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posted by takyon on Thursday August 20 2015, @01:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the unsafe dept.

Islamic State militants beheaded Khaled al-Asaad, 82, a renowned antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his mutilated body on a column in a main square of the historic site because he apparently refused to reveal where valuable artifacts had been moved for safekeeping.

Before the city's capture by Isis, Syrian officials said they moved hundreds of ancient statues to safe locations out of concern they would be destroyed by the militants. Isis was likely to be looking for portable, easily saleable items that are not registered.

Unesco warned last month that looting had been taking place on an "industrial scale". Isis advertises its destruction of sites such as Nimrud in Iraq but says little about the way plundered antiquities help finance its activities. Stolen artefacts make up a significant stream of the group's estimated multi-million dollar revenues, along with oil sales and straightforward taxation and extortion.

Asaad had worked over the past few decades with US, French, German and Swiss archaeological missions on excavations and research in Palmyra's famed 2,000-year-old ruins. "He was a fixture, you can't write about Palmyra's history or anything to do with Palmyrian work without mentioning Khaled Asaad. It's like you can't talk about Egyptology without talking about Howard Carter."

Archaeological experts say Isis took over the already existing practice of illegal excavation and looting, which until 2014 was carried out by various armed groups, or individuals, or the Syrian regime. Isis initially levied 20% taxes on those it "licensed" to excavate but later began to hire its own own archaeologists, digging teams and machinery.

"Their systematic campaign seeks to take us back into pre-history. But they will not succeed."


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:58PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:58PM (#225421)

    A predominantly Protestant nation has indeed passed the laws to deal with those

    Oh really?
    1. Being a member of the KKK (and their many imitators) is perfectly legal in this "predominantly Protestant nation". The Southern Poverty Law Center [splcenter.org] is currently working with law enforcement to track over 1600 active racist groups in the US.

    2. Historically speaking, there was a period where the KKK effectively controlled the government of approximately 1/3 of the United States, and a decade where they had about 6 million active members and sympathizers occupying the Oval Office and several state houses.

    The US still really hasn't dealt with those. But nobody outside of Ireland ever said "Just kill all the Protestants, that will solve the problem."

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 20 2015, @03:05PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 20 2015, @03:05PM (#225426) Journal

    I have close to zero respect for the SPLC.