Damage to Syria’s heritage – 19 May 2018

Turkish security forces arrested four Syrians and a Turk. The two ancient copies of the Bible are engraved on the skin of a deer and embroidered with gold, emeralds and sapphires were put up for sale after being stolen from an old synagogue in Jubair and transferred to the Syrian north and then smuggled to Turkey.
Here is a video by Syria Tourism about the confiscation operation. Photos of the scrolls can be found here.

A Syrian-American author, Jennifer Joukhadar, uses traditional storytelling techniques in her newly published book The Map of Salt and Stars, which follows the stories of a Syrian family in New York and Homs.
Read more on the Times Union website here.

The Syrian Minister of Tourism reports that during the past three years, tourism rates in Syria have increased by as much as thirty percent, in part thanks to the restoration of monuments and archaeological sites.
Read the original article on Xinhua Net here.

Syrian archaeologists attended the “Bridge of Civilisations” conference in Budapest, where they presented about recent and ongoing archaeological studies in Syria. Read more on SANA here.

After a seven year break, the Aleppo Spring Art Exhibition exhibited Syrian artwork featuring Aleppo’s history and heritage.
Read more in the SANA article here.

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The Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Ms Karima Bennoune, will be taking part in a public event in France in the coming week. For those who cannot travel to Paris for this occasion, the event entitled “Symposium on Towards Access to Culture for All” (in French and English) will be broadcast online on 22 May 2018, 15:00 – 17:30, UNESCO headquarters.
Webcast live accessible on UNESCO website here.

The Czech National Museum opened an exhibit about conservation at Syrian archaeological sites. Learn more on the Czech Radio website here and SANA website here.

The Digital Classicist London 2018 (Institute of Classical Studies) begins on 1 June with a talk about reconstruction at Palmyra.
More information is available on the Digital Classicist website here.

• The Radio Times reported here on a BBC4 documentary, “The Road to Palmyra,” which interviews war photographer Don McCullin in connection to antiquities and historic sites in Syria.
• Granta published here a beautifully written tragic account of Palmyra and her sister town of Tadmur, and those who have lived there, and live there still.
• The Mayor of Paris announced the intent to continue plans to make Paris a safehaven for objects at risk from conflict in Le Figaro (In french).
• The Huffington Post argued here that the sites of toppled temples in Syria should be treated as crime scenes.
• The BBC here explores Syria’s musical heritage in “Did Syria create the world’s first song?”. No new information, but a poetic overview of musical traditions in Syria, where “music runs deeper into the fabric of the place than anywhere else in the world.”
• Following the recent updates with Hobby Lobby, Motherboard wrote here about the ethics of studying past civilisations. Although the focus is on Iraq, analysis is relevant to Syrian artefacts too.
• The National here questioned if reconstruction of Aleppo’s Grand Mosque will obscure the history of the conflict and destruction at the site.
• The Kuwait News Agency here summarised Turkey’s recent efforts to combat antiquities smuggling, including international meetings to prevent smuggled artefacts from Syria.
• Consortium News wrote here about the challenges of rebuilding Syria’s historic sites and how the government is approaching reconstruction in Aleppo.