The National Museum of Damascus has been robbed of six ancient statues dating back to the Roman era.
The museum reopened in January after being closed for a long time, which helped it escape the damage that other sites in the country saw.
The museum’s collections include tens of thousands of items from Syria’s illustrious history, from prehistoric tools to Greco-Roman sculpture to pieces of Islamic art.
Syria is still waking up after a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year Assad family rule.
The missing statues are Mable of marble, and were stolen Sunday night, with a door being broken down — despite heightened security measures (such as metal gates) which have been in place since 2011, when civil war began.
The government has not yet made a statement, which is why officials spoke anonymously.
“Rare collectibles” are also reported stolen (“gold inpots”, rumor has it), but details are not yet available to the public.
This brings to mind the incident during the Arab Spring in 2011, in which looters broke into the Egyptian Museum and stole 54 artifacts, including a statue of Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Syria, among many of its other tragedies, continues to suffer a cultural trauma: In 2015, IS members destroyed mausoleums in historic Palmyra’s UNESCO World Heritage site, famous for its 2,000-year-old Roman colonnades, ruins and priceless artifacts.
