Caroline Sandes
Project Director & heritage researcher specialising in cultural heritage in (post-)conflict situations. Since 2019 I have been working in Iraq; I am co-director of Living Mesopotamia CIC (UK company number 12317643): project funding from Aliph & Cultural Protection Fund.
I am also an associate staff member of the Institute for Sustainable Heritage, UCL where I am an MSc dissertation supervisor and lecture on Cultural Heritage in Conflict zones to MSc students (see teaching documents below), and I lecture on Kingston University's Museum and Gallery Studies MA course.
2016-2022 I was the Office Manager at the ICOMOS-UK (International Council for Sites and Monuments-UK).
My other research includes the Barbican Project, London, and have had funding from the Caroline Humby-Teck Trust and London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS). Please see publications, most recently my research paper, 'The Barbican before Barbican: the House, its History and the ‘Imaginary’ Watchtower' published in the Transactions of LAMAS (2019).
My PhD (UCL, 2008) examined conservation of archaeological sites within the context of post-war redevelopment in London, Berlin and Beirut (published 2010).
Prior to coming to London in 2002, I lived in Ireland. There I worked for the Western Stone Forts Project of the Discovery Programme and for Knowth Excavations, Brú na Boinne (Bend in the Boyne) World Heritage Site.
I have also been a consultant for the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, Dublin, and a medieval pottery specialist.
In 1997-98, I worked in Australia for heritage consultancies in Western Australia and Queensland, and for Aboriginal Affairs Victoria.
I am also an associate staff member of the Institute for Sustainable Heritage, UCL where I am an MSc dissertation supervisor and lecture on Cultural Heritage in Conflict zones to MSc students (see teaching documents below), and I lecture on Kingston University's Museum and Gallery Studies MA course.
2016-2022 I was the Office Manager at the ICOMOS-UK (International Council for Sites and Monuments-UK).
My other research includes the Barbican Project, London, and have had funding from the Caroline Humby-Teck Trust and London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS). Please see publications, most recently my research paper, 'The Barbican before Barbican: the House, its History and the ‘Imaginary’ Watchtower' published in the Transactions of LAMAS (2019).
My PhD (UCL, 2008) examined conservation of archaeological sites within the context of post-war redevelopment in London, Berlin and Beirut (published 2010).
Prior to coming to London in 2002, I lived in Ireland. There I worked for the Western Stone Forts Project of the Discovery Programme and for Knowth Excavations, Brú na Boinne (Bend in the Boyne) World Heritage Site.
I have also been a consultant for the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, Dublin, and a medieval pottery specialist.
In 1997-98, I worked in Australia for heritage consultancies in Western Australia and Queensland, and for Aboriginal Affairs Victoria.
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Books by Caroline Sandes
Excavations at Dún Aonghasa: the structural evidence.
Volume 2: Excavations at Dún Aonghasa (continued).
Material remains and environmental evidence.
Summary and conclusions.
Excavations at Dún Eoghanachta.
The results of the Western Stone Forts Project are published in two phases. Volumes 1, 2 and the E-publication, Vol. 3, make up the first phase. Volumes 1 and 2 are published as two separate books merely for the sake of convenience (a single volume would have been too unwieldy) and the chapters are numbered sequentially in the two volumes. The ‘division’ falls after the structural evidence from Dún Aonghasa is presented (Vol. 1, Chapter 7); thus Vol. 2 opens with the finds from Dún Aonghasa (Vol. 2, Chapter 8). Volume 3 is published on-line and contains appendices and finds catalogues (relating to the two excavations) and details of ancillary studies (relating to Dún Aonghasa) that were carried out in the course of the project. All the Vol. 3 data are cross-referenced where appropriate in the published volumes, but for the sake of convenience a full list of the contents, figures and tables in Vol. 3 can be found at the end of Vol. 2. The bulk of the text in all three volumes relates to ‘The excavations at Dún Aonghasa’ (Vol. 1, Part II, Chapters 3–7; Vol. 2, Chapters 8–13; Vol. 3, Appendices 1–13). The ‘Background to the Western Stone Forts Project’ (Vol. 1, Part I, Chapter 1) and ‘The excavations at Dún Eoghanachta’ (Vol. 2, Chapters 14–21; Vol. 3, Appendices 14 and 15) are, by comparison, fairly short.
