Ancient Artifacts Removed from the National Museum in Damascus
Ancient statues and additional items have been removed from Syria's National Museum in Damascus, authorities report.
The theft was noticed on Monday, when employees apparently found that an entrance had been damaged from the inside.
The multiple missing statues were crafted from marble and traced back to the Roman era, one official stated to the news agency.
The nation's antiquities authority said it had launched a probe to establish the "details surrounding the theft of a number of items", and that measures had been taken to improve safeguarding and surveillance.
The director of internal security in the capital area, General Osama Atkeh, was quoted by the official media as stating that security forces were examining the theft, which he said had focused on several "ancient sculptures and valuable objects".
He continued that museum protectors at the institution and other persons were being interrogated.
The cultural institution, which was founded in the early twentieth century, houses the primary archaeological collection in Syria.
It includes clay cuneiform tablets tracing back to the Bronze Age from an ancient city, where evidence of the oldest known complete alphabet was discovered; 1st and 2nd Century AD ancient art from Palmyra, a significant ancient sites of the ancient world; and a ancient synagogue that was built at another archaeological site.
The facility was had to cease operations in the early 2010s, a year after the outbreak of the destructive conflict. A large portion of the artifacts was evacuated and kept at undisclosed sites to protect them.
It partially resumed in recent years and returned to normal in the beginning of the year, four weeks after rebel forces removed the Assad regime.
Every one of the country's cultural landmarks were damaged or partly ruined during the internal struggle.
The militant faction destroyed multiple temples and additional edifices at the ancient city, claiming that they were un-Islamic. The cultural organization censured the destruction as a war crime.
Numerous cultural items were also destroyed or stolen from dig sites and museums.
