Collateral Damage

@alexatack hi Alex! How did you come across this story??

@dballout This was something that a few people told me about just anecdotally when I was living in Beirut. But nobody seemed to know the full story - just that somebody had encased the museum’s artifacts in concrete during the war. I always had it in the back of my mind as a story to pursue but ther...Show More

@alexatack what happened to maurice and his family?

@nadeenshaker Hey Nadeen- Maurice died in Lebanon on December 22nd 1994... Suzy went to see him in the hospital right before he died. His wife Olga died a few years later, in around 1999, as best I can tell. They did have children, but we aren’t sure how many and we couldn’t locate them, although we...Show More

@danny hey Danny.. yes I did! Embarrassingly, I had lived in Beirut for a year and a half before I got around to visiting, but I did eventually.

@alexatack Glad you got to see it in person, sounds like that is a pretty common anecdote :) And thanks for sharing the story.

@ann hey Ann! Oof.. big question. Speaking personally, and using the British Museum as my main reference point because I’m English... I would sympathize more with that argument if they had any significant track record of giving artifacts back once they were no longer in danger. But they don’t. So fr...Show More

@alexatack @ann Your question & answer here reminds me of the G'psgolox totem pole that someone cut down from a Indigenous village in Canada. An Indian agent sold it overseas, and it resurfaced in a Stockholm museum where it was considered state property by the Swedish government. The Indigenous c...Show More

@mm Woah, crazy story! Will definitely check that documentary out.

@mm In the G'psgolox totem pole case, I totally support the return of the pole, and thank you for the link. But these days with the failed states in the Mid East and the terrorists groups in others targeting tourists & non-Islamic artifacts, I can see both sides of the argument. I wonder what...Show More

@alexatack I mostly agree, but yet how would one know for sure when they are no longer in danger? Lebanon could slip into more chaos, it seems.

@alexatack You write: "There’s actually a bigger story I wanna do around this one day, because it’s such a fascinating topic." Any hints?

@mm Thanks for tagging me! I've heard of many occasions in which curators at an institution refuse to return items, but I haven't seen that documentary or heard about the G'psgolox totem pole case. @ann I support the repatriation of artifacts always (I haven't seen a case that I disagree with yet). ...Show More

@alyjo007 So glad you listened, Alyssa. Something I wondered whilst doing this story was.. are there any other examples in history where museum staff have coveted objected up with concrete, or was the Beirut team’s solution unique? I couldn’t find any other examples of this particular move. Do you k...Show More

@alexatack Ahhh! I was super curious about the concrete technique too @alyjo007. Also, I had all the feels when the woman was saying how she was so sad that she had to cover all the artifacts up, because her job is to uncover history, not bury it. But the meta part of this that by doing what they ...Show More

@mm 🤯🤯🤯

@mm @alexatack I haven't found any other examples of covering objects in concrete before, either! It's a radical move, so I assume most museum staff are too afraid of using that technique, even as a last ditch effort to save the artifacts. Hah, everyone has been asking such great questions that I k...Show More

@alexatack: I guess I have two questions for you related to my thoughts above. 1. Will the Lebanon National Museum be using this segment you produce in some way going forward? They should! 2. What is your answer to your question of "What purpose does keeping 3000 year old artifacts in a museum s...Show More

@mm And what to do when the "artifacts" don't fit into a museum? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-climate-change-culture-trfn-idUSKBN1YO0QE https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lalibela-11-churches-each-sculpted-out-of-a-single-block-of-stone-800-years-ago-60-minutes-2019-12-22/

@mm Thank you for hosting a discussion with KC. I love the ease of the Podyssey platform. I found the closing line in yr comment above, noting how both the curators and the KC team work to retain/document culture, to be esp apt and moving.

@ann Thanks for sharing those links! This quote from the first link really hit me: "I believe that in 100 years all these antiquities will be gone because of climate change". I haven't even really thought about this before. Beyond antiquities, entire cities, towns and island and all of its history a...Show More

@mm I know the Q & A closed, but I still thought of you & our discussion when I read this article today: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-draws-ire-artifacts-move-busy-tahrir-square-68001458

@hebahfisher haha... as much as I would’ve loved that (then we could’ve called the episode The Prince’s Protective Measures, or something), he wasn’t a real prince - it was more like a term of endearment or respect.

@alexatack Hahah!! I'm going to try and get my circles to call me Emira :p

@hebahfisher @alexatack ICYMI!

Thanks for tagging us @mm! Someone else mentioned the Lost Objects podcast and I've been really enjoying it since. If you can find a reference for the 99pi episode, please paste it here I love these stories!