Here is another story of senseless and tragic archaeological loss.
Bulgarian archaeological site destroyed by bulldozers
An archaeological site in Bulgaria, including remnants of a village said to date back 8000 years, has been destroyed by bulldozers, allegedly the work of a construction company building part of a new road from Bulgaria to Greece.
The destruction means that archaeologists have lost thousands of years of history, Bulgarian National Television reported.
A special commission from the Ministry of Culture is inspecting the damage to the site, near Momchilgrad, and police are investigating.
Zharin Velichkov, chief inspector at the Ministry of Culture’s national institute for immovable cultural heritage, said that the site had individual layers dating back thousands of years, believed to reach back as far as 6000 BCE.
This could have been an immensely important site, as Bulgaria is the long time crossroads of Eurasia, from Huns and Mongols back to Greeks, Romans, and even the spread of the first proto-Indoeuropean cultures. That very early date touches upon some of the very earliest recorded dates for all of civilization and could have helped rewrite all of history.
Progress is good, but only when at a reasonable, professional rate. Areas need to be studied first and I always hate to see the destruction of archaeological ites for the sake of fast & furious construction projects. The most infamous in recent years was the immense destruction along the Yangtse river valley when they built the Three Gorges Dam. Not only did they relocate almost two millions people while spending billions to inundate thousands of kilometers of land, they only spent less than 1% of the moneys promised to try to record and salvage the immense archaeological treasures along the river. This was one of the most ancient and prolific cultural regions in China, yet they destroyed all the sites.
It is always shortsighted and irrational to destroy one’s entire ancient cultural heritage for a short term project like a road or dam. These items last a few years, at best. Similar to putting a highway rest area or parking lot on top of Stone Henge, it may provide some immediate convenience, but it will permanently destroy your own cultural heritage.
Far richer to develop these very rare cultural resources. You never know when the next site you bulldoze might prove to be a king’s burial chamber, a lost Troy, an ancient celestial calendar, or some other important site that rewrites all of human history and provides your nation with a great gold star on the civilization scale and, of course, a source of endless tourism revenue. Imagine the loss if somewhere in the Holy Land they bulldoze a road through Jesus’s tomb, or Noah’s ark, or a complete collection of all the writings of the Jesus and His disciples, or the site of the burning bush, etc. You can never get it back once you destroy it.
Short sighted destructive gain is never a good option.