Satellite View of Dura-Europos on January 23, 2017

DigitalGlobe/ScapeWare3d via Getty Images

 

aerial view

This view of Dura-Europos records its condition on January 23, 2017, almost six years after the beginning of the conflict in Syria in March 2011. The “craters” that resemble a lunar surface are looters’ pits: they are visible all over the site and in the necropolis on the outskirts, together with bulldozers and other heavy machinery. The removal of innumerable objects and the destruction of the site’s stratigraphy and architectural remains is a devastating loss, and Dura-Europos is one of multiple sites in Syria and Iraq similarly destroyed in recent years.

 

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