Palmyra, known as the “pearl of the desert”, before the arrival of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) was a well-preserved open-air museum only some 210km (130 miles) away from the Syrian capital Damascus.
Advertisement
The UK-based watchdog group cited information and narratives by people who escaped Palmyra as stating that the detonation of the temple happened a month ago.
In April, ISIL released a video showing its members destroying artifacts at Iraq’s northern ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud before blowing up parts of the site.
Construction of the Baalshamin temple began in the year 17 CE, and was enlarged and embellished by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 130.
Palmyra’s name first appeared on a tablet in the 19th century BC as a stopping point for caravans travelling on the Silk Road and between the Gulf and the Mediterranean.
Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s antiquities chief, said the group placed a large quantity of explosives in the temple of Baal Shamin on Sunday and blew it up, causing much damage. To the shock of the world community, IS mined the ancient site in June, before proceeding to destroy the Lion Statue of Athena that stood more than three meters high.
“Residents of Palmyra told me that ISIS had cut up my father’s body into pieces”, said Mohammad al-Assaad, one of Khaled’s sons, said at a wake held on Sunday at Damascus National Museum.
Islamic State militants in May seized control of Palmyra, a city in northern Syria that’s home to one of the region’s most renowned classical sites.
The latest developments come just days after IS jihadists beheaded the 82-year-old retired chief archaeologist of Palmyra.
In neighbouring Iraq, the place IS additionally controls a swathe of territory, the jihadist group has razed some historic Mesopotamia’s relics and looted others to promote artefacts on the black market.
“Our darkest predictions are unfortunately coming true”, said Mr Abdulkarim.
Advertisement
The jihadists “carried out executions in the traditional theatre (of Palmyra), they destroyed in July the well-known Lion Statue of Athena… and reworked the museum into a jail and a courtroom”.
