Damascus, SANA-\u00a0Culture Minister Issam Khalil affirmed that beheading of former\u00a0Director of Palmyra branch of the department Khaled al-Asaad by the Islamic State in Iraq and\u00a0Syria “ISIS”\u00a0reflects inherent hatred of humanity and human values.<\/p>\n
The minister said in a statement to SANA that the Culture Ministry denounces in the strongest terms this horrible crime, calling on international organizations to shoulder their responsibilities towards Syrian bloodshed by terrorist organizations which are supported by well-known regional and international countries.<\/p>\n
He expressed sincere condolences to al-Asaad family and all Syrian people over the irreparable loss of a world-renowned antiquities scholar.<\/p>\n
Director of the General\u00a0Department of Antiquities and Museums condemns the crime<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Director of the General\u00a0Department of Antiquities and Museums Maamoun Abdul-Karim condemned the beheading of al-Asaad byISIS.<\/p>\n Quoting local sources in Palmyra city, located in\u00a0the central Homs province, Abdul-Karim told SANA that ISIS terrorists beheaded in cold\u00a0blood the 80-year old archeologist in the National Museum Square in the city and later\u00a0crucified his body and hung him on colonnades in central Palmyra.<\/p>\n He added that ISIS had repeatedly interrogated al-\u00a0Asaad to try to force him to give information about the places of specific\u00a0archeological treasures in Palmyra but to no Abdul-Karim described al-Asaad as one of the most\u00a0prominent Syrian pioneer archeologists in the 20th century.<\/p>\n Speaking of the course of his career, Abdul-Karim\u00a0said al-Asaad headed the Department of Palmyra Antiquities and Museums between 1963 and\u00a02003. After retirement, he worked as an expert at the General Department where he\u00a0participated in developing scientific archeology strategies.<\/p>\n The late archeologist accomplished great\u00a0achievements in terms of restoring a large number of archeological pieces and artifacts as well as\u00a0participating in scores of national and joint excavation expeditions, mainly in Palmyra.<\/p>\n Born in Palmyra, al-Asaad participated in Palmyra\u00a0Development Project between 1962 and 1966, as he unearthed the largest part of the Great\u00a0Colonnade and the Great Tetrapylon of Palmyra and some of the Byzantine cemeteries, caves and\u00a0tombs.<\/p>\n Al-Asaad worked at a number of Arab, regional and\u00a0international institutions like the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural\u00a0Organization (UNESCO), the European Commission and EU in the framework of projects related to\u00a0Palmyra and the Syrian ruins.<\/p>\n ISIS took over Tadmur city and the archeological\u00a0site of Palmyra-a UNESCO World Heritage Site- in May, killing hundreds of the locals and\u00a0putting in jeopardy a most treasured part of Syria’s archeological heritage.<\/p>\n Last July, ISIS terrorists destroyed the 1,900-\u00a0year-old Lion of Al-Lat statue, one of the most important archeological statues in Palmyra.<\/p>\n ISIS also killed many antiquities and archaeology\u00a0workers, whose number has reached 13 in various Syrian provinces.<\/p>\n H. Zain\/ H. Said\/ Manar\/ Mana\/ Barry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Damascus, SANA-\u00a0Culture Minister Issam Khalil affirmed that beheading of former\u00a0Director of Palmyra branch of the department Khaled al-Asaad by the Islamic State in Iraq and\u00a0Syria “ISIS”\u00a0reflects inherent hatred of humanity and human values. The minister said in a statement to SANA that the Culture Ministry denounces in the strongest terms this horrible crime, calling on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6990,8,115,450],"tags":[6661,723],"class_list":["post-51944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-archeology","category-arts-culture","category-local","category-reality-of-events","tag-archologist","tag-isis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\navail, and then they killed him.<\/p>\n