Updated 11:09 AM ET, Sun June 14, 2020
(CNN) – Statues are products of one era built to endure into others. They loom over streets and squares while the views of those who pass by change, from generation to generation. Most people, most of the time, are indifferent to these persons of stone and bronze. Not now.
From Richmond, Virginia, to Bristol in England, statues of men who championed or
traded in slavery centuries ago are being torn down. The soul-searching about race
prompted by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis has extended into how the history of racial persecution and prejudice is remembered. It is a heated debate that reaches far beyond the legacy of slavery.
Statues of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the US and the 17th century British
slave-trader Edward Colston were obvious targets for anti-racism protesters. So were
those of King Leopold of Belgium, who presided over the most atrocious cruelty in
Belgian-run Congo in the late 19th century. His statue in Antwerp was set on fire and
doused in paint last week.
Few today would defend commemorating or honoring figures like Colston or Leopold.
They profited from cruelty and persecution, and hundreds of thousands of Africans died
in the process. Similarly, there are moments in history where destroying icons has been part of a popular urge for liberation. During the 1956 uprising in Hungary, crowds tore down the huge bronze statue of Joseph Stalin, a gift to the Soviet leader on his 70th birthday. In 2003, Iraqis toppled a statue of President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, helped by US Marines.
But most historical figures are not so easily categorized and condemned. Now British
wartime leader Winston Churchill and Italian explorer Christopher Columbus are among
those in the cross-hairs of some protesters.
Churchill’s statue in Westminster, defaced with the words “was a racist” last week, was
covered up ahead of this weekend’s protests. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who
wrote a biography of Churchill, was furious — saying on Twitter that his predecessor was
a hero and had saved “this country — and the whole of Europe — from a fascist and racist tyranny.”
Johnson acknowledged that Churchill had “sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today,” but said he was averse to tampering with history. “The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations,” he tweeted.
“They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those
statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie
about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.”
American comedian Trevor Noah has a different take: “The bubonic plague was a major
event in history, but we don’t go around putting up statues of rats,” he wrote. Setting aside the likes of the nurse Florence Nightingale (whose statue lies not far from
that of Churchill), most of the great figures of the past are not beyond reproach —
especially by today’s standards.
Robert Shrimsley wrote in the Financial Times: “Many great historic figures carry serious baggage. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Where does the historic cleansing stop?”
Most would probably agree that Churchill led resistance to the Nazis heroically, but some remember him also as a white supremacist. In 1937, when addressing the fate of
indigenous peoples in Australia and America: “I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
In the United States, statues of Columbus have been damaged or torn down by protesters in the past few days because of his brutal suppression of indigenous people when exploring the New World.
In Richmond, Virginia, the local Indigenous Society tweeted: “Christopher Columbus
was a murderer of Indigenous people, mainstreaming the genocidal culture against
Indigenous people that we still see today. “
But the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has resisted the removal of the
Columbus statue in Manhattan, saying he understood “the feelings about Christopher
Columbus and some of his acts which nobody would support, but the statue has come to represent and signify appreciation for the Italian-American contribution to New York.”
There is a substantial difference between honoring titanic figures, despite their sins and
prejudices, and honoring others — such as those who wanted to perpetuate slavery —
