Palmyra statue among haul of recovered relics

A stone image of an ancient priest is one of hundreds of stolen antiquities recovered by the Syrian government and put on display in Damascus this week, a reminder of the mass looting of Syria’s heritage during seven years of war.

It was carved for Yalhi bin Yalhabouda, a high priest in Palmyra, upon his death in 120 AD, his status apparent from his tall hat and laurel wreath. It was illegally dug up during Islamic State’s occupation of the desert town. “This civilization is not only for Syria, but we are the custodians of it and we preserve it for the world,” said Khalil Hariri, head of the Palmyra antiquities department.

Syria stood at the heart of the ancient Middle East, a crucible for some of the world’s earliest civilizations and was at times incorporated into Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Persian, Greek and Roman empires. After its descent into a messy, multi-sided civil war in 2011, the warring parties began to plunder that inheritance, looting museums and excavating ancient sites.

Islamic State which had long experience of selling stolen antiquities for profit, seized Palmyra and its extensive Roman-era ruins. As with other parts of Syria and Iraq which it turned into a short-lived “caliphate”, it made a public show of destroying many artefacts and ancient buildings as idolatrous, while secretly benefiting from the illicit trade in historical goods.