Towards a Regime for the Sustainable, Ethical and Regionally Maintainable Conservation, Presentation...

8/8/2019 Towards a Regime for the Sustainable, Ethical and Regionally Maintainable Conservation, Presentation and Interpre

1/16

8th US/ICOMOS International Symposium

John C Hurd. B.Sc. Dip Cons. FIAAS.

ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for the Study and Conservation ofEarthen Architectural Heritage.

Personal Contact details:

Email. [email protected]: 3 Magdalen Close, North Lane, Swaby, Alford, Lincolnshire, UK.UK. Tel. 0044[0]1507 480 626.

Towards a Regime for the Sustainable, Ethical and Regionally MaintainableConservation, Presentation and Interpretation of Large Archaeological Sites onthe Ancient Silk Roads of Central Asia.

IntroductionAcross the world are hundreds of huge archaeological sites in a better or worse stateof preservation.This paper explores site interpretation at a very fundamental level. It will draw asketch of cultural conditions in the region which it covers, Central Asia, and describean attempt to achieve a strong didactic message, using a textural language and aregional protocol, to help with the definition of separate places.In terms of the topic of this Symposium, the paper explores, first impact.The speaker will draw from examples on the Silk Roads of Central Asia, Otrar Oasis,ancient Farab, in Kazakhstan, Sauran, 14/15 th, Century city near Turkestan, andthree Cities in the Chui Valley in Kyrgyzstan, Krasnaya Rechka, ancient Navikat, Ak

Beshim, ancient Balasagun and Burana, ancient Suyab.

Otrar Tobe, Main Citadel. S. Kazakhstan.

1
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


2/16

Sauran, 3 Miles of adobe walls, near Turkestan .

Sauran. Detail of adobe defensive wall.

Reclining Buddha, earth sculpture, Buddhist Temple II, Krasnaya Rechkaancient Navikat

2


3/16

10th Century Karakhanid tower, Burana, ancient Suyab Graham.1915.

The sites pictured adequately demonstrate many of the problems in the conservationof earth cities in Central Asia. They are all sites that have received a great deal of

archaeological excavation and research but almost no site conservation during theSoviet period. Objects have been conserved and often very well, but it may beregretted that major finds, including the earth formed reclining Buddha from KrasnayaRechka, have remained at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Since perestroika, the regional stakeholders trying to improve the status of themonuments from the World Heritage tentative list have been confronted by aconstantly developing and changing financial and political situation tending toinstability in the discipline of the preservation and interpretation of historic sites.Central Asia has first class conservation scientists, but their work is severely limitedwithin changing priorities for the exploitation of cultural reserves.

Geographic, demographic and cultural setting.

The region East of the Caspian, south of the Aral Sea, west of the Tien Shan

Mountains, (the old Soviet border with China) and North of the Oxus has been knownunder several names. Semirechie, and Trans-Oxiania perhaps the best known.

3


4/16

The cities referred to in this paper, founded largely in the 3 rd Century before theChristian era or later, can be characterised by the influence and activities of the SilkRoads, running East and West across the region, and by the main nomadic routesrunning North and South. Frequently crossed by armies, often brutally conquered,with huge religious, cultural, artistic and scientific diversity, attracted by the lively flowof activity and ideas generated on these International trade routes. The region gavebirth to a gifted line of sons including the renowned Islamic philosopher, astronomerand Scientist, Al Farabi and the Sufi Master Hodja Achmet Yassavi with many others.Major military disruptions during and after the conquest by Genghis Khan in the 13and 14th Century led to most of the cities falling into severe decline or being utterlydestroyed and never repopulated. The other great military activities in the region aremarked by the rise of Timur Leng (Tamerlaine) and the renaissance that Timurspower generated, in the 15th Century and by the 18th Century, and later, RussianImperial expansion, followed by the culturally influential, Soviet Union.

The true culture of the various Turkic speaking nations that populate Central Asia, is

still emerging from a Soviet past which did not encourage cultural identity, ethnicgroups were Imported and exported especially in the Stalin era.

