I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I don't really think this is THAT big of a deal. Yea, I know the art is old and all that and it really is unfortunate but its also the nature for all things to change.
Maybe in another 30k years, we'll be looking at the defacement as an amazing piece of art that tells the story of the current social climate at this point in time, or something along those lines.
As much as I hate to be in agreement with the down voters, I joined them on this.
Yes, it IS that big of a deal. Anything 30K years old made by humans is precious beyond measuring. We don't have written words that old. The stock of them is strictly limited and there won't be any more (unless someone discovers one somewhere else, which will be world news).
You're applying graffiti logic to a piece of cultural heritage because it happens to be a graffiti. That spirit is at the core of modern graffiti as an ephemeral medium by design - which is often why you'll find muralists tacitly tolerating the occasional bombing. However I think this particular piece of art had crossed into cultural heritage some time ago, and as such was a real dick move. Even using modern graffiti interpretation of the tenet, there are some pieces you just don't cross.
They could have put their vandalism on another wall that didn't have one of the rarest pieces of human expression. But no, they purposely went out of their way to destroy something extremely rare and utterly irreplaceable.
Yes, all things change, and eventually everything will be lost in the eventual heat death of the universe, and all human endeavour will be rendered pointless. But it's still a totally pointless and tragic waste.
> But no, they purposely went out of their way to destroy something extremely rare and utterly irreplaceable.
It's actually not so clear it was purposeful. If you didn't know there was art there, you would not be able to tell. It's very possible they just wanted to write some nonsense, and didn't realize they were overwriting anything significant.
The art looks like parallel lines made by dragging a hand over the surface, and it covers virtually every bit of the surface. The vandalism is only in a small part.
A more useful reaction is to teach people more history, so they would know about their heritage in the cave.
Artwork such as this is not just important from an artistic perspective, it's important from an archeological, historical, and paleontological perspective. There is a lot we have learned from ancient rock art and probably a lot that we have yet to learn. For example, by exampining the kinds of animals in ancient cave paintings paleontologists have been able to learn certain details about the appearance and behavior of now extinct megafauna.
Considering the security established around it and the knowledge of what it was, I find it hard to believe that enough photos, samples, etc, weren't taken before this vandalism to have gained or have the capacity to gain any knowledge these drawings may provide.
This is going to sound cynical or possibly even dismissive, but not all cave art is alike and it is possible that the cave in question wasn’t prioritized for study or preservation because it was common or relatively unremarkable from an archaeological perspective.
I’m not saying it was unworthy or worthless, but given the limited amount of resources and grant money to go around, this cave may simply have been neglected in favor of the others.
Having access to the original artifact itself is still important. We have a lot of second hand accounts of things that happened in the distant past but for many of these things, we are missing original accounts or original artifacts from the events in question. It would be nice to pick a wild example, to be able to see what the Ark of the Covenent actually looked like despite having a pretty good description of it, because we have no way of knowing (aside from faith I guess) how accurate the description is or what it leaves out and what that would tell us about the people who built it. Also, even the most complete description of an artifact is still bundled with the assumptions and presuppositions of those doing the describing. There may be things that future generations would wish to learn that we simply currently lack the grounding to explore.
There's a parellel in the early expeditions to Pompeii or Troy which did a lot to destroy the sites in question and destroyed a lot of knowledge in the process.
You'd be surprised, especially since the security wasn't as tight to keep them out. There aren't as many archeologists or anthropologists as they are other types of researchers out there.
This is correct. There are hundreds of archaeological sites world-wide that have yet to be excavated, simply because archaeologists haven't had time to excavate them all.
Out of interest, is that a matter of funding (not enough Archaeologist positions) or people actually going into the discipline? (Not enough applicants for positions)
I'm not sure but it's likely both. I'm a physicist and google says there are about 10k in the US while there are 5.3k archeologists in the US, and physics is already niche amongst the physical scientists. Compare for example, there are 33k biologists, and I assume that's only pure researchers, not doctors, lab techs, etc.
edit: corrected a number. Also, I looked at "employed" meaning full time or part time research vs. just having a PhD in it. Like physics PhDs are 58K which sounds about right, just few actually get a faculty position, temporary (post-doc, staff scientist) or otherwise.
