Discussions surrounding the destruction of cultural heritage predominantly focus on physical violence—the bombing of sites, the looting of museums, and the illicit trade of antiquities. While critical, this focus often overlooks a quieter, systemic form of loss: the intangible alienation of communities from their own pasts. Drawing on Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s framework of historical silencing and Yannis Hamilakis’s critiques of nationalist archaeology, this talk re-evaluates heritage destruction as an epistemic and ideological process.