because of what they did. Referring to statues in the US Capitol of Confederate figures,
the Democratic leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said they “pay homage to hate, not
heritage.”
Statues as rallying cries
There’s another argument about memorials to controversial figures: that they encourage
extremism and violence. A distant descendant of General Lee, the Reverend Robert W. Lee, said this week that the general’s statue in Richmond had become an idol of white
supremacy and should be removed.
It was plans to remove another statue of Lee that provoked white supremacists to descend on Charlottesville, Virginia, three years ago for the “Unite the Right” rally. It was the third such rally that year and led to widespread clashes in which one person was killed. A statue had become a political lightning rod.
On Saturday, Churchill’s statue opposite the Houses of Parliament became a rallying
point for far-right protesters who came to “defend” it — and look for a fight with Black
Lives Matter activists. As British comedian Danny Wallace noted in disbelief: “The man
who stopped us all from having to salute like a Nazi is celebrated by men doing Nazi
salutes.”
In Italy, dictator Benito Mussolini’s crypt in the town of Predappio has seen annual
pilgrimages by the far-right, just as far-right activists in Spain were drawn to the
mausoleum of Francisco Franco before his remains were moved last year.
By contrast, West Germany moved in 1949 to banish any remembrance of Nazism.
Swastikas were criminalized, statues and monuments destroyed. Executed Nazis were
buried in unmarked graves so they would not become Nazi shrines. Even monuments to the war dead were forbidden.
A new generation of German politicians was taking the first steps towards a democratic
era. But it took another generation for a full reckoning with the horrors of Nazism to take
place.
Learning, and healing
Rather than demolish, there are ways to reimagine statues as part of history. The statue of Colston was retrieved from the River Avon to be put on display in a museum, where his true role will be detailed. The spray-paint and rope-marks that preceded the statue’s
immersion will not be removed, and it will be surrounded by Black Lives Matter
placards.
Rather than history being erased, another layer is being added, which will probably
educate future generations about the horrors of slavery in a way the statue never could
before. Responding to demands for the removal of a statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes in Oxford, the university’s Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson said “that hiding our history is not the route to enlightenment.” But she added: “We need to understand this history and understand the context in which it was made and why it was that people believed then as they did.”  The Mayor of Louisville in Kentucky, Greg Fischer, has been trying to get a statue of a Confederate soldier removed for two years. Not to erase history, he said, but because moving these statues, “allows us to examine our history in a new context that more accurately reflects the reality of the day, a time when the moral deprivation of slavery is clear.”
A week ago a local judge agreed with the mayor, and the statue was removed.
Rome has plenty of monuments and buildings from the fascist era, some of them
architectural masterpieces. One of them is the former home of the Italian Youth of the
Littorio, inaugurated in 1937 to celebrate Mussolini’s brutal colonization of Ethiopia.
Inside is a massive map of the cities and territories seized, along with a big “M” for
Mussolini. Last year a group of artists painted questions across it: “Is my skin a
privilege?” “Who is civilized?” “Is white a neutral color?”
History is much more complex than carvings that remember a handful of influential men,
mute monoliths above a plaque of few words. But democracies work by consensus: If
anyone can simply demolish any public monument they choose it denies us, and more
importantly later generations, the chance to learn from history.
Colston was a towering figure in Bristol. In the words of its Mayor, Marvin Rees, who is
black: “As a city we all have very different understandings of our past. The only way we
can work together on our future is by learning the truth of our beginnings.”
https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_103865364f164dafd64025db47fefd64

