Thursday, February 26, 2015

Antiquities in ISIS' Hands: For Sale or For Destruction?

Fox News and AP have posted pictures from a very troubling video of ISIS Militants smashing ancient statuary in the Mosul Museum.  If verified, this is yet another tragic loss of Iraq's ancient cultural heritage.  The video and other similar news of such destruction should also raise a simple question.  Are ISIS militants really interested in funding their jihad with ancient artifacts as the archaeological lobby and the Assad regime claim?  Or, given their iconoclastic views of Iraq's pre-Islamic past, would they rather just smash them?

For more on CPO's views on the root causes of this tragedy see here.

1 comment:

Wayne G. Sayles said...

Never fear, CBP will seize the next batch of old coins and pot shards, thereby saving the past for all of us......more or less.