The lingua Franca of the former Soviet Socialist Republics of Uzbekistan,Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan is now Russian, but still very much alive area group of Turkic languages lately elevated in importance and in some casesbecoming once again the language of government.There remained in Trans-Oxiania, throughout the Russian Imperial and Soyuz Sovietperiods a deep tribal longing to establish a separate and regional Turkic culturalidentity, in part through a shared Islamic heritage.

This Turkman heart existed as a quasi-underground movement for over a Century.

The original inhabitants of the region, evolved from a series of invasions andpopulation movements in early times, can be divided into nomadic and settledgroups. During the Soviet period a myth and mental reaching towards the romance ofnomadic origins has to some extent replaced an authentic history of huge cities inplaces stretching like a linear chain along the branches of the silk roads, and withnomadism contacting that settlement in the cities described here. The originalsdivide by tradition into three Hordes, the First Horde, the Golden Horde and themodern horde, when strangers meet in the region, the family origin and horde areestablished early on.

Intertwined with this rich tradition, still in the process of rediscovery, are the remnantsof the Russian Empire together with the hundreds of nations imported during the

Soviet era to support huge agricultural plans, green deserts, and the industrialinfrastructure of the collectives, all set in a background of the extraordinarily equaldistribution of resources and production among the member states. In Kakakhstanthere are said to exist some 120 ethnic tribes, Germans, Greeks, Chechens,Armenians, Jews, Koreans, Chinese, Siberian, Kipchaks, Uigurs, Cossacks, Tatars,Russians and so on.

All these groups call themselves Kazakh and indeed that is what they are, Kazakhpatriots who maintain a thin connection with their own cultural roots and often havefar away eyes. Many of them had no choice but to emigrate and work in thecollectives and they are now 3rd and 4th generation Kazakhs. However, in fact, fewexcept the three Hordes understand the local languages and traditions.

4


5/16

Social Changes.The states are very tolerant of the ethnic diversity, within the context of States,becoming independent Republics, with an intense need to rediscover and re-define aunique cultural source and inspiration, shared only by the originals; a difficulttransition.

Within this transition is the reintroduction of freedom of worship. The Hordes belong,for the most part, to a soft but devout Islamic tradition, extended by various branchesof Sufism and to a growing extent shamanism which, through the application of smallbut strong household and community rituals kept the tradition alive, which in liberaltimes is a strong uniting factor amongst people of many original beliefs. The RussianOrthodox Church is also in the ascendant as is the reintroduction of Synagogues. InCentral Asia one may see Hare Krishna groups chanting along the roads and I haveoften been invited to join panoply of odd sects and even sances on the ancientsites. When ill or injured, I have always been taken to the Shaman first. Thetreatments have often been weird, but reassuringly effective.

Tourism and visitors.In the Confederation of Independent States the ancient sites become semiIslamic/Sufi/pagan/Shamanistic places of pilgrimage as well as an educational andtourist environment. For most regional tourists the expectation is for fun andadventure, getting in touch with a wilder spirit in a dimly remembered history.

Altyn Tobe (Kazakhstan): damage caused to earthen walls by visitors.

A proportion of visitors walk or even ride horses over the archaeology, light fires,sing, dance, drink, sleep over, enact various ceremonies including shamanisticmarriage celebration sitting easily beside the Civil and Islamic ceremony, and pursuea very separate cultural celebration. Site Guardians are hard pressed.In International legislation and in the Charters with which we inform our judgements,there is no acceptance for the need of ordinary people to visit ancient sites and toexperience the festival that this has always demanded. Druids are unable to visitStonehenge and in the same way, this profound need for cultural festival in the

steppes, is becoming viewed as a problem. How are we able to allow these sides of

5


6/16

our cultural source to find expression within the need to closely protect the remainsthat define these ancient places?

Part of the attraction of the tobes [mounds] is their dramatic statement as raisedplaces within the endless flatness of the Kazakh Steppe.

This dramatic architectural effort, of massive proportion, together with the

infrastructure and irrigation required to support these platform building, hydrauliccommunities does by its environmental setting, pull in the imagination of the visitor,and this can become an early advantage to respect, interpretation andunderstanding.

Problems and Solutions.Confronting these problems has lead a UNESCO, Division of Cultural Heritageconservation team to evolve a philosophy of conservation aimed at maximum long-term preservation through careful backfilling while also leaving windows in theexcavated contexts to satisfy, educational, didactic and Tourism needs.

