{"id":446,"date":"2015-02-26T17:09:32","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T17:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baidun.com\/blog\/?p=446"},"modified":"2015-02-26T17:09:32","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T17:09:32","slug":"war-syrian-antiquity-marches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baidun.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/war-syrian-antiquity-marches\/","title":{"rendered":"The War on Syrian Antiquity Marches On"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"syrian
\nThe battle on Syria’s ancient antiquity marches on. The mission:\u00a0to save ancient artifacts and imperiled archaeological sites from profiteers, desperate civilians and fundamentalists who have plundered Syria\u2019s rich artistic heritage to fund their war effort. Art history experts and excavators say the looting\u00a0of Syrian ancient antiquity by the Islamic State has exploded in the last few months. In fact, looting is now\u00a0the militant group\u2019s second-largest source of finance after oil, Western intelligence officials say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat started as opportunistic theft by some has turned into an organized transnational business that is helping fund terror,\u201d said Michael Danti, an archaeologist at Boston University who is advising the U.S. State Department. \u201cIt\u2019s the gravest cultural emergency I\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question is, what is being done to put the madness to a halt?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Graying academics are\u00a0journeying across war-torn regions of Syria, braving shelling, smugglers and the jihadists of Islamic State.<\/li>\n
  2. The academics are being instructed on how to get to key sites and document both what is there and to learn what is already missing.<\/li>\n
  3. Academics are learning how to hide precious objects that might be at risk of being looted and recording the GPS locations so they can be retrieved at a later date.<\/li>\n
  4. The group also uses disguises: posing as antiques dealers to take photographs of looted artifacts.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Who are these academics anyway?\u00a0The academic group is led by an archaeologist trained at Damascus University\u00a0who operates in secrecy because of the dangerous nature of this work. He likens his group to World War II\u2019s \u201cMonuments Men\u201d: a small group of academics that helped save Europe\u2019s cultural heritage from the Nazis.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Information from the WSJ<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The battle on Syria’s ancient antiquity marches on. The mission:\u00a0to save ancient artifacts and imperiled archaeological sites from profiteers, desperate civilians and fundamentalists who have plundered Syria\u2019s rich artistic heritage to fund their war effort. Art history experts and excavators say the looting\u00a0of Syrian ancient antiquity by the Islamic State has exploded in the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[17,10],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-syrian-antiquities","tag-world-antiquities"],"yoast_head":"\nSyrian Antiquities Looting | Syrian Antiquities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The battle to save Syrian ancient antiquity from looting marches on, stronger than ever. 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