By Jarrett Stepman
Since the awful riot that took place at the base of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month, activists and vandals have responded throughout the country by looking for 100-year-old monuments to destroy.
While it may be bad enough to strip down history, the process should rightly remain in the hands of local communities and be done through a legal and democratic process.
Many of these statues are indeed of great men, but what truly makes America great is that we are a nation of laws and not men.
The monuments targeted for destruction are not just of Confederates—they are of
Founders, explorers, emancipators, and religious men as well.
While polls have shown that most Americans want to keep the Confederate statues,
lawless mobs and vandals have decided for us that history must be destroyed and
dumped, perhaps literally, into the ash heap of history.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/08/22/8-monuments-attacked-since-charlottesville

by Madison Sanneman, Purdue University
One way we can identity whether an individual is from a particular area is from elements that are in the ground; plants and animals that we consume are incorporated into our
skeletal and dental tissues,” said Michele Buzon, professor of anthropology at Purdue
University.
Buzon is a bioarchaeologist who has excavated in the Nubian region of modern-day Sudan, to better understand interactions between Egyptians and Nubians.
“I have been using the element strontium in tooth enamel in order to see if the individuals buried at the sites I am excavating were born and raised in the local area or if they are immigrants that were raised somewhere else,” she said.
Buzon, who also is known in the archaeology world for excavating the burial of an
ancient horse and uncovering evidence of Egyptians and Nubians creating new
communities together, spent January and February excavating at the site of Tombos in
northern Sudan with her research team, aided by a grant from the College of Liberal Arts Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences grant. A photo gallery featuring nearly two dozen images from Buzon’s recent excavation are featured online .
She’s excavated this site for ten seasons, and this recent trip focused on studying the
alkaline-earth metal called strontium. The element has similar physical and chemical
properties to calcium.
Buzon is looking into how the element varies depending on geographical location. Since
2004, she and her team have been collecting samples of strontium from soil, plants and
animal remains to determine the element’s local signature. They then compare the
strontium isotope values in dental enamel from the tombs they excavate to the local range to see if the individual grew up in the area.
“Part of this project is to understand variability in different places in the Nile Valley
because we would like to be able to see if we can identify where somebody might have
come from, if their strontium doesn’t match the local area,” Buzon said. “We are using
these plant samples from various places in the Nile Valley to get a better sense of the
local signature and see how much they might vary from place to place.”
To measure the element in humans, the surface of the tooth is cleaned and between 10
and 20 milligrams of enamel is extracted. The enamel is then ground up, dissolved and cleaned chemically before it is processed to measure the element’s isotope ratio. Buzon
has been working with Antonio Simonetti, an associate professor of engineering at the
University of Notre Dame.
Buzon’s current strontium project, which started in 2019 and will last through 2022, is
funded by the National Science Foundation, one of the largest federal agencies that
provides money for archaeology and anthropology. She was first funded by the NSF as a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The initial grant was from
2003-2004 and was awarded as an aid for her dissertation. Other grants she received from the NSF were for a 2009-2012 study to examine the identities of individuals during the development of the Napatan State and for 2014-2018 research to look at the impact of the Egyptian New Kingdom Empire in Nubia. She also was funded by the National
Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration in 2009.
Her work with the isotope’s variability can aid in understanding migration and how
climate change may have affected strontium over time. There are many challenges that
come with studying ancient civilizations, but now researchers have to look into how
climate change may impact how they study societies in the past.
“There have been some changes in climate, temperature and humidity and also how much dust is coming from the Sahara and moving across the desert,” Buzon said. “Some researchers have hypothesized that when sediments are coming in from another area, it could change the strontium isotope signature. This project is one way we can see if there is a change in the strontium isotope signature of a particular area because of factors that may have been affecting climate.”
While Buzon has spent 20 years excavating in the Nile Valley, she is partnering with a
new team of scientists to tell a more complete story with the help of plants. Maha
Kordofani, Sudanese botanist and professor at the University of Khartoum, is assisting
the team in identifying the types of plants collected. Working with local scientists is just
one of the ways Buzon and her team are engaging with the community.
“As anthropologists it’s important to think about other cultures coming in and
documenting the history that is not their own and what that means for telling someone
else’s story, so I think it’s very important to involve the local community—the
descendants of people we’re researching in telling the story together,” Buzon said.
The research team involves the local community by providing information on its recent
findings. The team has hosted end-of-the-season and women’s talks, and engaged with
the community to see what topics they would be interested in learning more about. Buzon and her team also have worked with the local schools to provide teaching materials and informational posters for the students. This past season, the team hosted a tour for a fifth grade class to allow the students to see the process of archaeology first hand.
“For us we want to try to provide for the community in terms of education and what their
interests are and really make this feel like a partnership. We want this to be a joint project in terms of what we’re learning about the past in Sudan and how to protect these sites and cultural heritage so that more people can learn from this information,” Buzon said.
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2020/Q2/archaeologist-sinks-teeth-into-
understanding-cultural-identity,-interactions-in-ancient-nile-river-valley.html

A Thracian pit sanctuary estimated to date from the fifth to the fourth century BCE has been found by archaeologists in Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea city of Bourgas, the
municipality said on June 10.
The find was made in the Izgrev complex in the city after archaeological excavations at
the site began on May 26 2020. The archaeological work precedes the planned construction of a residential building at the site in Bourgas’s Nikola Petkov Boulevard.
Bulgarian news agency BTA said that the find had been made after its correspondent in
Bourgas had noticed apparently ancient objects at the site and had alerted the Interior
Ministry regional directorate in the city.
Currently, 14 ritual pits are being studied and at least 10 more have been found.
Items found include fragments of ceramic vessels, including bowls and amphorae. There are human and animal bones in the pits, as well as coal. No finds of metal objects have been made at this stage.
Read more:
https://sofiaglobe.com/2020/06/10/archaeology-thracian-pit-sanctuary-found-in-
bulgarias-bourgas/

