MIDEAST-CRISIS/ARCHAEOLOGY Islamic State militants behead archaeologist in Palmyra - Syrian official

Record ID: 143421

  • Title: MIDEAST-CRISIS/ARCHAEOLOGY Islamic State militants behead archaeologist in Palmyra - Syrian official
  • Date: 19th August 2015
  • Summary: A COMPUTER SCREEN SHOWING PALMYRA
  • Embargoed: 3rd September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAB0XHUFTJG31C44O9E60S3NK46
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Islamic State (IS) militants beheaded an antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his body on a column in a main square of the historic site, Syria's antiquities and museums director said on Wednesday (August 19).
    IS, whose insurgents control swathes of Syria and Iraq, captured Palmyra in central Syria from government forces in May, but are not known to have damaged its monumental Roman-era ruins despite their reputation for destroying artefacts they view as idolatrous under their puritanical interpretation of Islam.
    Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said the family of Khaled Asaad had informed him that the 82-year-old scholar who worked for over 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra was executed by Islamic State on Tuesday.
    Asaad had been detained and interrogated for over a month by the ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants, he told Reuters.
    Abdulkarim said the killing of Assad was a shock.
    "The assassination of the martyr Mr. Khaled Asaad in this savage way was a shock for us as archeologists, Syrians and the international community that care about Palmyra and the history of Palmyra," he said.
    He added: "We lost an exceptional figure at a time when we are in need of such figures in order to serve Syrian cultural heritage that is suffering now from damage because of the war and antiquities being stolen."
    Abdulkarim said Asaad was known for several scholarly works published in international archaeological journals on Palmyra, which in antiquity flourished as an important trading hub along the Silk Road.
    He also worked over the past few decades with U.S., French, German and Swiss archeological missions on excavations and research in Palmyra's famed 2,000-year-old ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage Site including Roman tombs and the Temple of Bel.
    Before the city's capture by Islamic State, Syrian officials said they moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations out of concern they would be destroyed by the militants.
    In June, Islamic State did blow up two ancient shrines in Palmyra that were not part of its Roman-era structures but which the militants regarded as pagan and sacrilegious.
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