Original subtitles

[bugle plays]

[classical music playing]

[marc] something inside this building

Drove a wedge between the british empire

And its distant island dominion, australia.

It is one of the most controversial artworks

On this land.

Because it's not from this land.

[dramatic music playing]

In fact, this is arguably

From the most contested region on earth.

And yet, for some reason,

It's tucked in this obscure corner

Of the australian war memorial.

It's almost like this mosaic

Has something to hide.

[echoing] hide...

[theme music playing]

[marc] in the days of the british empire,

Things were taken.

They usually ended up in museums

And galleries with polite plaques.

My name is marc fennell,

And this is the not-so-polite story

Of how they really got there.

[middle-eastern-style music playing]

[marc] welcome to jericho, a palestinian city

Deep in the jordan valley.

Many say this is the oldest city in the world.

And this is me, failing at a very ancient art.

[marc] oh!

Be careful of your fingers.

-Yeah. -[laughs]

-I'm-- yes. -Yes.

-Like that? -[man] yes.

[hammering]

Oh, nope?

-[all laughing] -no wonder.

So, am I hired?

[laughs]

You-- good start.

-Good start. Good start. -Good start. [laughing]

[marc] this is jericho's mosaic centre,

And these are called "tessera."

[osama] thousand of tessera you have to have.

Thousand. And this is, of course,

It's important for...

For making mosaics.

[marc] I'm here to meet this man, osama hamdan.

He's an archaeologist

Who can turn these pieces of rock

Into this.

[inspiring music playing]

Elaborate, breathtaking mosaics

Have been made here for thousands of years,

Painstakingly constructed

From millions of minuscule tesserae

That I just failed to make myself.

[up-tempo music playing]

[marc] osama's life, like everyone's here,

Has been shaped by one of the most enduring

Border disputes of our time.

For decades, both jewish zionists

And palestinian nationalists

Have claimed and fought over

The same territory,

Often with devastating results.

[osama] yes, I live in jerusalem,

But I am originally from palestine.

Now, it's israel.

Whether you want to call it israel,

Call it palestine,

It's one land.

For that, sometimes, I call it holy land.

[church bells ringing]

[marc] but the reason I'm in this holy land is this wall.

And here it is.

-Yes. -Oh wow, it's amazing.

[osama] yes, this is shellal mosaics.

I never saw the original one.

You've never... Of course not.

You've never seen the original.

[marc] into the side of jericho's mosaic centre,

Osama has built a replica

Of something called the shellal mosaic.

It's a replica because the real one

Is in the walls of the australian war memorial.

And that real shellal mosaic

Was actually the floor of a christian church

Made with over half a million tiny tessera.

It dates back to the byzantine empire

Which was a sort of evolution

Of the roman empire to the east.

Whereas, osama's replica here

Was made for a very different purpose.

It was a protest.

I wanted to send a message.

Where is our cultural heritage?

People doesn't live just from water and bread,

They need something else.

And I wanted to tell the story

Of the shellal mosaic

And the history of this place.

And that is a history of war,

Of redrawn borders,

And a fledgling nation inside the british empire.

But for osama over in jericho,

It's a story of a theft.

They-- they didn't own it. It's not theirs.

[marc] so, who is the "they" here?

Who would dig up an ancient mosaic,

And why is it in australia?

And what does any of this have to do with the british empire?

The fact that there's a 6th-century byzantine mosaic

In australia alone is weird enough,

But it actually gets stranger.

[marc] so, underneath the mosaic

Were buried bones.

And those bones?

You will never guess where they ended up.

Meet reverend roger kay

From st anne's anglican church

In sydney, australia.

When he first took the job here,

He realised that this building

Was holding something of a mystery.

So, you're interested in the bones we've got

Which came from shellal, yes?

[marc] yes, I am.

Is that actually the shellal mosaic? Is that part of it?

[roger] no, it is not. No.

That was commissioned by a local artist,

And she was asked to make a mosaic

Under which they could inter the bones

Of whoever they found in the sarcophagus

Underneath the floor of the mosaic in shellal.

Who do they think those bones actually belonged to?

Well, at the time, I think some people thought

They belonged to st. George.

