Collapse of once-feared security apparatus, coupled with widespread poverty, has triggered a gold rush
T
hey come by night. Armed with pickaxes, shovels and jackhammers, looters disturb the dead. Under the cover of darkness, men exhume graves buried more than 2,000 years ago in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, searching for treasure.
By day, the destruction caused by grave robbers is apparent. Three-metre-deep holes mar the landscape of Palmyra, where ancient burial crypts lure people with the promise of funerary gold and ancient artefacts that fetch thousands of dollars.
“These different layers are important, when people mix them together, it will be impossible for archaeologists to understand what they’re looking at,” said Mohammed al-Fares, a resident of Palmyra and an activist with the NGO Heritage for Peace, as he stood in the remains of an ancient crypt exhumed by looters.