From the ground, it’s impossible to tell that the plateau underfoot is something extraordinary. But from the sky, with laser eyes, and beneath the surface, with radiocarbon dating, it’s clear that it is the largest and oldest Mayan monument ever discovered.
Located in Tabasco, Mexico, near the northwestern border of Guatemala, the newly
discovered site of Aguada Fénix lurked beneath the surface, hidden by its size and low
profile until 2017. The monument measures nearly 4,600 feet long, ranges from 30 to 50 feet high and includes nine wide causeways. The monument was discovered by an international team led by University of Arizona professors in the School of Anthropology Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan, with support from the university’s Agnese Nelms Haury program and under the authorization of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico.
They used lidar — or light detection and ranging — technology, which uses laser-emitting
equipment from an airplane. Laser beams penetrate the tree canopy, and their reflections off the ground’s surface reveal the three-dimensional forms of archaeological features. The team then excavated the site and radiocarbon-dated 69 samples of charcoal to determine that it was constructed sometime between 1,000 to 800 B.C. Until now, the Maya site of Ceibal, built in 950 B.C., was the oldest confirmed ceremonial center. This oldest monumental building at Aguada Fénix turned out to be the largest known in the entire Maya history, far exceeding pyramids and palaces of later periods.
The team’s findings are published today in the journal Nature.
“Using low-resolution lidar collected by the Mexican government, we noticed this huge
platform. Then we did high-resolution lidar and confirmed the presence of a big building,” Inomata said. “This area is developed — it’s not the jungle; people live there —
but this site was not known because it is so flat and huge. It just looks like a natural
landscape. But with lidar, it pops up as a very well-planned shape.”
The discovery marks a time of major change in Mesoamerica and has several
implications, Inomata said.
First, archaeologists traditionally thought Maya civilization developed gradually. Until
now, it was thought that small Maya villages began to appear between 1000 and 350
B.C., what’s known as the Middle Preclassic period, along with the use of pottery and
some maize cultivation.
Second, the site looks similar to the older Olmec civilization center of San Lorenzo to the west in the Mexican state of Veracruz, but the lack of stone sculptures related to rulers and elites, such as colossal heads and thrones, suggests less social inequality than San Lorenzo and highlights the importance of communal work in the earliest days of the Maya.
“There has always been debate over whether Olmec civilization led to the development of the Maya civilization or if the Maya developed independently,” Inomata said. “So, our
study focuses on a key area between the two.”
The period in which Aguada Fénix was constructed marked a gap in power — after the
decline of San Lorenzo and before the rise of another Olmec center, La Venta. During
this time, there was an exchange of new ideas, such as construction and architectural
styles, among various regions of southern Mesoamerica. The extensive plateau and the
large causeways suggest the monument was built for use by many people, Inomata said.
“During later periods, there were powerful rulers and administrative systems in which the people were ordered to do the work. But this site is much earlier, and we don’t see the evidence of the presence of powerful elites. We think that it’s more the result of
communal work,” he said.
The fact that monumental buildings existed earlier than thought and when Maya society
had less social inequality makes archaeologists rethink the construction process.
“It’s not just hierarchical social organization with the elite that makes monuments like this possible,” Inomata said. “This kind of understanding gives us important implications
about human capability, and the potential of human groups. You may not necessarily
need a well-organized government to carry out these kinds of huge projects. People can work together to achieve amazing results.”
Inomata and his team will continue to work at Aguada Fénix and do a broader lidar
analysis of the area. They want to gather information about surrounding sites to
understand how they interacted with the Olmec and the Maya.
They also wants to focus on the residential areas around Aguada Fénix.
“We have substantial information about ceremonial construction,” Inomata said, “but we
want to see how people lived during this period and what kind of changes in lifestyle
were happening around this time.”
Source:  University of Arizona

University of Oregon scientists are probing archaeological evidence for how indigenous peoples used sea otters, and their findings could help Alaskans confront growing numbers of the mammals and Oregonians who want to reintroduce them on the coast.

Before fur traders decimated sea otter populations from Alaska to Oregon, ancestors of at least one Alaskan indigenous population, the Tlingit, hunted the mammals for their pelts but probably not for food, according to a study by anthropologist Madonna Moss.

Her research, published in April in American Antiquity, took on questions about
traditional use by native populations amid calls to expand harvesting. Since their
reintroduction in the 1960s, the population of sea otters has spiraled.

Only Alaska Natives living along the coast are permitted under federal law to hunt sea
otters for subsistence and with little waste. They use the pelts for clothing, bedding, hats
and other regalia.

Some environmentalists have challenged the right of Alaska Natives to hunt sea otters
without eating their meat. Conservationists want to show that native populations regularly did so as part of their case for allowing larger-scale harvesting for consumption.

