Study finds damage at four Syrian historical sites

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
An analysis of six out of 12 major archeological sites in Syria that have been nominated as World Heritage Sites has found that four of them have been extensively looted and damaged, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced.
The Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project of the AAAS assessed and prepared a paper describing the condition of Dura Europos, Ebla, Hama’s Waterwheels, Mari, Raqqa, and Ugarit, with the remaining six sites set to be covered in a second report. Among the information cited in the report were high-resolution images documenting the condition at each location.
“As we continue to study the conditions at Syria’s important cultural sites, we have observed significant destruction that is largely the result of conflict,” said AAAS Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project director Susan Wolfinbarger. “However, unlike our previous analysis… we’re seeing a lot of damage that appears to be the result of widespread looting.”
“This report helps us understand how the extensive the actual damage is to Syria’s cultural heritage. It will inform future emergency preservation efforts,” added Brian Daniels, director of research and programs at the University of Pennsylvania Museum’s Penn Cultural Heritage Center. Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution also contributed to the research.
Images taken earlier this year that were included in the report depict several pits throughout three of the sites which were once home to ancient cities. Those pits typically do not appear in similar pictures taken three years ago, when the conflict in Syria first began. AAAS researchers said that they believe these images indicate evidence of looting due to the distinct nature of the craters.
“This type of documentation really allows us to make a firm statement based on scientific observation of things that have happened at a site,” said Wolfinbarger. “Sometimes when things are reported in the news media or social media, details can be obscured or purposefully misconstrued. But this analysis is replicable. We can say definitively, ‘we see this.’ And when it is tied it in with other types of information, satellite imagery can give us a more complete picture in parts of the world that are difficult to access.”
“These images show the destruction of ancient artifacts, architecture, and most importantly, archaeological context that is the record of humanity’s past,” added Katharyn Hanson, a post-doctoral fellow at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center and a visiting scholar at AAAS. “From the origins of civilization to the first international empires, Syria’s cultural heritage and these sites in particular are vitally important to our understanding of history.”
The authors of the report said that the most extensive looking took place at Dura-Europos, which was a frontier city founded during the third century BC. The AAAS analysis revealed that 76 percent of the area within the city was had been damaged as of April 2014, and that the looting pits were located so closely together that it was impossible to distinguish between each of them.
Outside the city walls, looting pits were described as less dense but still numerous. In fact, they found about 3,750 pits. Images from April 2 also depict four vehicles travelling through nearby Roman ruins, indicating that disturbances at the site may have been occurring at that time.
They also found looking pits at Ebla, the site of an important kingdom in the Early Bronze Age constructed out of mud brick, and the ancient Mesopotamian city of Mari. Images revealed 45 new holes from August 2013 and August 2014, eroded walls, vehicle tracks and other damage at the former site, and over 1,200 pits between March 25 and November 11, 2014 at the latter.
A fourth site, Raqqa, has been at the center of the conflict in Syria and was seized by ISIS in October 2013. This September, a US-led airstrike campaign targeted the former Greek/Byzantine urban center, and the damage there appears to be different in nature than that observed at the other locations. There is little evidence of direct military conflict there, but the damage that is present “appears to be nearly total and targeted,” the report said.
The nature of the destruction leads the research team to conclude that it was the result of the actions of ISIS, not the military forces of the Syrian Arab Republic Government or the bombing campaigns of the US and its international partners. The last two areas analyzed by researchers–the historic waterwheels of Hama and the ancient stone city of Ugarit–appear to be undamaged.
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