Viewing page 89 of 201

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

NOTES ON THE SAFEGUARDING AND CONSERVING CULTURAL MATERIAL IN THE FIELD                 15.

It is particularly to be guarded against when troops of one race and religion occupy countries of a different race and religion.  Usually defilement or contemptuous treatment is due to pure ignorance.  Conduct perfectly proper in a Christian church may be wrong in a mosque, and vice-versa; military or other use of a cemetery which would seem harmless in the West, may be a deadly insult in the East.  Sometimes, deliberate defilement or contemptuous treatment may occur where races and religions are concerned between whom feeling runs high.

In either case, the results are likely to be disastrous.  The monument or object concerned may not be damaged; but relations between the occupying authority and the local inhabitants will be affected for the worse.