San Francisco Frontiers - Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris

Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.

The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza's past as a cultural melting pot, but the show's creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023.

"The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage," said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled "Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History".

"But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand," she told AFP.

One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.

Using satellite image, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha's Palace.

Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land "depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground".

"For now, it’s impossible to assess."

The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.

- Lebanon link -

The story behind "Gaza’s Treasures" is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.

At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalising an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.

"It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged," said Bouffard.

The idea of an exhibition on Gaza’s heritage emerged.

"We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before," she explained.

Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialised Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.

- Conquest -

The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza's treasures.

In 1995, Gaza’s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).

Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis — traces of civilisations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.

"Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history," Bouffard noted.

In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.

Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.

Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world's most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.

And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.

The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.

F.Edwards--SFF