The idea comes amid rising tensions. Sea otters have altered ecosystems, making it more difficult for commercial fisherman to catch abalone, clams, Dungeness crabs, red sea urchins and other invertebrates the otters consume. From 1996 to 2005, the industry was reported to have experienced an economic loss of $11.2 million.

The research by Moss, however, speaks only for Tlingit ancestors.
Numerous indigenous populations from Alaska to California hunted sea otters for
thousands of years, Moss said. As sea otters recolonize their historic range through
population growth or additional reintroduction, such as along the Oregon coast where the mammals are rarely seen, she said, finding out whether other native populations ate sea otter meat is worthy of attention.?

Read more: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-explores-native-americans-sea-
otters.html

Recording dailysabah.com The bones of a woman of Central Asian descent found at the bottom of a deep well after a violent death in an ancient city in Turkey are helping
scientists understand population movements during a crucial juncture in human history.

Researchers have dubbed her the “lady in the well” and her bones were among 110
skeletal remains of people who lived in a region of blossoming civilization running from
Turkey through Iran between 7,500 and 3,000 years ago. The study provided the most
comprehensive look to date of genetics revealing the movement and interactions of
human populations in this area after the advent of agriculture and into the rise of city-
states, two landmarks in human history.
The remains of the “lady in the well,” found in the ruins of the ancient city of Alalakh in
southern Turkey, illustrated how people and ideas circulated through the region.
The international team of researchers showed populations from Anatolia and the
Caucasus started genetically mixing around 6,500 B.C. and that small migration events
from Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago brought more genetic mixture to the region. DNA
from the lone ancient woman revealed proof of long-distance migration during the late
Bronze age about 4,000 years ago from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Coast.
Her DNA showed she hailed from somewhere in Central Asia – perhaps 2,000 miles
(3,200 km) or more away. She died at about 40 to 45 years of age, the researchers said,
probably between 1625 B.C. and 1511 B.C. Her body bore signs of multiple injuries.
“How and why a woman from Central Asia – or both of her parents – came to Alalakh is
unclear,” said Ludwig Maximilian University Munich archaeologist Philipp
Stockhammer, co-director of the Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the
Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean and co-author of the study published in the journal Cell. “Trader? Slaves? Marriage? What we can say is that genetically this woman is absolutely foreign, so that she is not the result of an intercultural marriage,” Stockhammer added. “Therefore, a single woman or a small family came this long distance. The woman is killed. Why? Rape? Hate against foreigners? Robbery? And then her body was disposed in the well.”

The Sassanian Game-board of ‘Hashtpay’

By: Dr. Kaveh Farrokh

he article below is written by Antonio Panaino and originally posted in the CAIS website hosted by Shapour Suren-Pahlav in London, England. Readers are also encouraged to consult/click the link “The Sassanian Era” (or click image below …)

========

Name of a game from the Sassanian era which has not been precisely identified. The haštpay [hštp’y] “eight feet” (more likely than aštapad) is mentioned together with other games in chapter 15 of the Xusraw ud Redag (ud pad Chatrang ud new-ardaxšî r ud haštpay kardan az hamahlan fraztar hom “and in playing chess, backgammon and the haštpay I am superior to my comrades” (Unvala, p. 16; Monchi-Zadeh, 1982, p. 65; Panaino, 1999, p. 51). Its name, as in the case of chess (Pahl. Ch < Skt. caturanµga-), is an Indian borrowing; it derives from Sanskrit astapada- (cf. pali atthapada), originally referring to a game-board of 8 x 8 little squares. Such a board was used for various games (Murray, 1913, pp. 35-40; 1952, pp. 129-36), one of them played, according to the Balabharata (II, 5, pp. 10-13), with red and white pieces and a pair of dice. In many other sources the astapada- was doubtless the chessboard and its name strictly associated with this game (MacDonell, p. 122; Jacobi, p. 228; Thomas, 1898, pp. 272; 1899, pp. 365; Thieme, 1984, p. 208).

A conjectural drawing by Ashkan H. (اشکان.ح) of a possible configuration of the Hashtpay game-board (Source: Public Domain).

From the Xusraw ud Redag it is clear that the Sassanian haštpay was distinguished from other popular games like chess and the variety of backgammon represented by new-ardaxšî r. The haštpay could perhaps be associated, according to Semenov (pp. 16-20, 131; but see Panaino, 1999, pp. 153-56, 189), with a game-board (with three lines of eight squares) recently discovered in Paikend and with another one represented on a later Sassanian silver cup with a different but apparently comparable form.

