 "ISIS blows up Baal Shamin Temple in Syria's Palmyra")
Islamic State militants on Sunday blew up the 2000-year-old temple of Baal Shamin in the Unesco-listed Syrian city of Palmyra.
It is probably the first time that insurgents are destroying monumental Roman-era ruins in Syria. Islamic State militants, who have controlled swathes of Syria and Iraq, captured Palmyra in May. Since then, there had been fears they might try to destroy the priceless heritage of the city.
As has been the ISIS norm, earlier seen in Iraq, Libya and other parts of Syria, this is feared to be the beginning of a complete destruction of Palmyra. The ISIS militants are known to not only terrorise the people but also destroy the rich culture of captured cities.
“We have said repeatedly the next phase would be one of terrorising people, and when they have time they will begin destroying temples,” Reuters quoted Maamoun Abdul Karim, Syria’s antiquities chief, as saying.
“Daesh (another name for ISIS) placed a large quantity of explosives in the temple of Baal Shamin on Sunday and then blew it up, causing much damage to the temple,” Karim told Agence France Presse. He said the jihadis carried out executions in Palmyra’s ancient theatre, destroyed the famous Lion of Al-l?t in July and transformed the museum into a prison and a courtroom.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that monitors the country’s civil war, confirmed the destruction of the temple.
The latest destruction comes a week after the militants beheaded Khaled Asaad, an 81-year-old scholar who had worked for more than 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra. He was reported to have been detained and tortured, and interrogated for over a month to extract from him details of the city’s riches and treasures.
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In June, ISIS had blown up two ancient shrines in the city but those were not part of its Roman-era structures. The militants, considering these structures pagan and sacrilegious, mined the ancient site and destroyed the lion statue of Athena that stood three meters high, a unique art work made of limestone.
Before the city was captured by ISIS, Syrian officials said they moved many artefacts from Palmyra, fearing a repetition of what happened at other ISIS-captured areas.
The temple of Baal Shamin
Baal Shamin was built in 17 AD and it was expanded under the reign of Roman emperor Hadrian in 130 AD. The city of Palmyra, known as the pearl of the desert, is a well-preserved oasis 130 miles northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The city was first mentioned in a tablet in 19th century BC, but it was during the Roman Empire (beginning in the first century BC and lasting another 400 years) that Palmyra rose to prominence. Before the arrival of Christianity in the second century, Palmyra worshipped the trinity of the Babylonian god Bel, Yarhibol (the sun) and Aglibol (the moon).
The city and the temple used to be prominent tourist locations with their beautiful statues, about 1,000 columns, and formidable necropolis over the tombs. But after the Syrian conflict started in March 2011, the city has seen a lot of destruction and bloodshed.