Valuable Statues Removed from the National Museum Located in Damascus
Historic artifacts and additional items have been taken from Syria's National Museum in Damascus, authorities report.
The robbery was noticed on the start of the week, when staff apparently found that a doorway had been damaged from the interior.
The half-dozen stolen pieces were crafted from marble and traced back to the ancient Roman times, a source informed the media outlet.
Syria's Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums said it had launched a probe to establish the "events surrounding the disappearance of a collection of exhibits", and that measures had been implemented to improve protection and monitoring systems.
The director of domestic security in Damascus province, Brig-Gen Osama Atkeh, was cited by the state-run Sana news agency as saying that security forces were examining the robbery, which he said had affected several "archaeological statues and unique items".
He noted that guards at the museum and additional people were being interrogated.
The Damascus Museum, which was created in the early twentieth century, houses the primary historical artifacts in Syria.
It contains clay cuneiform tablets originating to the Bronze Age from historical site, where indications of the oldest known complete alphabet was discovered; Greco-Roman period classical statues from historical site, one of the most important ancient sites of the classical era; and a third century synagogue that was built at another archaeological site.
The museum was had to cease operations in 2012, twelve months after the start of the devastating civil war. A large portion of the collection was transferred and preserved at secret locations to protect them.
It reopened partially in 2018 and completely reopened in early this year, four weeks after insurgents deposed Syria's former leader.
Every one of nationally recognized sites were damaged or partly ruined during the conflict.
The IS organization destroyed multiple ancient buildings and additional edifices at Palmyra, asserting that they were un-Islamic. The cultural organization denounced the destruction as a atrocity.
Countless artefacts were also damaged or looted from historical locations and museums.
