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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: 2) by edIII on Thursday August 20 2015, @09:29PM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday August 20 2015, @09:29PM (#225588)

    Why?

    I'm genuinely curious. I've never heard a single bad thing about them. I noticed you were modded insightful, and I'm curious as to why.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2015, @12:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2015, @12:23AM (#225626)

    If you were curious you should have googled for it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center#Controversy [wikipedia.org]
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/03/26/fbi-dumps-southern-poverty-law-center/ [breitbart.com]
    http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/splc-highlights-new-extremist-leaders-watch [motherjones.com]

    Thats right folks, both mother jones and brietbart don't have kind feelings for the SPLC.

    Shit Huff Po and the tea part agree that SPLC is off their rocker.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-m-swain/mission-creep-and-the-sou_b_255029.html [huffingtonpost.com]
    http://www.teaparty.org/bishop-jackson-racism-worst-splc-label-ben-carson-extremist-85943/ [teaparty.org]

    How have you missed all of this. All you have to do is sneeze in the general direction of a minority to be declared a hate group by them. As far as I am concerned their opinion is pure unadulterated shit.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 21 2015, @01:09AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 21 2015, @01:09AM (#225645) Journal

    AC summed it all up very nicely - and I'll thank him for that link about Dr. Ben Carson being an extremist. Wow - holy shit - a man who spent his career advancing the state of the art in neuroscience, saving many, many lives along the way - he's an EXTREMIST?!?!?!

    Fact is, the SPLC is itself an extreme organization which cannot tolerate any sort of opposition.

    Carson. Who would have thought of that one?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Friday August 21 2015, @03:48AM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday August 21 2015, @03:48AM (#225688) Journal

    Because last I checked they simply pretend groups like the Black Panthers do not exist or "don't count" because they tend to support the left, even when the leader of the BPP was calling for the extermination of white people?

    A hate group is a hate group is a hate group, no matter their party affiliation, but the SPLC tends to ignore hate groups who support the left while condemning those who support the right even when their rhetoric is identical. So I'm sorry if you support them, but SPLC is about as impartial as MSNBC and Fox News.

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