The Beirut explosion
As if Lebanon hadn’t had enough suffering and tribulation, what with its own long civil war (1975 to 1990) and then the ongoing civil war in its neighbour, Syria (2011 to the present), on the evening of 4 August 2020, a massive stockpile of ammonium nitrate being stored in warehouses in Beirut exploded.
The blast was on a scale difficult for us to imagine. It killed at least 218 people, injured 7,000 and displaced 300,000! It’s estimated to have caused a staggering $15 billion of damage.
The Asahi Shimbun room at the British Museum
When you enter the main entrance of the British Museum, it’s easy to be dazzled by the scale of the space you’re entering, confused by the layout and propelled forward by the press of people behind you (the British Museum is the most popular visitor attraction in London and is always packed). So it’s easy to miss the fact that right by the entrance, over on the left, is one small room which has become home to a series of small, niche but fascinating displays. In the past I’ve seen small but beautifully laid out little displays about, for example, the embalmed crocodiles from an ancient Egyptian temple. These small but beautifully formed displays are sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun Company, a Japanese newspaper and internet company.
The shattered glass of Beirut
At the moment the Museum is running a relatively small display telling the story of the Beirut explosion’s impact on a particular set of artefacts which were on display at the Archaeological Museum at the American University of Beirut. This museum is just 3 kilometres from the epicentre of the blast and housed, among other things, a case displaying 74 glass vessels from different periods of Lebanon’s complex history.
The blast shattered the display case, mixing the shards of ancient glass with those from the case and surrounding windows into a mess of glass fragments.
Undeterred, the museum’s curators set out to disentangle all the fragments and try to restore as many of the glass vessels as they could. They invited British Museum conservators to help them and this room displays the results of their joint labours. After three months of collaboration, the two teams have pieced together eight vessels and these are what are on display here, eight rebuilt glass containers in a row in one display case, accompanied by a couple of short videos and a few wall labels.
Installation view of ‘Shattered glass of Beirut’ at the British Museum (photo by the author)
The vessels are all of different shapes and sizes, some plain, some yellow or yellowy-green in colour. They range from the first to the ninth century, mainly ancient Roman with a few Byzantine and Islamic examples: bowls, a flask, a beaker, a jug and a cup. The room is dark. From the ceiling hang white sheets onto which are projected an aerial view of the explosion site, at the docks down by Beirut’s seafront.
Usually the British Museum displays stuff of mostly historic interest. This is a little more polemical. It is intended as a symbol of hope in several ways. First, at the most basic physical level, it is a practical display of the work of museum conservators which usually goes on behind the scenes but here is given pride and place. It showcases the delicacy and precision and fastidiousness of their unsung skills.
Installation view of ‘Shattered glass of Beirut’ at the British Museum (photo by the author)
Second, it is a demonstration off co-operation between two institutions, one in Britain, one in the Middle East, a symbol of internationalism as opposed to the narrow nationalisms of our times.
Third, the stitching back together of these battered artefacts comes to stand as a symbol for the resilience and bravery of the Lebanese people who have been through such gruelling times. These eight fragile vessels stand as an ‘expression of the grief, solidarity and recovery of the people of Lebanon’. To quote the museum:
The team purposefully made the joins between the shards visible and, though some of the missing areas were filled to support the surrounding fragments, others were left unfilled. These visible scars and missing fragments bear witness to the explosion and the determination of the people of Lebanon to recover.
So now, as well as being artefacts from thousands of years ago, these fragile eight objects now carry a heavy weight of meaning, testament to the commitment of Beirut’s curators to preserve the past from obliteration, testament to the internationalist spirit of collaboration, testament to the skills of the British Museum’s conservators.
Small room, big heart.
Two videos
1. Responding to crisis
2. One broken piece at a time
Related links
- Shattered glass of Beirut continues at the British Museum until 23 October
- Conserving Beirut’s shattered glass
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