6


7/16

Earth arches, Ak Beshim, Nestorian Christian Complex.

Wrapping the earth arches in geotextile carefully selected for porosity (seeprevious picture).

7


8/16

Backfilling with soft sand protecting immediate surface and original excavated

material replaced.In the Central Asian contexts, tangible structures are very vulnerable to deterioration.Covering remains with a shelter structure or reburial may be the best means toprovide a satisfactory result. Both recovering and the use of shelter structures requiregreat caution both in design and in function and maintenance.

Another important philosophical and ethical question in general to Central Asia is thatof the spoils produced by intensive excavation activity and which now remainscattered across the sites. Normally these will have been used for backfilling orremoved completely from an archaeological zone, but in this case they have not andremain a large and unsightly problem. In Otrar tobe it is estimated that the volume ofspoil material totals in excess of one thousand tonnes.

In a city like the 200 square kilometre Otrar Oasis, on an important ancient routelying within the changing meanderings of the Syr Darya river to its eventualdestination in the Aral Sea, seven citadels and numerous other areas have beenexcavated in the last 80 years.

In the years that have followed these intensive Soviet scientific investigations, the

excavated areas are slowly melting back into the landscape.

8


9/16

Within the budgets available for conservation projects it will, for the foreseeablefuture be impossible to conserve most of the excavated contexts within these sites.

The UNESCO team is headed by Francis Childe of UNESCO Division of CulturalHeritage, Paris and directed by Prof. Michael Jansen from the University of Aachen(WRTH), with John Hurd (UK), as senior conservation consultant. Dr. Enrico Fodde(Italy), Site scientist and laboratory trainer together with Tarcis Stevens (Belgium),Topographer and documentation trainer, share the job of site direction. Yuri Peshkov(Kaz.) UNESCO, Almaty is the regional co-ordinator. In each country local expertsand international consultants support this core team. Funding is generously supplied,through UNESCO, by the Japanese Funds in Trust.

Otrar Tobe, Kazakhstan. Topographical survey. Citadel and Shakristan,purple, outer defensive ramparts and Rabat, black. WRTH. Stevens.

9


10/16

Large-scale surveying is achieved through the use of total station surveys, operationstrained on site over a four-year period, together with air photography and GPS.Limited geophysical surveys by magnetometer and by resistivity meters are alsoconducted in areas surrounding the excavated windows, conserved for visitors.Archaeological surveys of this detail had not occurred in Kazakh sites, but are nowbeing applied, with eight archaeological surveyors trained.

Two field laboratories have been set up in Otrar (Kazakhstan) and Krasnaya Rechka(Kyrgyzstan). In both countries training is carried out with national and regionalexperts. The scope for the laboratories is to be a reference point not only for the siteanalysis, conservation and for the selection of repair materials, but also in terms ofregional capacity building.

Krasnaya Rechka (Kyrgyzstan). Training session in the field laboratory

10


11/16

Later Mosque, Otrar Tobe, Kazakhstan: figure showing grouping of

granulometry curves of mud mortar samples as analysed in the fieldlaboratory. Fodde.

After assembly of historic archives a large-scale total station topographical survey is

completed and all excavated areas are documented in found state. Windows arethen selected for conservation and all other excavated structures which are unstableand at risk are carefully separated, stabilised and backfilled. This to some extentreturns the view of these cities to a series of earthworks and canals within the Steppelandscape.

Special areas of focus are left in the excavated state and receive detailedconservation attention which, in the extraordinarily harsh Steppe environment, further

worsened by global climate change, may involve shelter structures both as protectivecovers or as local climate baffles.

11


12/16

Access.A safe and reversible visitor path is then established to lead the visitor from windowto window, and the route is supplied with didactic signage, focussed on eachindividual window. This signage also contains material on reburied contexts eachside of the path using historic plans, images and interpretation juxtaposed withmodern documentation.

The windows are selected to represent different periods of activity and at differentsocial strata. In Otrar, six large windows have been selected, part of the city wall, aMosque, a Palace, a bathhouse, a pottery and its domestic ensemble and aresidential block.

