been some theft, but it’s hard to know what.
For the moment, the only news he has is that Khoudary and his family have fled
to Egypt.
“Everyone
is in the same frame of mind. We keep thinking it will stop, and it doesn’t,”
Elter says. He is keeping busy calling institutions and financial backers,
including the British Council, the Aliph Foundation, the French Development
Agency, and the French Ministry of Culture’s National Heritage Institute, which
works with the Louvre Museum. He says that all parties are supportive and
understand the importance of continuing the project.
Elter
is also working with UNESCO to plan an expert mission for the monuments that he
has been responsible for until now. “People ask me how much this will cost. We
need to assess the damage and estimate how much funding we’ll need. As soon as
I have the green light, I’ll go to Gaza for an assessment. But first, we need
to give people time to recover. Most of my colleagues are at the end of their
tether.”
People
have gone through an incredibly traumatic time and are weak, ill, and wounded,
Elter says. He knows that the worst is yet to come and is anxious about
maintaining the link that had been established with the public. “For the moment
there are no schools. There will have to be temporary social and educational
centers. We need to show that we are present and be reassuring, even if we
often need to first reassure ourselves because we still know nothing.”
Elter
is realistic about the possible outcomes — an Israeli occupation with a
Palestinian administration, an unknown version of a Palestinian Authority, or
the absolute worst-case scenario, he says, which would be that Palestinians are
chased from their land. Elter prefers to believe in the idea that Gaza will
remain Palestinian.
Over
the 30 years that Humbert and then Elter worked in Gaza, they uncovered objects
that attested to the presence of numerous periods of human history. Only once
the bombs cease will experts be able to assess the damage done to this tiny,
beleaguered territory that contains such archaeological richness.
In a
place where the continuous nature and severity of events have made the struggle
for survival a priority, archaeologists in Gaza have diverged from the
traditional methods of archaeological teams toward a more inclusive,
community-driven approach, which also gives people a reason to be proud of
their cultural heritage. This profound exchange gives archaeologists an impetus
to keep working despite the destruction. During the Jan. 23 webinar, al-Otol
said: “Gaza’s archaeology is a testament to religious tolerance and human
shared culture. I didn’t cry over the destruction of my home as much as the
destruction of the Old City of Gaza.”
After
working in Gaza for 20 years you develop reflexes, Elter says. “First, we will
adapt to the situation at hand and try to preserve the sites, we will bandage
the wounds. Then we’ll begin the reconstruction surgery.”
In
imagining reconstruction, he says that in Iraq and particularly in Mosul there
are some good examples to follow, and even cites the Pergamon Museum in Berlin,
which conserved part of the damaged pre-World War II structure, integrating it
with a modern one.
There
is no question, Elter says, of letting down his team in Gaza. “We all need to
keep moving ahead. I embody for them something that makes them dream and will
be there as long as they want to go ahead with this adventure that we created
together.”
Olivia Snaije is an author, journalist and editor who writes about translation, literature, graphic novels, the Middle East and multiculturalism.
Disclaimer:
Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Jordan News’ point of view.
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