[organ music playing]

[marc] st. George,

Who is a fairly big deal in christianity.

Amongst other things, the patron saint

Dedicated to protecting England.

Famously fought the odd dragon.

Now, it would be amazing

If the st. George was buried in this humble church

In suburban australia.

But the historic st. George most likely died

Two centuries before the shellal church was built.

So why are these remains here?

This is weird.

But, thanks to these bones here in st. Anne's,

We do know who decided to dig up

The shellal mosaic.

And we do know when.

[instrumental music playing]

The great war. World war I.

And a reverend named william maitland woods.

He was the army chaplain

Who was with the australian forces

When they discovered a mosaic

Which they then decided they would remove

And bring back to australia.

-All a little bizarre, but... -[both laugh]

[marc] bizarre is something of an understatement here.

So, people have raised questions over the...

People have raised questions about this for a long time.

And there's obviously quite a body of thought

Who thinks...

We should never have had these items in australia.

[marc] so, we have both bones

And an ancient church floor from the middle east,

Somehow in australia.

Honestly, for me, though, the main question is this.

Who in the middle of a war zone

Decides to dig up a 6th century mosaic?

And it all comes down to one guy,

This william maitland woods.

[pensive music playing]

Hello. How are you?

Very good. Come with me.

[marc] well this is a bit fancy. Geez.

[marc] this is historian dr emily robertson,

Who still vividly recalls

The first time she saw the shellal mosaic.

And I was really struck with how out of place it was

Amongst all of the other collection items.

[marc] and so dr emily started digging into

This reverend william maitland woods.

Maitland woods is a really interesting character.

He was born in the uk.

He was educated in oxford.

And then he came to australia

And he served as a chaplain

With the queensland mounted forces.

So, was he an archaeologist or...?

No. He was an amateur archaeologist.

[marc] so, how does he end up in the middle east?

-How does that happen? -Okay.

So, he's serving as a chaplain

With the anzac mounted division,

And he's travelling through the holy land.

[marc] in world war I,

Australian and new zealand soldiers

Were in the middle east

Fighting off the turkish ottoman empire

Who were on the german side.

[marc] how is it that australia ends up in world war I?

[emily] that's a great question.

Essentially, australia, as a dominion of the british empire,

Was obliged to go to war.

[marc] which explains how in 1917,

Australian and new zealand soldiers

Found themselves on a hill

Near a palestinian town called shellal.

[emily] they were digging trenches.

So, this mosaic pops up.

[marc] it had been damaged in the war.

So, maitland woods convinced his higher-ups

The mosaic needed to be saved.

[emily] he was given immediate approval, essentially,

To get a whole group of people to dig up a mosaic.

Is it weird to have

An archaeological dig in the middle of a war?

Yeah, I think so.

[marc] and this is where it happens.

Back in 1917,

Under the watchful eye of william maitland woods,

Some 32 australian and new zealand soldiers,

They worked in searing heat, a dust storm coming in...

There was occasional enemy fighters flying overhead.

And they lifted up this incredible mosaic.

[marc] they used glue, canvas, and plaster

To keep the patterns in place as they packed it into crates.

63 crates to be sent to cairo.

And it was there that the british war trophies committee

Would decide their fate.

And that is when the real drama begins.

So, what happens to it is a very big fight

Between the british and the australians

About where it should end up.

The british wanted all war trophies

To go to the imperial war museum in the uk,

And the australians were really worried

That the british would take their collection from them.

-[trumpet music playing] -huh...

[marc] you see, around the time

Of the lifting of the mosaic,

Australian soldiers were already talking about

One day building their own future war museum.

[trumpet music continues]

[man] I have now the honour

To declare the australian national war memorial open.

["glory, glory hallelujah" playing]

And they had been told to collect things

That were relevant to the war

To perhaps go into this future war museum.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. They were being told to,

When they're at war, collect things.

-Absolutely. -"'cause we..."

"so we can put them in a war museum."

[emily] absolutely. So, the australians were known

As perhaps the most avid

And sometimes ghoulish collectors out of...

That's a weird thing for us to be famous for.

-But yes, carry on. -Yeah, well.

