When the research for this project began in 2012 the Syrian civil war was only in its infancy and there were still hopes that the ‘crisis’, as it was often euphemistically referred to, would pass. As time went on and Syria descended into a vicious and bloody civil war it became apparent that not only would no fieldwork be practicable in the near future, but that Syrian historical monuments and archaeological sites were increasingly at risk of accidental damage, looting and, in some cases, being used as barracks or headquarters due to their strategic locations. This fragility of cultural heritage encouraged scholars to make efforts to publish all their earlier research and, if possible, open up their private archives because there was an increasing awareness that this information was likely to be valuable in the future restoration and rehabilitation of historic sites.

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The cloister of Dayr Mar Elian destroyed by daesh in September 2015

The evolution of Islamist groups, in particular daesh (the so-called ‘Islamic State’) marked a new and horrifying departure as it heralded the entire destruction of significant monuments and wholesale looting as a matter of policy, rather than destruction largely occuring as a matter of ‘collateral damage’.  These acts have found most notoriety in the Western media through the destruction of the temples of Bel and Baalshamin at Palmyra, along with attacks on other monuments in the ancient city and the horrifying murders of Syrians, amongst them Khaled al-Assad, who was the foremost expert on the archaeology of Palmyra. However Palmyra has been only the showpiece of this policy and across Syria (and Iraq) many monuments and archaeological sites lie in ruins. Whether they can be restored – even whether or not they should be restored – is a question for the future but what we can assist with is making as much information as possible freely and publicly available for scholars and for those who will be involved with the rehabilitation of Syria after the war.

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Inside the cella of the Temple of Bel, Palmyra

Therefore the Principal Investigator on this research project has made an effort to scan and upload her images of sites in Syria, primarily the northwestern Limestone Massif taken since she began fieldwork in the country in 1997. She has also uploaded the images and other documents pertaining to the archaeological project at Dayr Mar Elian esh-Sharqi (the monastery of St. Julian of the East) in Qaryatayn central Syria, as well as material on the first season of excavation at the citadel of Zalabiyeh on the Euphrates. The intention behind this is for this material to be disseminated as widely as possible in order to help facilitate future restoration and rehabilitation work at monuments and sites caught up in the civil war.

Since beginning this project several colleagues and acquaintances have offered their own images to the project taken at different times in the 20th century. These pictures have been included in the archive so that as many curated and tagged images as possible are made available to interested researchers. Whilst there has been a proliferation of online repositories of digital images on the internet, many of which purport to help record lost and threatened monuments, there is a problem with sites overloading servers with unidentified images or pictures that are geotagged to the wrong geographical location. The aim of this project was to load only material that is personally verified by the PI or the research team in order to try and minimise the occurrence of such errors and to offer a reliable research tool for future researchers, students and anyone interested in the art and archaeology of this region.

For those interested in gathering more information on the destruction of the cultural heritage of Syria there are a number of informative and regularly updated websites offering damage reports and the latest news:

The Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) in Damascus issues regular updates on the situation in the country in Arabic and English and their home page is: http://www.dgam.gov.sy/index.php

Shirin International works with the DGAM and overseas academics who directed excavations in Syria before the war to provide updates on sites that were the subject of ongoing or recent archaeological excavations and they can be found at: http://shirin-international.org

The Day After Association, a Syrian civil society NGO based in Turkey and active in north west Syria has a Heritage Protection Initiative that issues regular updates and damage reports at: http://hpi.tda-sy.org/en/

Finally a team of Syrian archaeologists have set up the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology (APSA) who administer an excellent online resource listing damage across the country with information sent to them via networks of volunteers across Syria: http://apsa2011.com/apsanew/

If anybody would like to contribute material to this website please email Emma Loosley via the details given in the 'contact us' section of this site.