On this occasion, I would like to make a criticism, or rather, an alert regarding the conservation of vestiges of our past, monuments and traditions, which are so vital to understanding times before the Wow.
All over the world, these vestiges are threatened, many things are on the verge of disappearing, where, sometimes, even the intention to preserve ends up having the opposite effects.
We have erosion, pollution and unfortunately human action as major agents of this “deconstruction of the past”, which cause terrible and often irreversible damage.
There are some emblematic cases that are making historians stand on end, such as the sphinx in Egypt, for example, which has been suffering for millennia from the effects of the three agents mentioned above. Erosion and pollution, as well as errors in its restoration, have caused some damage to this monument of humanity, which we could say will be irreversible. The original color has disappeared, the nose and beard are missing, the eyes are damaged, and there are large cracks on the surface. To complete the restoration attempt, without a precise knowledge of materials and construction methods, they led to structural modification of the sphinx.
War, which is also part of human action, has a highly destructive character, as recently observed in the Iraq war. A land that millennia ago was called Mesopotamia, and whose museums were destroyed by American troops, without the slightest concern for the artifacts of such an ancient civilization.
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Other cases also disturb scholars of the past, such as the pollution of sacred rivers, the non-preservation of ancient cultures, the tomb robbers, the poor conservation of important inventions, which boosted our technological advance, be it invented millennia ago, as well as the lack of coexistence with the so-called "dead languages", which are being used less and less even in the media. academics.
This text is just an alert, with no data, no deepening, or scientific basis to prove it, based only on the experience and reading of news that denounce this neglect, thus tending to bring the discussion to the fore, so that this issue is increasingly debated and with that, who knows, maybe one day we can say that we still have a historical heritage of humanity.
Produced by: Volnei Belém de Barros Neto
Historian and columnist Brasil Escola.com
History - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SCHOOL, Team Brazil. "Caution: Past at Risk"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historia/cuidado-passado-em-risco.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
