Lined up in a vast exhibition hall on the banks of the River Seine, a dozen terracotta amphoras tell a little-known history of the Gaza Strip, one of prosperous trade, refined craftsmanship and intercultural exchange.
The ancient jars, some ominously shaped like artillery shells, were once used to carry wine from Gaza to far-flung destinations across the Mediterranean world and as far as England.
Spanning nine centuries under Persian, Greek and Roman rule, they bear witness to Gaza’s historic role as a hub that connected trade routes from Egypt to the Levant and beyond.
“One struggles to imagine the extraordinary wealth of exchanges that took place in Gaza over thousands of years, knowing that the territory is now completely sealed off,” says Béatrice Blandin, curator of archaeology at the Museum of Art and History (MAH) in Geneva.
For the past 17 years, Blandin and her colleagues in Geneva have helped preserve the amphoras – and hundreds of other precious artefacts – in a secure warehouse, far from the wars that have ravaged the Palestinian territory.
A selection of 87 of those works goes on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute, or IMA) in Paris on Thursday, giving viewers a rare chance to sample Gaza’s rich and diverse heritage, much of which has been bombed into rubble.
5,000-year history
A museum, library and learning centre dedicated to the Arab world, the IMA was finalising plans for an exhibition on ancient Byblos last year when war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah, precluding the transfer of vulnerable works from Lebanon.
The Paris institute chose instead to revive another project tied to the decades-long Mideast conflict, exhibiting some of the Gazan artefacts that were stored in Geneva.
“Rescued treasures from Gaza” covers 5,000 years of Gazan history up until the 19th century. Works on display include a sprawling mosaic floor that once adorned a Byzantine church, finely crafted Roman oil lamps featuring erotic motifs, and an exquisite marble statuette of the Greek goddess Aphrodite that was found at sea by a local fisherman.
Curator Elodie Bouffard said the works bear witness to the “extraordinary archaeological density” of a territory that has been inhabited without interruption since the Bronze Age, in which Assyrian, Greek and Roman heritage exists side-by-side with artefacts from the Byzantine, Mamluk and Ottoman eras.
Bouffard spoke of a form of “cultural resistance” made all the more urgent by the war still raging in Gaza. She referenced past exhibitions organised by the IMA, stressing its endeavour to “restore the history and dignity of the Palestinian people”.
Exile
When the latest war broke out in October 2023, triggered by Hamas’s murderous rampage in southern Israel, the IMA was hosting a show on contemporary creation in the Palestinian territories.
Entitled “What Palestine Brings to the World”, it featured works by artists from the diaspora and others based in the West Bank or Gaza – some of whom had been killed by Israel's ferocious riposte even before the show was over.
One notable work envisioned the creation of a “virtual museum” designed to safeguard the heritage of a stateless, blockaded and war-ravaged land. That theme finds a continuum in the IMA’s latest exhibition, in which exiled artists give way to exiled artefacts.
The amphoras and other artefacts now displayed at the IMA first arrived in Geneva in 2006 to be shown at an exhibition inaugurated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. They had been meant to form the foundation of an archaeological museum to be built in Gaza, so that Palestinians could take ownership of their heritage.
The next year, however, Israel and Egypt imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza after Hamas drove the Palestinian Authority out of the enclave – and the precious artworks remained stranded in Switzerland.
Some went on display at the MAH in Geneva last year alongside artefacts from Sudan, Syria and Libya, marking 70 years since the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict – which stipulates that deliberately destroying heritage is a war crime.
Heritage lost
Cultural sites in Gaza have paid a heavy price since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, a devastating conflict that has damaged more than 90 percent of homes, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
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Based on satellite images, UNESCO, the UN cultural organisation, has verified damage to 94 cultural sites in the Gaza Strip, including 12 religious buildings and seven archaeological sites.
The proximity of a Hamas barracks proved fatal to the ancient Greek site of Anthedon, most of which has been bombed and bulldozed by the Israeli army.
“Gaza was a centrepiece of Eastern Mediterranean heritage, its archaeological wealth almost intact when we first started digging in 1995,” says Jean-Baptiste Humbert, a former member of the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research in Jerusalem, who spearheaded excavations in the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
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Humbert, who contributed to the IMA’s exhibition, said a construction boom at the turn of the century, spurred by the need to house the territory’s fast-growing population, had already resulted in considerable damage to that heritage.
“Our estimate is that Israeli bombardment has now wiped out half of what was left,” he said, adding that the site he worked on for years at Anthedon was “lost”.
Other prominent casualties include the al-Omari mosque, originally a Byzantine church, and the 13th-century al-Basha palace in Gaza City’s old town, where Napoleon is believed to have retreated to after his Egyptian campaign. A museum, al-Basha housed the best finds from Humbert’s excavations but is now an empty, crumbling shell.
Khoudary’s treasures
Many of the works on show at the IMA would have suffered a similar fate had they not been sitting in crates in Geneva’s freeport.
More than half of the artefacts stored in the Swiss city were originally part of the private collections of Palestinian entrepreneur Jawdat Khoudary, a construction magnate who played a critical role in unearthing and preserving Gaza’s rich heritage – and halting the flow of artefacts smuggled into Israel.
The treasure trove of objects Khoudary amassed over more than three decades is now believed to have been lost, buried under the rubble of his destroyed Gaza City mansion or torched in the fire that ravaged his private museum.
“Paradoxically, being locked up in a faraway storage facility has ensured the survival of part of Khoudary’s collections,” says Blandin, the MAH curator, noting that the crates had been ready for years, waiting only for a green light to return to Palestine.
Blandin said she was delighted to see some of the works displayed in Paris after going on show in Geneva.
"Of course, we’re still hopeful they will make it back to Gaza in the near future,” she added. “So that the Palestinian people can finally enjoy and treasure their heritage.”
The exhibition runs through April 3-November 5, 2025.
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