The format of both excavation reports follows what could probably be described at this stage as a ‘twentieth-century’ model, i.e. the accounts are comprehensive and contain a lot of detail. For those who wish to navigate quickly through the text of the Dún Aonghasa excavation report, the background and summary accounts in Chapters 1–5 and 13 outline the aims and results. Information on the finds can be found in the specialist reports in Chapter 8 and the finds catalogues in Vol. 3, Appendix 1. A summary of the Dún Eoghanachta excavations can be found in Chapter 21. The ‘Ancillary studies’ section of Vol. 3 contains a number of articles of wider interest (see Vol. 3 contents list). The Irish evidence for bronze-casting during the late Bronze Age is outlined in Appendix 7. Irish parallels for ‘buffered bronze rings’ are discussed in Appendix 8. The comparative strength of different forms of hillfort rampart is examined in Appendix 12.
Papers by Caroline Sandes
also briefly examines Garter House, the Barbican’s neighbour, and clarifies the relationship between the Barbican, Bridgwater House and Garter House — as the three have come to be conflated or confused in some sources. In conclusion it demonstrates that this was a house of some standing, home to some interesting and important people, and that it almost certainly got its name from an earlier defensive structure.
The reconstruction of central Beirut after the Lebanese civil war by Solidere is not generally considered a success. It has resulted in a soulless, expensive and exclusive area aimed at tourists and wealthy overseas business people who have generally failed to materialise;
local people tend to go elsewhere, except when protesting (Ilyés 2015). Despite the fact that Beirut was known to be an ancient city with occupation stretching back to prehistoric times, the initial post-war plans were for a modern city centre built on a tabula rasa. Little thought was given to any cultural heritage. Subsequent protest at this planned destruction ensured changes to the original redevelopment plans to incorporate historic building conservation and some archaeological investigation but it was far from ideal, and often became tangled in the ongoing politico-religious conflicts (Sandes 2010).
Aleppo is another such city; occupation can be traced back to the 10th century BCE, and its old city has World Heritage status. The ongoing Syrian war has caused dreadful destruction of the city and its peoples, but in the rebuilding how important will this cultural heritage be considered?
This paper examines the role of the built heritage, particularly archaeology, in the (post-)conflict urban reconstruction process and with reference to Beirut, examines what archaeology has the potential to offer to the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Aleppo and its communities.
Given the nature of urban warfare, urban cultural heritage is vulnerable to both collateral and intentional damage and destruction. This intentional destruction may, at its extreme, be part of urbicide. Protecting urban cultural heritage from both collateral and intentional destruction is extremely difficult, made more so by a lack of understanding of the broader concept of the historic urban landscape and, beyond major monuments, what may constitute urban cultural heritage. In addition, it would seem that the significance of the destruction of the historic urban landscape as part of the political violence of urbicide is not fully realised. Using Beirut during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) as the main case study, this chapter explores the broader concept of the historic urban landscape and its significance; its relationship to and destruction during armed conflict; the relationship of this destruction to urbicide and the destruction of community in time as well as space; and the issue of protecting urban cultural heritage during conflict.
This dichotomous response/feeling towards a specific urban place is seen with a variety of urban places. Often poorer communities living in older areas derive a similar sense of identity from them, but because they’re less well-defined or have become run down or damaged during conflict, they are decried by others as fit only for redevelopment, ultimately leading to the loss of the community, its heritage and identity in all but the most superficial sense. In this globalising world is there no space for the idiosyncrasies of actual communities’ heritage, only for a kind of neutral disneyfied heritage? Do places like the Barbican only survive because of a wealthy, self-assured community that can protect itself? Can we learn anything from this place that can be applied to protecting other urban communities and their heritage? This paper examines these questions.