It became an obsession.

[marc] cue some very furious letters

Between australia and great britain.

[emily] this is from the british side.

So they wrote,

"I am to remind you

That it is open to considerable doubt

Whether this mosaic can be regarded

As a trophy of war

As it was not captured from the enemy."

No, it wasn't.

"and it is possible that

It may ultimately be decided

That the mosaic is to be restored to palestine."

So what are they saying here?

So basically saying,

"it's not a trophy. You can't have it."

They're essentially saying that.

[marc] so this is from

The australian department of defence.

"britain already has a history

In traditions and relics and trophies

Extending back for centuries.

Whereas australia," it continues,

"has none here other than

What she draws from the mother country."

-Mm-hm. -"a nation is built

Upon pride of race,

And now that australia is making history of her own,

She requires every possible relic associated with this

To help her children in that national spirit."

It's interesting, like, the letters,

Reading the letters,

You get a sense of a nation that's trying to assert itself.

And australians felt that

They had sacrificed their lives too.

So underlying this is also, we died.

60,000 of us have died.

You need to respect us for the sacrifice that we made.

[pensive music playing]

[marc] while the shellal mosaic was being held

In this strange colonial custody battle,

The reverend william maitland woods

Seems to have taken things into his own hands.

So, when we started looking into maitland woods,

We found something,

And I would like you

To have a look at this.

[marc] I've brought emily to a totally different church.

Yes, there's going to be a few of them.

This is st. James in the heart of sydney, australia.

Maitland woods, palestine.

Is this a missing piece of the shellal mosaic?

No. It isn't.

I'm sorry to tell you.

It's not, it's a completely different mosaic.

So it's definitely maitland woods.

[emily] yes. So he dug it up a year and nearly three months

After he dug up the shellal mosaic.

How many of these pieces did this guy send to australia?

That's a great question.

I'd love to know the answer to that too.

[marc] this piece... The bones in st anne's...

Maitland woods was so determined

To smuggle holy relics

Before the british could get them

That he shipped what he could

Through a network of friends,

Soldiers, and clergy.

That's why there are pieces of this story everywhere.

There may be other pieces of mosaic

That we don't know about

That are still floating around in australia.

[marc] but given the british were fighting

To keep control of the mosaic,

Just how did it end up in the australian war memorial?

-Hey, ryan, how are you? -Hey. Good. Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you too. -Should we go?

Yes.

[marc] ryan johnston is

The former head of art

For the australian war memorial.

[marc] from what I can gather,

There was a bit of a political stoush

Over who gets to keep these mosaics, is that right?

Yes, so it went back and forward with britain

For quite a long time.

So, the reverend immediately had part of it

Smuggled out of palestine with a colleague of his

Who was returning to australia.

[marc] so there are real pieces of the shellal mosaic

That were smuggled all around australia.

But in the end,

Britain actually relented,

And they gave up the shellal mosaic.

[ryan] it was then transferred to canberra

When the war memorial was being built

To be included

In one of the foundational walls

In the lower level of the memorial.

Was that legal? For them to take the mosaic?

That's a really great question.

Um, what I would say is that I think

It's a good rule of thumb

Not to take things that don't belong to you.

Um, and if you are a museum

That discovers you have things in your collection

That shouldn't really be there,

Um, you should at least offer to give them back.

[marc] ryan isn't alone in that view.

I'm in jerusalem meeting with dr jon seligman,

From the israel antiquities authority.

-Well, this is amazing. -Yes.

[wonderous music playing]

-Can I show you this? -[jon] yeah, sure.

Okay, so this is what is hanging

In australia at the moment.

Okay.

[marc] all of this,

Part of their justification for taking it

Is that they said that they were saving it.

-Okay. -That if it had stayed here,

It would've been damaged, and indeed,

It had already sustained some damage.

-Okay. -My question is,

Is that a reasonable argument

For pulling something up out of the ground?

No, it's not. The way you save

Something like this is to cover it with earth.

Obviously, they wanted it. That's the bottom line.

But there was no reason to-- to remove it.

[marc] if this had happened today,

Would it be considered a crime?

It would be considered today a war crime.

This is stolen property.

