Euronews: A systematic looting campaign of the Syrian antiquities and archaeological sites since the fall of the regime

Archaeological sites in Syria, particularly the city of Palmyra, have suffered widespread looting since the fall of the Assad regime.

Individuals and criminal networks are stealing antiquities and selling them on social media platforms, particularly Facebook, threatening humanity’s historical heritage.

With the collapse of the Syrian security apparatus and poverty spreading among 90% of the population, unknown individuals have launched a systematic looting campaign targeting archaeological sites in Syria, particularly the ancient city of Palmyra.

Two thousand-year-old cemeteries have been transformed into random excavation sites in search of burial gold and valuable artifacts.

The city’s cemeteries have been transformed into deep pits up to three meters deep, distorting the visual appearance of a city that was once a symbol of Roman civilization in the East.

Cemeteries are not only resting places for the dead, but also archaeological sites with accumulated historical layers.

“These different layers are important… When people mix them up, it becomes impossible for archaeologists to understand what they are looking at,” said Mohammed al Fares, a Palmyra resident and activist with a non-governmental organization called Heritage for Peace.

Years ago, Palmyra suffered massive destruction during the Islamic State group’s rule, which blew up parts of the archaeological site in 2015, deeming them apostate idols, however now, with the collapse of the security system following the ouster of former President Bashar al Assad last December, looting has escalated to an unprecedented level.

According to the Antiquities and Anthropology Trafficking Research Project (ATHAR), nearly a third of the 1,500 cases it has documented since 2012 have occurred just since last December.

“When the regime fell, we saw a massive increase in the number of looters… There was a complete collapse of all the restrictions that might have existed during the regime that controlled looting,” said Dr. Amr al Azm, professor of Middle Eastern history and culture and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio, and one of the co-directors of the ATHAR project.

Dr. al Azm points out that the security collapse, coupled with widespread poverty, has generated a kind of “gold rush” in a country located in the heart of the Fertile Crescent, where the first settled civilizations emerged and which boasts a treasure trove of mosaics, statues, and artifacts that fetch top prices among collectors in the West.

Social media platforms, especially Facebook, have become a major hub for the sale of stolen antiquities.

Experts say that public and private Facebook groups offer everything from ancient coins to complete mosaics and heavy stone monuments.

“The last three to four months have been the largest flood of antiquities trafficking I’ve ever seen, from any country,” said Katie Paul, co-director of the ATHAR Project and executive director of the Technology Transparency Project.

Paul added that the project team tracks the online trawl of stolen antiquities from the Middle East and has created a database of more than 26,000 screenshots, videos, and photos documenting the trafficking of stolen antiquities since 2012.

She emphasized that this is the fastest time we have ever seen artifacts being sold, adding, “For example, a mosaic from Raqqa took a full year to sell last year, while now a mosaic is sold in just two weeks”.

At a Bronze Age settlement at Tell Sheikh Ali in the Salamiyah region of central Syria, a local archaeological monitoring group photographed five-meter-deep holes dug by heavy equipment, just steps away.

“They do this day and night… I fear for my safety, so I don’t go near them,” said a researcher with the local group, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

Some cases indicate that entire mosaics were removed from their sites in a professional and meticulous manner, a work that demonstrates a high degree of expertise.

After the antiquities are extracted, their journey begins online, then to neighboring countries such as Türkiye and Jordan, and from there to countries around the world.

Fake invoices and certificates of provenance are created, and they are laundered and later appear at legal auction houses, where they are purchased by collectors and museums, most of which are located in the United States and Europe.

The ATHAR project provided dozens of snapshots and videos of Syrian antiquities, including mosaics and monuments from Palmyra, being sold in Facebook groups.

A single Facebook search for “antiquities for sale Syria” in Arabic yielded more than ten groups dedicated to the antiquities trade, many of which are open to all.

In a video posted in March to a Facebook group, a man with a Syrian accent showed off a mosaic depicting Zeus seated on a throne, using his mobile phone as a scale.

The mosaic was still in the ground in the video, but later appeared in another photo after being extracted from the site, “this is just one of four mosaics we have,” the man boasted.

In 2020, Facebook banned the sale of historical artifacts on its platform and said it would remove any content related to them.

However, according to Katie Paul, this ban is rarely enforced, despite documented continued sales.

She noted, “The trafficking of cultural property during armed conflict is a crime, and here we find Facebook acting as a vehicle for this crime. Facebook knows this is an important issue”.

Paul added that she monitors several Facebook groups specializing in antiquities trafficking, each with over 100,000 members, and the largest with around 900,000 members.

With 90% of Syria’s population living below the poverty line, preventing desperate individuals from looting archaeological sites is extremely difficult.

Instead, experts say, responsibility for the group should fall on the West, the main buyer of cultural artifacts from the Middle East.

“How do we stop this? We stop demand from the West… Until security improves, you won’t see any improvement… We’re focusing on the supply side to avoid the responsibility that falls on the West,” said Dr. Amr al Azm.

In Palmyra, the city resident Mohammed al Fares is still coming to terms with how much his city has changed since he returned last December after years of displacement.

Broken stones lie scattered at the base of the Roman triumphal arch, and carved faces on coffins in the “Tomb of the Three Brothers” have been dug up and defaced—all a result of the destruction wrought by ISIS.

At night, Faris and other residents stand guard in the Old City, determined not to let thieves steal what remains of a place already plundered over 15 years of war.