Isil militants have beheaded one of Syria’s most respected archaeologists and an expert on the ancient Roman city of Palmyra. Khaled Al-Asaad, who was director of antiquities at the Unesco World Heritage Site from 1963 to 2003, was murdered on 18 August and his body tied to an ancient column within the 2,000-year-old archaeological site.
The 81-year-old archaeologist oversaw activities at the site for 40 years until his retirement in 2003, when he became an archaeological researcher at Syria’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM). Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of DGAM, told the Associated Press that Al-Asaad was “one of the most important pioneers in Syrian archaeology in the 20th century”. A statement on DGAM’s website strongly condemned the killing, calling it “cowardly and a criminal act of appalling brutality”.
According to Abdulkarim, Al-Asaad was captured by Isil shortly after the group gained control of the city in May and was killed for refusing to help Isil find antiquities that were hidden before the invasion of Palmyra.
When Isil took over the city scholars worried that the group would mount a campaign of destruction at Palmyra similar to the one undertaken in Iraq, but so far there have been no reports of damage to the archaeological remains at the site. A statue of a lion displayed in front of Palmyra’s museum was destroyed in July.