Book Reviews by Caroline Sandes
Teaching Documents by Caroline Sandes
Formal protection of cultural heritage during armed conflict;
Main threats & causes of damage and destruction;
Practical/ ‘on the ground’ protection;
(Post-)conflict sustainable conservation; and
some of the political, social, psychological complications of people, heritage &war.
Given every year since 2016
Course organiser comments: "As always, your lecture was very well received by our students!" ; "Of all the lectures this year, the students said yours was one of the most stimulating".
"This is just to follow and hopefully complement the lecture you have already had on conservation of cultural heritage in the post-conflict scenario. What we are going to look at this afternoon is the wider context of cultural heritage and conflict, to give you some idea of the wider socio-political complications of protecting and conserving cultural heritage during the (post-) conflict situation, and how these affect it, even in the long-term. I am going to mostly focus built heritage and on the Middle East as that is where my experience is, but I am also going to give you some historic examples, such as from Germany and the Balkans. We’ll also take a look at more locally-driven work in Iraq and Yemen, as opposed to big internationally-funded projects. "
Excavations at Dún Aonghasa: the structural evidence.
Volume 2: Excavations at Dún Aonghasa (continued).
Material remains and environmental evidence.
Summary and conclusions.
Excavations at Dún Eoghanachta.
The results of the Western Stone Forts Project are published in two phases. Volumes 1, 2 and the E-publication, Vol. 3, make up the first phase. Volumes 1 and 2 are published as two separate books merely for the sake of convenience (a single volume would have been too unwieldy) and the chapters are numbered sequentially in the two volumes. The ‘division’ falls after the structural evidence from Dún Aonghasa is presented (Vol. 1, Chapter 7); thus Vol. 2 opens with the finds from Dún Aonghasa (Vol. 2, Chapter 8). Volume 3 is published on-line and contains appendices and finds catalogues (relating to the two excavations) and details of ancillary studies (relating to Dún Aonghasa) that were carried out in the course of the project. All the Vol. 3 data are cross-referenced where appropriate in the published volumes, but for the sake of convenience a full list of the contents, figures and tables in Vol. 3 can be found at the end of Vol. 2. The bulk of the text in all three volumes relates to ‘The excavations at Dún Aonghasa’ (Vol. 1, Part II, Chapters 3–7; Vol. 2, Chapters 8–13; Vol. 3, Appendices 1–13). The ‘Background to the Western Stone Forts Project’ (Vol. 1, Part I, Chapter 1) and ‘The excavations at Dún Eoghanachta’ (Vol. 2, Chapters 14–21; Vol. 3, Appendices 14 and 15) are, by comparison, fairly short.
The format of both excavation reports follows what could probably be described at this stage as a ‘twentieth-century’ model, i.e. the accounts are comprehensive and contain a lot of detail. For those who wish to navigate quickly through the text of the Dún Aonghasa excavation report, the background and summary accounts in Chapters 1–5 and 13 outline the aims and results. Information on the finds can be found in the specialist reports in Chapter 8 and the finds catalogues in Vol. 3, Appendix 1. A summary of the Dún Eoghanachta excavations can be found in Chapter 21. The ‘Ancillary studies’ section of Vol. 3 contains a number of articles of wider interest (see Vol. 3 contents list). The Irish evidence for bronze-casting during the late Bronze Age is outlined in Appendix 7. Irish parallels for ‘buffered bronze rings’ are discussed in Appendix 8. The comparative strength of different forms of hillfort rampart is examined in Appendix 12.
also briefly examines Garter House, the Barbican’s neighbour, and clarifies the relationship between the Barbican, Bridgwater House and Garter House — as the three have come to be conflated or confused in some sources. In conclusion it demonstrates that this was a house of some standing, home to some interesting and important people, and that it almost certainly got its name from an earlier defensive structure.
