誰來阻止尼泊爾災過文物流失

As Human Crisis Takes Priority After Nepal Quake, a Nation’s Treasures Become Its Scrap

By ELLEN BARRY and NIDA NAJARApril 29, 2015

Basantapur Durbar Square on Sunday after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal. The detritus of centuries-old temples and palaces has been left unguarded as the government puts health and safety first.

Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

KATMANDU, Nepal — On Katmandu’s Basantapur Durbar Square on Tuesday, a heavy wooden beam was slipping down what was left of the Maju Dega Temple.

Members of a volunteer search-and-rescue team were clambering up and down the temple’s base, using the beam as a stepladder and occasionally sending a shower of bricks crashing onto it. It would end up on a pile of timber, in a square traversed by people, exposed to the rain.

If you worked as an antiquities dealer, you would note certain things about the beam: It was intricately carved with the image of two deities and possibly dated to the 17th century — the kind of piece that could sell for many thousands of dollars at an auction house in the West.

In the three days since a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, the death toll has mounted so quickly, to more than 5,000, that most concerns other than the health and safety of its people have been put aside. Hope for finding survivors was waning, and tens of thousands of people are living in tents despite heavy rains. Reserves of clean water are running low.

Basantapur Durbar Square in Katmandu in 2008.

Chad Buchanan/Getty Images

But in the meantime, in many places, the detritus of centuries-old temples and palaces has been left unguarded, diminishing chances to eventually rebuild one of the world’s largest clusters of cultural heritage sites. Pedestrians, possibly for sentimental value, are walking away with bricks from the 19th-century Dharahara Tower, which crashed to the earth on Saturday, trapping at least 40 people inside.

On Monday, after a citizen called an official in Nepal’s department of archaeology to report having thwarted an attempt to steal a bronze bell from the roof of a temple here in the capital, the authorities took some first steps to guard against looting. A notice was printed in a local newspaper on Tuesday, warning that anyone taking artifacts will be punished.

But there was also a sense of helplessness at the magnitude of the calamity that has befallen the Katmandu Valley, a place meticulously documented by preservationists and named a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1979.

Earthquake victims were cremated in Katmandu on Monday. More than 5,000 people were killed by the quake in Nepal.

Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

“Nobody is really able to do this — the government not, Unesco not, so I think all have to work together,” said Christian Manhart, the head of Unesco’s office in Katmandu. “There are thousands of sites, and we cannot put a policeman or military on each of the sites 24 hours a day. They are needed for other purposes. So it’s impossible, as you can imagine.”

Unesco’s top official, Irina Bokova, said in an interview on Monday that she was unaware of any natural disaster in modern times that had damaged so much cultural heritage.

The city of Katmandu was built at the intersection of two trade routes linking China and India, and its architectural heritage reflects overlapping influences: miniature Buddhist votive structures from the seventh century, decorated with fine brass and wood carvings; tiered temples made of fired red bricks; monasteries, religious complexes, palaces, courtyards and clusters of tile-roofed homes.

The destruction has been overwhelming. Unesco has said temple complexes in Katmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan are almost destroyed. At Basantapur Durbar Square on Tuesday, teams of volunteers were shoveling debris off the foundations of two temples that had collapsed on Saturday; ambulances arrived to remove two bodies the volunteers found. A few police officers stood in the square, but made no attempt to supervise the effort.

“There is no organization whatsoever,” said Kaitlin Bull, 22, a tourist from Canada who spent four hours helping clear rubble off Maju Dega. “It’s just a free-for-all.”

In the hurry to remove the rubble, carved beams and struts had ended up in piles of scrap wood, though a few particularly beautiful carvings — like one pink-stained piece showing women frolicking acrobatically below two smiling gods — had been set aside.

Anil Adhikari, a police inspector at a station in the square, said that the only arrests for looting in the square were of eight teenagers who had planned to sell wood carvings at an antiques market. Outside the police station, in white bags used to sell rice, Mr. Adhikari had collected about a dozen statues of gods and goddesses.

Officials said that the issue of looting had taken on more urgency in the past several days, but each seemed to hold another agency responsible for securing the sites.

But that was a subordinate worry on Tuesday in Basantapur Durbar Square, where volunteers were intent on removing the last bodies from the dusty rubble. Shortly after noon, they found one, a Nepalese man who was found on his chest, apparently crushed when he tried to run down the temple stairs.

Thomas Bell, a journalist and the author of “Kathmandu,” a 2014 book about the city, was watching the volunteers toss down carved beams, which landed atop each other in a cloud of dust. The beams, he said, should be immediately cataloged, stored and protected from any further damage.

In Nepal, “people don’t necessarily place a great deal of value on a piece of wood just because it’s old,” he said. “But if you were to restore the temple, you would want it back.”