[pensive music playing]

[marc] stolen, saved, fought over.

When you put the various fragments

Of this mosaic story together, what is it saying?

It's like the mosaic holds two stories.

On this land, australia, it's about a british dominion

Trying to find its identity within the empire.

But over where the mosaic is from,

It's the story of empires dividing a land.

[marc] how important is the british empire

In, in what's become of israel and palestine?

Absolutely crucial. Absolutely central.

It goes right back.

So, the first world war

Is a time when the ottoman empire collapses,

And the british move into the middle east.

And they start to make moves

To set parts of the middle east aside

For the purposes of establishing israel.

[marc] which, of course, has had complicated

And violent repercussions since.

And probably will for decades to come.

And caught in this history is the shellal mosaic.

[piano music playing]

[marc] it was looted from land that was very clearly

Known then as palestine.

But that same spot is now very much governed

By the modern-day state of israel.

What do you think should happen with this mosaic?

Well, I think, ultimately,

It should be returned to where it came from.

That's the state of israel.

The fact that when this was taken,

There was no state of israel,

Does that change that for you at all?

For me, it doesn't change it.

For international law, that could be an issue.

[marc] right now, the shellal mosaic

Is literally in the wall.

It is part of the wall.

[ryan] correct.

Could you even take it out

If you wanted to?

I don't know.

-Um... -[laughs]

I do know it would be very difficult.

Whether it's impossible

Or just very expensive, I couldn't say.

[marc] in case you're wondering,

For the last four months, we've been asking

The australian war memorial for an interview.

They did give us a statement that didn't answer

Any of our questions,

And they wouldn't let us film the mosaic

Because it's undergoing conservation.

So this one, it's a fake.

A good one though.

[marc] meaning, technically,

I still haven't shown you

A real piece of the shellal mosaic.

That is, until now.

Remember when ryan said

Maitland woods smuggled other pieces

Of the shellal mosaic?

In st john's cathedral,

One of the grandest old churches

In brisbane, australia,

Lies one of the final pieces

Of maitland woods' legacy.

So that is another piece of the shellal mosaic, right?

[peter] yes, it is a piece of the shellal mosaic, yes.

[emily] look, for me, as a first world war historian,

It shows us how people needed to bring the war back home

Because it was so distant

And people didn't understand

Either the violence or the wonder

Of what they were seeing.

Yes, this end of the cathedral,

The east end of the cathedral,

Has a lot of relics

That attach to world war I,

And when I think about

What it was like for those people coming back,

The whole country was dealing with trauma.

People were really trying

To make sense of what had happened,

And trying to get to the point where

The sacrifice wasn't in vain.

[marc] what does it mean to you,

To have something that stretches right back to the holy land

Here in this church?

Well, for me, it's a bit of a conflicted article,

Because I understand why

People would want to have an object to do that.

I'm a great believer in, um,

How stuff like this really belongs where it came from

Rather than, um, being appropriated by us.

I mean that really is the story

Of the shellal mosaic, isn't it?

It-- it is messy

And it is complicated,

And there's so many dots on the map, right?

It's about us as a nation, australia.

It's about our role with the british empire.

It's about the middle east and israel and palestine.

It's amazing how much it kind of connects to everything, emily.

[emily] an object has lots of meanings,

And sometimes that meaning can be given to it

Well after it was made.

Yes, it, and it absolutely represents

This very strange story

About a devout christian man

Who could see a byzantine mosaic

Representing the story of australians

Who were in his mind on crusade.

[pensive music playing]

[marc] one mosaic

Wanted by israel, palestine, britain,

Now somehow spread across australia,

And each imbuing it with their own meaning.

But what does that mean

For the people it was taken from?

[osama] each mosaics, it's telling a story,

And we would like to show the people,

Where is our cultural heritage now?

If they know their history,

Maybe it will help them to support their identity.

I am muslim.

But before the...

To be muslim,

I was christian.

Then before christian, I was jewish.

I am not coming from nothing.

I have a base.

I have foundation.

We have a lot of things in common.

This is the message that mosaics can tell you.

Cultural heritage can tell you.

[solemn music playing]

[whispering]