The reconstruction of central Beirut after the Lebanese civil war by Solidere is not generally considered a success. It has resulted in a soulless, expensive and exclusive area aimed at tourists and wealthy overseas business people who have generally failed to materialise;
local people tend to go elsewhere, except when protesting (Ilyés 2015). Despite the fact that Beirut was known to be an ancient city with occupation stretching back to prehistoric times, the initial post-war plans were for a modern city centre built on a tabula rasa. Little thought was given to any cultural heritage. Subsequent protest at this planned destruction ensured changes to the original redevelopment plans to incorporate historic building conservation and some archaeological investigation but it was far from ideal, and often became tangled in the ongoing politico-religious conflicts (Sandes 2010).
Aleppo is another such city; occupation can be traced back to the 10th century BCE, and its old city has World Heritage status. The ongoing Syrian war has caused dreadful destruction of the city and its peoples, but in the rebuilding how important will this cultural heritage be considered?
This paper examines the role of the built heritage, particularly archaeology, in the (post-)conflict urban reconstruction process and with reference to Beirut, examines what archaeology has the potential to offer to the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Aleppo and its communities.
Given the nature of urban warfare, urban cultural heritage is vulnerable to both collateral and intentional damage and destruction. This intentional destruction may, at its extreme, be part of urbicide. Protecting urban cultural heritage from both collateral and intentional destruction is extremely difficult, made more so by a lack of understanding of the broader concept of the historic urban landscape and, beyond major monuments, what may constitute urban cultural heritage. In addition, it would seem that the significance of the destruction of the historic urban landscape as part of the political violence of urbicide is not fully realised. Using Beirut during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) as the main case study, this chapter explores the broader concept of the historic urban landscape and its significance; its relationship to and destruction during armed conflict; the relationship of this destruction to urbicide and the destruction of community in time as well as space; and the issue of protecting urban cultural heritage during conflict.
This dichotomous response/feeling towards a specific urban place is seen with a variety of urban places. Often poorer communities living in older areas derive a similar sense of identity from them, but because they’re less well-defined or have become run down or damaged during conflict, they are decried by others as fit only for redevelopment, ultimately leading to the loss of the community, its heritage and identity in all but the most superficial sense. In this globalising world is there no space for the idiosyncrasies of actual communities’ heritage, only for a kind of neutral disneyfied heritage? Do places like the Barbican only survive because of a wealthy, self-assured community that can protect itself? Can we learn anything from this place that can be applied to protecting other urban communities and their heritage? This paper examines these questions.
Formal protection of cultural heritage during armed conflict;
Main threats & causes of damage and destruction;
Practical/ ‘on the ground’ protection;
(Post-)conflict sustainable conservation; and
some of the political, social, psychological complications of people, heritage &war.
Given every year since 2016
Course organiser comments: "As always, your lecture was very well received by our students!" ; "Of all the lectures this year, the students said yours was one of the most stimulating".
"This is just to follow and hopefully complement the lecture you have already had on conservation of cultural heritage in the post-conflict scenario. What we are going to look at this afternoon is the wider context of cultural heritage and conflict, to give you some idea of the wider socio-political complications of protecting and conserving cultural heritage during the (post-) conflict situation, and how these affect it, even in the long-term. I am going to mostly focus built heritage and on the Middle East as that is where my experience is, but I am also going to give you some historic examples, such as from Germany and the Balkans. We’ll also take a look at more locally-driven work in Iraq and Yemen, as opposed to big internationally-funded projects. "
Examines formal and 'on the ground' protection; causes of destruction and damage; low- and post-conflict projects and work mostly in the Middle East but with also reference to sites elsewhere.