Presentation and interpretation.Historically, Soviet interpretation of Central Asian sites stressed the militaristic natureof the Hordes. Since independence, the interpretation of forms and appearance ofthe cities has wandered even further towards a perception of a strong/cruel Central

Asian history, with otherwise learned books offering huge, quasi Soviet visualisationsof historic elevations where every door is four meters high made of iron and everywall head crenellated. It is politically acceptable to advance the ideas of nomadicwarriors, always victorious, tough and Nationally strong.

Within the context of the windows efforts are made to present the site to all visitors,regardless of origin and comprehension of written language or maps, in a way thatevolves a clearly recognisable sensual and textural language within the presentationof each window and across the range of windows available for inspection and view.

Adobe retaining wall. Otrar.

This textural language defines floors [excavated levels and found floor levels],retaining walls, reconstruction and historic fabric. The textural language is common toall windows within a given site, but regional similarities of textural language areencouraged.

In Otrar for instance, a general language of floors and levels with a language ofdistinctive local gravels with under-drainage and a geotextile (Typar 32) separationlayer.

12


13/16

Excavated base layer marked by gravel, Spread footing and original floor levelvisible above. Later Mosque, Otrar.

For the walls required to manage and retain excavated cliffs within the fragile loessclay environment, a sacrificial but durable plaster is applied with vertical fingerstrokes, all visitor retaining walls are similarly textured and this defines the languageof new wall construction. The added value lies in the indicator of maintenance. Whenthe vertical lines erode away, it is time to reapply.

Finger-stroke Texture to define new visitor or site retaining wall.

This indicator is an improvement on Calendar maintenance, as it will respond tosofter and harder periods of environmental conditions. The texture also has thepractical function of leading rainwater to ground and by resisting the formation of

preferential flow channels.

13


14/16

The language then extends to the conserved monuments, which in the harshenvironment already described almost always require shelter coats to ensuresurvival. This textural language defines without further explanation, what isauthentic, what is protective and what is didactic within the levels of interpretationof the windows.

Regional and common site textural language contributes to the discipline of visitorson regional tourist and pilgrimage routes. They involve the visitor in a discreteprocess of recognition of the separateness of the site from the outside world, andencourage the need for appreciation through interpretation within the mindset of anyvisitor who recognises and responds to the message of the theme within regionalsites.

The didactic information presentations and signage is then placed on top of this basicand experiential didactic foundation, and the sites then become open to interpretationby a wide audience in more or less detail.

The UNESCO Division of Cultural Heritage, Central Asia consultants team.

Outputs.The technical, political and practical importance of leaving only windows lies in thefact that the backfilled areas will remain stable at low maintenance for long periodswhile the size and frequency of windows can be tailored to present a sustainabletarget for maintenance within the limitations of fluctuating manpower and budget inany given region or Country. As in museums, only a small part of the collection isexhibited, the remainder becomes the reserve collection, available as required.

Each Culture has its own standards and purposes for interpretation of sites and theestablishment of windows allows for local interpretation while leaving the mass ofarchaeological material buried for reinterpretation and more sophisticated research infuture generations. Six large windows are to be left open onto the history of the huge

14


15/16

Otrar Tobe. The maintenance of these windows will stretch the capacity of localcultural reserve staff and will be flexible enough to be increased or reducedaccording to the capacity for response over the next few years.

The UNESCO project has encouraged and facilitated master planning for all of thecity sites, and a part of this process is site management planning with all itsadvantages towards good working procedures.

Regional capacity has been increased and training has been given in Planning,Philosophy, ethics, documentation, Laboratory analysis, synthesis of results and inconservation techniques. This training has been achieved by working with regionalexperts on site, over a five-year period, and at workshops and master-classesincluding a formal Regional Training Workshop.