An Indian manuscript depicting Krishna and Radha playing chaturanga on an 8×8 Ashtāpada (Source: CAIS). For more see “Chess: An Indian or Iranian invention” …

Bibliography

Jacobi, “Über zwei ältere Erwähn-ungen des Schachspiels in der Sanskrit-Litteratur,” ZDMG 50, 1896, pp. 227-33.

A. MacDonell, “The Origin and Early History of Chess,” JRAS, 1898, pp. 117-41.

Monchi-Zadeh, “Xus-rôv i Kavâtân ut Rêtak,” in Monumentum Georg Morgenstierne, vol. II. Acta Iranica 22, Leiden, 1982, pp. 47-91.

J. R. Murray, A History of Chess, Oxford 1913. Idem, A History of Board-Games other than Chess, Oxford 1952.Panaino, La novella degli Scacchi e della Tavola Reale. Un’antica fonte orientale sui due gixochi da tavoliere piuà diffusi nel mondo euroasiatico tra Tardoantico e Medioevo e sulla loro simbologia militare e astrale. Testo pahlavi, traduzione e commento al Wiz-arišn î Chatrang ud nihišn î  new-ardaxšî r “La spiegazione degli scacchi e la disposizione della tavola reale,” Milano, 1999.

L. Semenov, Studien zur sogdischen Kultur an der Seidenstrasse, Wiesbaden, 1996.

Thieme, “Chess and Backgammon (Tric-Trac) in Sanskrit Literature,” in E. Bender, Indological Studies in Honor of W. Norman Brown, New Haven, 1962, pp. 204-16, reprinted in Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden, 1984, pp. 413-25.

W. Thomas, “The Indian Game of Chess,” ZDMG, 52, 1898, pp. 271-72; 53, 1899, pp. 364-65.

M. Unvala, The Pahlavi Text “King Husrav and his Boy,” published with its Transcription, translation and copious notes, Paris, n.d.

Related posts:

1. Chess: Iranian or Indian Invention?

2. Burnt City: World’s oldest “Backgammon” Game?

3. Azerbaijan Republic acknowledges Historical Legacy of Polo Game

4. Viking-era Sassanian and Arab-Sassanian Silver Coins Found in Sweden

5. Message from Persian Gulf Society Board to Dr. Golbahar

6. Lecture: Influence of Sassanian Architecture upon European and Wider Civilization

7. UNESCO: Sassanian Archaeological Landscape of the Fars Region

8. Documentary Film Production: the UNESCO Sassanian Fortress in Darband

9. Translation of Professor Katarzyna Maskymiuk’s Sassanian Military History Book into Persian

10. Military History Monthly article on Sassanian Army (Spah)

On Friday, May 15, 2020, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 1 Jonathan Greenblatt, announced on Twitter that the tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, Iran had been set afire overnight.
Two days later, the Hamadan prosecutor told reporters that “the case of the fire at the tomb of Esther and Mordechai is under investigation.” At the same time, the director general of Hamadan’s cultural heritage announced that “only minor damage was caused to the holy site by the fire.” In addition to the statements of officials in Hamadan, all different forms of contradictory information have been announced by the government official and state news agencies about this incident.
Based on the fact that many Iranian cultural and historical heritage sites have undergone damage and experienced negligence after the Islamic Revolution, it is quite
possible that none of the information heard from the officials of the Islamic government
or their news agencies is true. It is plausible that those who set fire to the tomb have
been supported by authorities of the Islamic Republic.
In addition to the conflict that the Islamic Republic has with non-religious cultural and
historical heritage or non-Shiite religious sites, these historical monuments have
become a means of political exploitation against the people of Iran and foreign
countries. It is clear that what has occurred to the tomb of Esther and Mordecai is an act
of revenge against Israel and the United States.
The tomb of Esther and Mordecai, which has religious significance for Jewish people in
addition to its heritage and historical significance, has repeatedly been the target of
threats by agents linked to the Iranian government in recent years. The tomb has been
in Hamadan for hundreds of years and has always been respected by Iranian people.
Furthermore, it is also quite unfortunate that the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s representatives based in Iran have not objected
to the Iranian government’s strategic negligence of cultural heritage and historical sites.
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1 The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a leading anti-hate organization. Founded in 1913 in response to an escalating climate of anti-Semitism and bigotry, its timeless mission is to protect the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all.