災難過後，誰來阻止尼泊爾文物流失

文物ELLEN BARRY, NIDA NAJAR2015年04月29日

周日經過一場7.8級地震後的巴山塔布杜巴廣場。

Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

尼泊爾加德滿都——周二，加德滿都的杜巴廣場，一根沉重的木樑從太后廟(Maju Dega)的廢墟上滑落。

一支志願搜救隊的隊員們正利用滑落的木樑作為梯子，在寺廟基底上下忙碌着，滑落的磚石不時地掉在木樑上。這些木材最終會被收集在一起，堆放在行人穿梭的廣場日晒雨淋。

如果你是一個古董商，你可能會注意到樑上有某些細節：有兩個雕工精湛的神像，可能是17世紀的出品——這類古建築構件拿到西方的拍賣行可以賣到數萬美元。

尼泊爾發生7.8級地震之後的三天中，死亡人數迅速增至5000以上，與民眾的安全與健康不相關的因素都被擱置在一邊。找到生還者的希望越來越渺茫，數萬人冒着大雨生活在帳篷里。清潔水儲備即將耗盡。

2008年的加德滿都巴山塔布杜巴廣場。

Chad Buchanan/Getty Images

而與此同時，多處有數百年歷史的寺廟宮殿廢墟卻處於無人值守的狀態。作為世界最大文化遺產集群之一，這樣的狀況會使未來重建的機會愈顯渺茫。一些人可能出於感情因素，帶走了達拉哈拉塔的磚塊。該塔建於19世紀，在上周六的地震中倒塌，至少40人被困在廢墟內。

一位市民致電尼泊爾考古部門的一名官員，說他在首都一座寺廟阻止了一起企圖偷盜屋頂銅鐘的行為，當局隨後在周一開始採取一些防範盜竊的初步措施。周二，當地一家報紙刊登了一則通知，警告任何試圖盜竊文物的人都將受到懲罰。

然而，降臨在加德滿都谷的這場災難如此沉重，又讓人有些無助之感，文物保護人士曾對這裡進行過事無巨細的考察記錄，聯合國教科文組織在1979年命名其為世界文化遺產。

周一在加德滿都火化的遇難者遺體。尼泊爾地震已經導致逾5000人喪生。

Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

「沒有人有能力做到這點——當地政府不能，教科文組織也不能，我認為只能是各方攜手努力，」教科文組織駐加德滿都辦事處負責人克里斯蒂安·曼哈特(Christian Manhart)說。「有數千處遺址，我們無法在每一處都安排警察或軍人24小時值守。別的地方也需要他們。所以你可以想像那是根本不可能的。」

教科文組織總幹事伊琳娜 ·博科娃(Irina Bokova)在周一接受採訪時說，據她所知，此次災難中被毀的文化遺產之多，為近代自然災害中所未見。

加德滿都這座城市建於兩條連接中印的貿易路線的交叉點，它的建築遺產也反映出來自中印的影響：七世紀的小型佛教供奉建築，裝飾以精緻的銅雕和木雕；燒制的紅磚建成的多層寺廟；寺院、宗教建築群、宮殿、庭院和大片的瓦房。

地震造成了極其巨大的破壞。教科文組織稱：加德滿都、巴克塔布和帕坦的寺廟建築群基本都被摧毀了。周二，在巴山塔布杜巴廣場(Basantapur Durbar Square)上，志願者們正在清理兩座周六坍塌的寺廟基底上的廢墟。救護車運走了志願者們發現的兩具屍體。有一些警官站在廣場上，卻並未試圖去監管清理工作。

「沒有任何組織，」22歲的加拿大遊客凱特琳·波爾(Kaitlin Bull)說，她花了四個小時幫助清理太后廟上的碎石瓦礫，「什麼人都可以參與。」

在匆忙清理碎石瓦礫時，雕花大梁和柱子已經淹沒在成堆的木頭殘片中，儘管有一些特別精美的雕刻已經被放在一旁，比如一件染成粉色的雕像，展示了女人們在兩個微笑的神像下嬉戲玩耍，擺出雜耍般的姿勢。

安尼爾·阿迪卡利(Anil Adhikari)是廣場警察局的一名巡官，他說至今唯一在廣場上因為非法劫掠被逮捕的是八個十來歲的孩子，他們打算把木雕拿到古董市場上賣。在警察局外面擺着一些白色米袋，裡面是阿迪卡利收集的十來座神像。

官員們稱劫掠的問題在這些天里變得更加緊迫，但每個官員似乎都認為，保障這些地點的安全是其他部門的責任。

但在巴山塔布杜巴廣場這只是一個次要的麻煩，周二在這裡，志願者們正專註於從廢墟中轉移出最後的遺體。正午過後不久，他們就發現了一具遺體，一個面朝下趴倒的尼泊爾男子，看樣子他是在試圖跑下寺廟樓梯時被壓死的。

記者湯姆斯·貝爾(Thomas Bell)正看着志願者們拋下雕花的大梁，讓這些大梁壘在一起，砸起一團團塵土。貝爾說，這些大梁應該立即編號登記、儲存起來，以免進一步受損。貝爾曾在2014年出版過一本講述這座城市的書《加德滿都》。

在尼泊爾「人們並不會僅僅因為一塊木頭很老，就認為它有很大價值，」他說。「但如果要修復這座寺廟，還是需要把它找回來。」