Fin. John Hurd. 2005.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aubekerov BJ, Baipakov KM, Deom JM, Forte M, Iliushchenko M, NigmatovaSA, Patchikin K, and Sala R. Preliminary Results of the Geo-Archaeological Studyof the Otrar Oasis. Unpublished interim report of the INTAS project (Almaty)

Buryakov, YF et al. 1999. The Cities and Routes of the Great Silk Road.International Institute for Central Asian Studies. Chief Editorial Office of Publishingand Printing (Tashkent)

Fodde, E. 2003. An Approach to Archaeological Sites in Central Asia: theConservation of Otrar Tobe, Kazakhstan. Selection and Evaluation of Repair

Material. In: Terra 2003 Conference Preprints, 9th International Conference on theStudy and Conservation of Earthen Architecture (Yazd), pp. 170-183

Fodde, E. 2004a. The Conservation of Otrar Tobe, Kazakhstan: Characterizationand Evaluation of Repair Materials for the Bath House. In: Preservation andDevelopment of Historical and Cultural Environment in Natural and Urban Conditionsin Modern Central Asia, Conference Proceedings, State Institute for ScientificResearch and Planning on Monuments of Material Culture (Almaty) pp. 244-252

Goriatcheva, V. 1980. The Early Medieval Manuments of Buddhism in NorthernKirgizia. In: Buddhist for Peace, No 4, pp. 45-51

Goriatcheva, V. 1985. Krasnaya Rechka. Semirechye Early Medieval Monument ofUrban Culture. In: International Association for the Study of the Cultures od CentralAsia. Information Bulletin No 8, pp. 11-22Goriatcheva, V. 2000. NewFindings of the Indo-Buddhist Culture in Kyrgyzstan. In:India and Central Asia (Tashkent) pp. 99-105

Goriatcheva, V. 2001. A Propos de Deux Capitales du Kaghanat Karakanide. In:Cahiers DAsie Centrale, No 9, pp. 91-114

Grajdankina, NS. 1989. Architecturna Stroitieli Materiali Sredniei Asii (Architectureand Building Materials in Central Asia). Uzbeskaia Ministerstvo Kulturi UzbekstoiSSR (Tashkent)

15


16/16

16

Hurd, J. 2003. Stories of the Dead. Towards an Understanding of the TraditionalEarthen Architecture of Kyrgyzstan. In: Terra 2003 Conference Preprints, 9thInternational Conference on the Study and Conservation of Earthen Architecture(Yazd), pp. 293-295

Hurd, J and Fodde, E. 2004. Conservation of Earth Sites in the Central Asian SilkRoads. Manual for the testing and assessment of historic and new earthen materialsand for their application within an ethical conservation process. UNESCO/JapanFund Trust (Paris)

Imankulov, J and Tentieva, A. 2003. Preservation of Silk Road Sites in Kyrgyzstan:Navekat, Suyab, and Burana. In: Terra 2003 Conference Preprints, 9th InternationalConference on the Study and Conservation of Earthen Architecture (Yazd), pp. 593-598

Jansen, M. 2005. Conservation and Management of Archaeological and EarthenStructures and Sites. Proceedings of the Central Asian Training Course. UNESCO /

University of Aachen ACDC, in print

Kovalova N. A. 1989. Polevaya Conservazia i restavrazia nekotorych nachodok izraskopok buddiyskogo chrama krasnorechenskogo gorodisha (Field Conservationand Restoration of some Findings from the Excavation of the Buddhist Temple ofKrasnaya Rechka). In: Krasnaya Rechka i Burana. Institute of History. Academy ofSciences of the Kyrgyz Republic (Frunze) pp. 128-136

Lane B (ed.). 2000. Ground Water and Soil Salinity Related Damage to theMonuments and Sites in Central Asia. Proceedings of the regional workshop,UNESCO Tashkent Office (Tashkent)

Stevens, T.2003. Documentation of Otrar Oasis. A Dual process in Restoration. In:Preservation and Development of Historical and Cultural Environment in Natural andUrban Conditions in Modern Central Asia, Conference Proceedings, State Institutefor Scientific Research and Planning on Monuments of Material Culture (Almaty) pp.143-149

Voropaeva, V and Goriatcheva, V. 1998. Kyrgyzstan on the Great Silk Road andCultural Relationship with India. In: Himalayan and Central Asian Studies, Vol 2, Nos3-4, pp. 67-82

Date post:	10-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	united-states-national-committee-of-the-international-council-on-monuments-and-sites
View:	220 times
Download:	0 times

Towards a Regime for the Sustainable, Ethical and Regionally Maintainable Conservation, Presentation...

Documents