Posted on 08/23/2015 4:53:01 PM PDT by SJackson
BEIRUT — Islamic State militants have destroyed a temple at the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria, activists said on Sunday, realizing one of archaeologists’ worst fears for the 2,000-year-old Roman-era city after the extremists seized it and beheaded a local scholar.
Palmyra, one of the Middle East’s most spectacular archaeological sites and a Unesco World Heritage site, sits near the modern Syrian city of the same name. Activists said that the militants used explosives to blow up the Baalshamin Temple on its sprawling grounds, and that the blast was so powerful it also damaged some of the Roman columns around it.
When the destruction occurred was unclear. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday night that the temple was blown up a month ago. An activist based in Turkey, Osama al-Khatib, who is from Palmyra, said the temple was blown up on Sunday. Both relied on information from those still in Palmyra, and the discrepancy in their accounts could not be immediately reconciled.
The Sunni extremists, who have imposed a violent interpretation of Islamic law across territory they control in Syria and Iraq, claim ancient relics promote idolatry and say that they are destroying them as part of their purge of paganism. However, it is also believed that they sell off looted antiquities, bringing in significant sums of cash.
Mr. Khatib said the Baalshamin Temple is about 550 yards from Palmyra’s famous amphitheater, where the group killed more than 20 Syrian soldiers after it captured the historic town in May.
The temple dates to the first century and is dedicated to the Phoenician god of storms and fertilizing rains.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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They're beheading the men and selling the women into slavery. I suppose this is a little thing. Wait until they get to Rome, which is on their list. It's part of the Ummah after all. Did I say Rome? Never anything there. Only the conspiracy theorists who think there was a library in Alexandria think there was something of import in Palmyra, or Rome.
And they are busy planning the same fate for the monuments and art work of Egypt, Europe, America and anywhere else that they think offends their primitive Islamic sensibilities.
UNESCO is considering to hold a meeting to plan a session with an agenda to have the secretariat issue a strongly worded plea for IS/IL/IS to “play nice”!
I have no problem with destroying pagan temples, but ISIS is deceived as well.
They say ignorance is bliss; therefore, you must be happy....
Why don't they just rename these things. Make up a story, Mohammed came here on his flying horse after he left Jerusalem. Closest town with a restaurant. He tied up his flying horse over there. They want tourists, that's how you get them.
Looking for a summer vacation destination? ISIS releases tourist brochure
Hey I have an idea. Let’s import a few hundred thousand or so more of them here. That outta teach us.
And lefties disinterring Nathan Bedford Forrest, tearing down the Stars and Bars and removing Confederate statues is different, how?
They are just finishing the natural decay of rock. I’m sure the gods they honored didn’t hear or see a thing.
Same thing. If they can erase enough of our history the question can be asked, slavery, what slavery?
OMG!!! EVIL.
We can put them to work on Civil War battlefields. Only those where the Confederacy won.
My first introduction to Palmyra was in a Richard Halliburton book. Now it is no more.
Thank you Obama and all who voted for this maniac.
The people of Isis should be no more.
That is an astoundingly ignorant statement.
pong
Is it?
Yes it is. The destruction of ancient ruins, regardless of their original purpose, deprives all of humanity of information and historical resources. To claim you have no problem with such destruction is essentially to say you have no problem with continuing ignorance regarding humanity’s history.
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