Navigation The war in Syria, a "cultural apocalypse" for heritage jewels Log in Register Confirm password reset

Ten years of war in Syria have destroyed the present and darkened the future of a population mired in misery, but they have also ravaged relics of a legendary past, some of them lost forever.

Syria, land of multi-millennial civilizations, from the Canaanites to the Umayyads, including the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, is home to archaeological treasures that make it one of the world heritage jewels.

On a humanitarian level, the war that began in 2011 had a catastrophic impact. But the damage suffered by the patrimony is also among the most serious committed in several generations.

In a decade, archaeological sites have been bombed and museums ransacked.

At the Palmyra museum he ran for 20 years, Jalil al Hariri gets emotional talking about the traumas of recent years.

In May 2015, jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group were on the verge of conquering the "pearl of the desert" in central Syria. He and his team stayed until the last minute to try to salvage whatever they could.

The last van left the museum just ten minutes before IS arrived, turning the building into a courthouse and prison.

"But the most difficult day was when I returned to Palmyra and saw the antiquities destroyed and the museum in ruins," declares the sixty-year-old.

"When I saw the state of the museum, I collapsed at the door."

"They destroyed and pulverized the faces of all the remaining statues that we couldn't save. Some can be restored, but others were smashed."

- "The Venice of the desert" -

Known for its Greco-Roman temples dating back more than 2,000 years, Palmyra had its splendor in the 3rd century under Queen Zenobia, who defied the Roman Empire.

Listed as a UNESCO world heritage site, the "Venice of the desert" was famous for its 1,100-meter avenue flanked by imposing colonnades.

The arrival of the jihadists, a year after proclaiming their "caliphate", sparked outrage around the world.

The vestiges of a refined and cosmopolitan civilization became the place where bloodthirsty combatants unleashed barbarism.

The ruins hosted public executions recorded by the organization for online propaganda. The decapitated body of the renowned archaeologist Khaled al Assaad was exhibited for three days, after being tortured by IS, who wanted him to confess the place where the museum pieces had been taken.

Government forces and Russia, their ally, reconquered the sector in 2017 but by then the jihadists, eager for cultural genocide, had already destroyed the temples of Bel and Baalshamin with explosives.

Some scenes reminiscent of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Afghan Taliban in 2001.

IS fighters pulverized the objects that were too big, which they couldn't transport, and sold the rest on the black market.

- "Total destructions" -

Palmyra is one of the most priceless losses of Syrian heritage, but not the only one. No region has been spared.

"About 10% of Syria's antiquities have been damaged," said former Antiquities chief Maamun Abdel Karim, during an interview with AFP in Damascus.

"Throughout the last two millennia of Syrian history, there has been nothing worse than what happened during the war," he said, citing "total and global destruction."

"It's not an earthquake or a fire, in this region or another, not even a war in a particular city. The destruction affects all of Syria," laments the 54-year-old former chief.

The country has six UNESCO world heritage sites but in 2013 all of them were included in the list of heritage in danger.

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"Simply put, it's a cultural apocalypse," confirms historian Justin Marozzi.

The wreckage of war reminds him of a bygone era, of Mongol invaders who came to the Middle East to expand the empire of Genghis Khan.

"I can't help but think of Timur (also called Tamerlane), who sowed hell here in 1400," adds Marozzi.

- Looting and trafficking of antiquities -

The reference to Mongol conquerors is unavoidable when thinking of Aleppo, the former economic lung of northern Syria. Its old city is one of the oldest and best preserved in the world.

Six centuries ago, Tamerlane attacked the city. But now it is not a foreign invader that is responsible for the devastation.

Aleppo, once ruled by the Greeks, Romans, Umayyads and even Mamluks, is famous for its souks, its covered market, its Great Umayyad Mosque rebuilt in the 12th century, its madrasas, palaces and public baths.

"I cannot forget the day the minaret of the Umayyad mosque in Aleppo fell, or the day the old souks were devoured by fire," recalls Abdel Karim.

In its recapture of Aleppo, the Syrian government had the help of Russian aviation. The brutal siege imposed on the rebel neighborhoods, between 2012 and 2016, disfigured the city. The old town was devastated.

The war in Syria also saw more than 40,000 pieces looted from museums and archaeological sites, according to a report published in 2020 by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and the Paris-based Syrian Society for the Protection of Antiquities.

Smuggling generated millions of dollars of revenue: for IS but also for other armed groups, for pro-regime forces, which fed smuggling networks dominated by the new warlords.

In their territories, IS had a department that managed archaeological excavations, proof that the benefits could be juicy.

At the height of the violence, widespread lawlessness allowed easily transportable objects—ancient coins, figurines, mosaic fragments—to travel everywhere to be resold on the black market for antiques.

Internationally, attempts have been made to stop the traffic and in some cases attempts have even been made to repatriate pieces, but the losses are enormous.

- "Wound for all mankind" -

The economic consequences are also serious. Before the war, the number of tourists attracted by the wealth of heritage was beginning to increase, although the potential was never properly exploited.

The current head of Antiquities, Mohamed Nazir Awad, longs for the days when Syria, a veritable archaeological "paradise," attracted foreign missions.

Today only the archaeologists from the Hungarian mission still come "from time to time".

It was this mission that helped restore the Crac des Chevaliers, an imposing medieval fortress built by the Crusaders in the 12th century.

This place in the province of Homs (centre), turned into a strategic position for which the regime and the rebels fought, was recaptured in 2014 by the army.

Aside from Palmyra and Aleppo, the old towns of Damascus and Bosra have been ravaged, as have the towns in northern Syria known as the "dead cities." Or the ancient Roman city of Apamea, on the banks of the Orontes, where IS carried out clandestine excavations.

At the height of its glory, Palmyra was the symbol of a cosmopolitan and pluralistic civilization, a commercial crossroads on the Silk Road, an important cultural center of the ancient world.

Its architecture attests to fusions and mixtures between Greco-Roman techniques and local traditions and the influence of Persia.

What the war destroyed in Palmyra and across Syria illustrates a rich multicultural past.

"We should all be concerned about the destruction of Syrian heritage," Marozzi told AFP: "Sites like Palmyra have universal meaning and value. They are part of our global civilization, they represent milestones in human history. Any harm done to them is a wound to all humanity".