Syria’s Endangered Heritage: An International Responsibility to Protect and Preserve

“For the past nearly three years (2013-2015) the author, Dr. Franklin Lamb, has traveled Syria wherever and whenever security conditions allowed, in order to research, photograph and document endangered archaeological sites and to expose the illegal excavations, looting, international trade and iconoclasm which has caused so much destruction to our shared global cultural heritage. The oldest remains found in Syria date from the Paleolithic era (c.800,000 BC). Artifacts and archeological sites currently in danger date from 5500 BC in Tel Halaf in the north of Syria and include Babylonian - Sumerian - Egyptian- Assyrian - Phoenician - Aramaic - Greeks - Romans - Byzantines - Umayyad’s – Ayyubid and later in the 13th century the Ottoman Empire. All of these sources of our globally shared cultural heritage are in danger of being ravaged and in many cases have already been destroyed. Lamb has specifically chronicled destruction to religious icons, images, monuments, and myriad ancient structures that span pre-Roman civilizations, Islamic structures such as mosques, churches and synagogues all of which continue to be threatened for destruction for religious or political motives. Syria’s Endangered Heritage presents exclusive unpublished photographs, data and interviews from across the whole of Syria.”