30,000 ancient treasures saved from ISIS in daring archaeological rescue

A recent study is shedding light on how brave archaeologists risked their lives to save approximately 30,000 priceless artifacts as ISIS closed in on a Syrian city.

Published in the journal Museum Management and Curatorship, the study details the rescue of the artifacts from the Deir ez-Zor Museum in Syria. 

The artifacts are described as “priceless and were saved from the museum before the city was captured by ISIS,” news agency SWNS reported. Phys.org also reported on the study.  

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The Deir ez-Zor haul was part of some 300,000 museum objects rescued and relocated across Syria.

The museum’s collection spanned thousands of years of history. 

It included ancient statues, jewelry and cuneiform tablets, including numerous tablets unearthed at the ancient city of Mari.

Although the rescues took place in 2014 and 2015, new details about the operation have only recently been revealed in the study by Maamoun Abdulkarim, said SWNS. 

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Despite not being one of the largest museums in Syria, the Deir ez-Zor Museum housed one of the country’s most valuable collections.

The museum held priceless treasures unearthed at some of Mesopotamia’s most renowned archaeological sites, including Halaf, Dura-Europos and Mari.

Abdulkarim, a professor of archaeology and history at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, oversaw the operation as director-general of Syria’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums.

He presented the rescue as a case study in protecting cultural heritage during wartime.

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In the study, he argued that carrying out such a rescue amid active hostilities requires far more than logistical planning.

“It fundamentally involves decision-making, institutional resilience, trust and the ability to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances,” Abdulkarim said, as SWNS noted.

“There is rarely a perfect moment to act during an armed conflict; often, delaying a decision in search of greater certainty poses a greater danger than acting under uncertainty.”

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The rescue was fraught with danger, Abdulkarim said, as the museum was linked to a military airport by only a narrow and highly vulnerable corridor.

The period when ISIS rapidly expanded its control in 2014 “formed a critical juncture, as it coincided with the fall of Mosul in Iraq, the looting of its civilizational museum and the destruction of antiquities from Nineveh and Assyria,” Abdulkarim said.

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He said those events prompted Syrian antiquities authorities to urgently reassess their protection plans and accelerate efforts to safeguard museums in cities at risk of siege or collapse.

“In a cultural emergency, waiting for perfect conditions can become more dangerous than acting under uncertainty,” Abdulkarim said.

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“Heritage protection during war is not only about what we save,” he said. 

“It is also about when we decide to act, whom we trust and how quickly we are prepared to adapt.”