Palmyra: is saving priceless antiquity as important as saving people?

Do ancient ruins matter compared with human lives? That is the painful question whenever an archaeological site comes under threat from the hammers and bulldozers of the terrorist army Islamic State. It is becoming a depressingly familiar scenario. IS gets its hands on one of the world cultural treasures in which Syria and Iraq are so rich. Western intellectuals bleat about the loss to civilisation as the iconoclasts set about their brutal work. Boris Johnson goes full Churchillian.

But when the dust settles – literally – over razed monuments, for many people that question remains. So what? It is tragic when ruins vanish, but surely not as tragic as the loss of a single actual living person. How can you cry for stones when children are dying?

The latest ancient site to be endangered by Islamic State is Palmyra in Syria, and even though the wilfully barbaric militants appear to have been held back for now, this is a name that really conjures romantic sorrow. Yesterday I got a message that expresses the dread many art lovers feel. The Daniel Blau Gallery simply sent out a set of Victorian photographs of Palmyra’s haunting columns, a silent gesture of solidarity with … What?

With humanity, that’s what. It is just silly and wrong to think there is some contradiction between mourning people and mourning art and architecture. The past is human and it is as integral to life now as our childhoods are to our adult minds and memories.

I’ve just been looking at solid evidence of this unbreakable emotional connection between art and real life. In the British Museum in London is a wall of life-sized portraits of people from ancient Palmyra. They are varied and characterful: strong women, young men, merchants. All are known by name, for these funeral portraits were found with farewell inscriptions.

Meet Aqmat. She lived in Palmyra in the 2nd century AD. She was somebody’s daughter, somebody’s granddaughter: to be precise, “daughter of Hagagu, descendant of Zebida, descendant of Ma’an. Alas!” She must have died young, to judge from the inscription’s plaintive cry. She is portrayed as beautiful, wealthy and sophisticated. Wearing rich jewellery over her robes, she parts her head covering so she can gaze directly back at the person passing her grave.

Other people from Palmyra surround her. There are couples portrayed together and a funeral banquet.

Who says the past is cold stone? These are people as vivid as you and me.

Pictures of the architectural splendours of Palmyra make it plain how desperately this place needs to be preserved. And if anyone thinks there’s a difference between saving stone and saving people, look on the faces of the ancient Palmyrans. The past is not a remote place. It is the mirror of ourselves. To cherish history and art is to care about the future. Only if we can imagine ourselves as part of a human story that connects those ancient faces from Palmyra with the people around us can we call ourselves “civilised”. Otherwise we’re just animals without memory.

The ruins of Palmyra are not “dead”. They are living, and if it comes to it, they must be guarded by air strikes for the sake of all our futures.