Free Republic

In 2009 or 2010, three looted sculptures were taken from the ancient city of Palmyra. Several years later, customs officers in Switzerland seized them at a Geneva freeport. At last, they’re heading home to Syria, the Art Newspaper reports. The three sculptures date back to the second and third centuries B.C.E., when Palmyra was still a nexus of trade, possibly during the rule of Queen Zenobia. One of the sculptures is a bust of a priest wearing a ceremonial headpiece. The sculpture was badly damaged by the looters when they removed it from the site, as the head once had...

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have destroyed one of Palmyra’s most well-known ancient temples, according to Syria’s antiquities chief. Carefully stage-managed photographs by Isil show the moment the terrorist group destroyed one of the best known temples at Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra. The images, released by Isil’s media wing in the central province of Homs, revealed the Temple of Baalshamin was littered with explosives before it exploded into a mushroom cloud on Sunday.

Islamic State militants have blown up two ancient shrines they consider sacrilegious in Palmyra, a 2,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site in central Syria, the ultra hardline Sunni Muslim group said on Tuesday. The report was the first of any damage being done by the militants to buildings in Palmyra since they seized control of the city, also known as Tadmur, in May. Syrian forces have bombed the city, and the militants camped within it, since then.