As for why I say both, the number of positions tends to also put downward pressure on number of applicants I think and makes it more likely people who study it or consider studying it consider other fields or jobs before even applying.
I don't think the "big deal" is necessarily that it changed, but rather that it was vandalized. For example the Notre Dame fire was certainly very unfortunate and it would be better if it hadn't happened, but ... such things happen, and in that sense it's "not a big deal" (IMHO restoring it as an exact replica is a mistake).
Whether the vandalism was intentional is not entirely clear yet, but a natural disaster damaging or even destroying something is different from humans intentionally doing so through ignorance or malice.
Or let me put it this way: if some natural disaster destroys your car you'd be bummed out and curse at the world for a minute, and then move on as such things happen. The response would be different if I were to wreck your car with a baseball bat.
Suppose I dug up your grandmother's tombstone and destroyed it with a sledgehammer then proceeded to urinate on it. Then I told you that I don't really think it is that big of a deal, that your grandmother is old and all that but it really is unfortunate for all things to change. Perhaps I even said that that you should look at my urination as a defacement of your grandmother's tombstone as an amazing piece of art that tells the story of the current social climate at this point in time.
Never minding the fact that this is your grandmother we're talking about, can you think of any other reasons why this would be wrong? Can you think of any historical reasons why a 30k old artifact of visual communication might be noteworthy to preserve?
You’re comparing sone kind of relativism to something that is one of the earliest depictions of human art. I think it most cases the earliest form of art versus pedestrian vandalism will be more significant, pedantry aside.
Maybe in another 30k years people think the cave stuff beats anything Michelangelo did. And the only reason today we might feel different is because Michelangelo did his artwork only 500 years ago.
I'm not sure why you're bringing another poster into this or why you bring up a strawman Louvre. But it does seem like you are pretty committed to your belief that wiping out culture is okay as long as it is non-Western. I wish you well with this.
Do you genuinely not realize how absurd and downright offensive the strawmen you're constructing here are?
The cave we're talking about here are one of approximately 100,000 Aboriginal art sites scattered around Australia, and best we can tell was abandoned by all, including the Aboriginals who once lived there, for around 19,000 years until rediscovered in 1956. Yes, it would be nice to preserve it and the teenage edgelords who vandalized it should be punished, but their thoughtless graffiti isn't exactly genocide.
> Do you genuinely not realize how absurd and downright offensive the strawmen you're constructing here are?
Do you?
You haven't actually responded to any of the points I've made, you're simply insisting that because "there's a lot" of Aboriginal art sites, vandalizing them is somehow okay or not that big of a deal.
> their thoughtless graffiti isn't exactly genocide
Thoughtless destruction is pretty much the exact definition of genocide.
That makes absolutely no sense. Climate activists destroying art isn't right either.
When you get to the point that you feel it necessary to destroy things to advance your cause you've entered down the path of leaving behind your humanity.
If thoughtless destruction is just 'in the eye of the beholder' then the 9/11 bombers were simply wrong from one point of view and there is a world in which they were right to kill thousands of people - after all, the West has committed many crimes, yes?
Or we could say that the Trail of Tears was a smart decision to get productive land into the hands of people who knew what to do with it.
Cultural genocide IS a big deal. Whether it be by small disrespectful or ignorant acts such as this, or by structures and institutions of a dominant culture that form, allow, and perpetuate those acts.
I am with you. Obviously, it would be better if it had not happened from our perspective, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it. Visitors to the caves 30,000 years ago defaced the natural beauty. It is reveled and studied today. The parents or elders might have castigated them for vandalizing sacred grounds or admonished them for wasting time with such worthless endeavors. Today, we do the same.
Banksy largely gets a pass and is celebrated. In 1,000 years or 50, someone might be selling this new imagery on a t-shirt.
I found a fossil upper palate and strange humanoid teeth in Ohio during my teens. Sadly, it is lost forever. Considering it might be a rarity here and possibly significant to science, I wish it had never disappeared. I occasionally lose sleep over that. It meant something to me. That cave art means something to others. I can empathize in that context.
Maybe in another 30k years, we'll be looking at the defacement as an amazing piece of art that tells the story of the current social climate at this point in time, or something along those lines.