‘Postcard to Palmyra’: bringing the public into debates over post-conflict reconstruction in the Middle East

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the results of the ‘Postcard to Palmyra’ project, which was run alongside a controversial installation of a replica of the triumphal arch from Palmyra in Trafalgar Square in 2016. The thoughts and feelings expressed here are those raised by the visitors to the replica arch. These complement critiques and discussions that already exist on the replica arch and bring in a new and much-needed additional element: public opinion. The postcards have given us an opportunity to see what people on the street felt about the replica arch, the potential of reconstruction in the future and the event itself. Various issues arise in the postcards concerning aesthetics, authenticity, authority, colonialism and how to run a public engagement event. In addition, the postcards give voice to people from the Middle East who are often not heard.

KEYWORDS:

• Palmyra arch
• Trafalgar Square
• reconstructions
• public engagement
• authenticity
• memory

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an AHRC Cultural Engagement Scheme Grant, for which I am most grateful. The student helper team, who manned the ‘Postcard to Palmyra’ stand and went out into the square to talk to visitors, did a sterling job and deserve a large amount of credit for this work. The MA students on ‘CL5550 Who Owns the Roman Past?’ (2017) insightfully discussed with me many of the ideas contained in this paper. I am also grateful to Dan Pett, the MicroPasts team and all the people who took part in the transcription. The organisers (Drs Stacey Anne Bagdi and Andrew Dufton) and audiences at the ‘Looking to the Future: engagements in archaeology; Egypt and the Near East’ conference at Birmingham Museum (2016) and ‘Computing Applications in Archaeology, Atlanta’ (2017) made helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Prof. Eleanor Robson and Dr Gabe Moshenska generously allowed me to quote their tweets. Dr Stuart Burch kindly sent me a draft of his forthcoming paper on the replica arch. I would also like to express my thanks to the editors of the volume and the anonymous peer reviewers. Last, but definitely not least, everyone who took the time to talk to us at the event and to write us a postcard – thank you. We are listening.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. https://rememberingromans.wordpress.com Ethical approval was granted on 12.01.2016 (Full-Review-45-2016-01-12-09-35-UALC004).

^2. http://crowdsourced.micropasts.org/project/postcardsToPalmyra/

^3. Numbers in the format 6**** relate to the numbers generated by the MicroPasts transcription; numbers in the format 0*** relate to the numbers given on the Flickr site. Most postcards have both of these numbers. A small number of postcards (numbers 1–38) were not posted on Flickr, and in MicroPasts as these were deemed to include sensitive content, or had been completed using materials such as glitter that would damage the scanner. These postcards have been included in the analysis presented here.

^4. A 25-cm high 3D resin print of the triumphal arch was made by the IDA from images in their Million Image Database and was shown at ‘The Missing: rebuilding the past’ in London, April 15–May 7 2016, but this was not what was on display in Trafalgar Square.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [Cultural Engagement Fund].

Notes on contributors

Zena Kamash

Dr Zena Kamash is Lecturer in Roman Archaeology and Art in the Department of Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London. She is a specialist in the Roman Middle East and Roman Britain, focusing on technology, food, religion and memory. Her most recent projects include ‘Remembering the Romans in the Middle East and North Africa’ and an investigation into the use of 3D printing in museums with Amanda Hart from Corinium Museum.