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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: 4, Insightful) by moondrake on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:30PM

    by moondrake (2658) on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:30PM (#225476)

    Smash, burn, murder, gallows, chopping, and ditching...DIE!

    ah...the delights of seeing the world simple. Why strive for being civilized if you can just join the fun and burn and pillage (on either side of the conflict)...

    Interestingly, the guy killed in the FA was an Academic. He was also a Muslim. He defended his Academic interest and paid with his life. Did he not step up and take his responsibility? There are thousands like him and they are all heroes. But it is still silly to hold them as a group responsible for the actions of ISIS or Daesh or other criminals. Even when they do not act (as the FA is a good example of what happens when you do act).

    The US is the land of tortured prisoners and unlawful prisons (and lots of other problems, take your favcorite). Should I smash and burn all USians just because a few bad ones at the top and the majority fails to step up? Especially since it seems to me that in the US you just vote to make a change, and there seems to be little risk to being beheaded when doing that.

    Face it, your argument is just dumb. You are simply looking for an convenient and abstract target to focus your negative feelings at.

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  • (Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Thursday August 20 2015, @05:20PM

    by digitalaudiorock (688) on Thursday August 20 2015, @05:20PM (#225498) Journal

    Interestingly, the guy killed in the FA was an Academic. He was also a Muslim. He defended his Academic interest and paid with his life. Did he not step up and take his responsibility? There are thousands like him and they are all heroes. But it is still silly to hold them as a group responsible for the actions of ISIS or Daesh or other criminals. Even when they do not act (as the FA is a good example of what happens when you do act).

    Exactly. ISIS represents a whopping .002% of the worlds Muslim population. It stuns me that people don't see how absurd and hateful this blame game bullshit is.