Claims made on heritage by classes, social and cultural groups and political elites are intimately connected to maintaining a presence in society. Heritage is often instrumentalised to not only tell a story – however imagined – about a social or cultural group’s past and present existence, but more significantly serves a specific role to legitimise access to the state and its resources. In this paper, we argue that heritage has been essential to the construction of state-access infrastructures – specific social, cultural and political structures in both state and society - which are erected to access the riches and opportunities that the state bestows. In Iraq, heritage in post-2003 Iraq has been used as a means to extract state wealth rather than as a way to promote peace. This process of state capture and crafting access to the state entails markedly differing understandings of history, as represented in archives and other knowledge collections. The ways in which heritage is presented or ignored and denied is closely related to the proximity an interest group has to the state-making process. Mosul Central Library, once one of Iraq’s largest libraries and hub of Mosul University since its foundation in 1967 is now a burnt-out shell, destroyed by IS. Using the history of its collections since the Library’s foundation, via the deprivations and terrors of Saddam’s regime, occupation and civil war, this paper will examine how heritage, in this case archival and other documentary material, is controlled, abused or destroyed in the pursuit of denying the heritage of others or to control representations of the past to align to a specific state narrative. It will also examine, however, how this is counteracted, often secretly and at great personal risk by official caretakers and others who save and maintain in counter/unofficial archives material threatened with destruction.
This paper will present a new research project, focusing on the residents and physical environment of the Barbican Estate, London, that will consider these issues. The aim is to examine the socio-cultural, economic and political values that influence how the local community engages with and relates to its historic environment. It builds on recent research: Sandes (forthcoming) examined the social and political context of the conservation and display of archaeological sites in urban environments, using the City of London as a primary case study. McCarthy (2009) examined the dichotomy between public perceptions and the management of archaeology, devising an innovative, qualitative survey method to analyse the relationship between the historic environment and sense of place, identity and belonging.
References
McCarthy, S. A. 2009. Excavating Fictions: perceptions and awareness of the historic environment and their implications for its management and use. Unpublished PhD thesis. Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Sandes, C. A. forthcoming. Archaeology, Conservation and the City: post-war redevelopment in London, Berlin and Beirut. Oxford: Archaeopress/British Archaeological Reports.
In recent years, however, a number of archaeological and historic sites have been conserved for display with the explicit purpose of helping to aid reconciliation. The ability of such sites in this way depends on several aspects. Firstly that the relevant sites survive post-war redevelopment, including the problem that some sites have of initially being considered ‘politically negative’ (and therefore only fit to be demolished), and secondly that there is an understanding of the length of time it takes for society to reconcile not only with ‘the enemy’ but itself with the horrors and often guilt of war.
This paper will examine examples of sites, including in Northern Ireland, Berlin and Beirut, conserved for display with the specific aim of helping reconciliation. It will also take into account the socio-cultural politics that come to bear on the survival or destruction of elements of the built heritage in the aftermath of conflict and on the success or not of these sites in playing a role in resolving conflict in the long term.
This rather ugly, asbestos-ridden modern building is not exactly typical of the type of historic building that generates controversy when a decision to demolish is reached, and the fact that former East Berliners wanted it saved came as a surprise to the authorities in question. The reason of course is tied up with the fact that the ‘victorious’ West German government wanted to forget East Germany’s existence as quickly as possible. They assumed that former East Germans would feel the same – a rather naïve assumption given the massive changes and social upheavals, not all of them positive, that the East Germans had to face with the demise of their country and its absorption into the Federal Republic. Ultimately, however, the mistake lay in failing to recognise or appreciate another’s heritage, particularly that of the ‘losing side’, because it was hard if not impossible for those responsible to identify the values of such a young and politically tainted building.
The second aspect to the Palace of the Republic is what they intend to replace it with, which is a neo-historical building reminiscent of the demolished Hohenzollern Royal Palace that stood on the site until it was demolished in 1949. Archaeological excavations in front of the Palace of the Republic have uncovered remains of the former palace and they are to be conserved for display within the new building, suggesting the use of evidence of one particular past to justify the removal and replacement of another.
This paper will examine these conservation and heritage issues, and some of the lessons that may be learnt, as demonstrated by the fate of the Palace of the Republic.