Location: The first scene in The Exorcist, filmed at Hatra, sees a priest (played by Max von Sydow, pictured) at an archaeology dig find an ancient talisman belonging to Mesopotamian demon Pazuzu
ISIS’s Looting Campaign -- David Kohn, New Yorker
For the past eighteen months, the University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Katharyn Hanson has been spending a lot of time analyzing satellite images from Iraq and Syria. As fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) overrun the region, they have been digging up many archaeological sites and looting whatever they find. “You get these sites that look like Swiss cheese, with all the holes,” Hanson said. “It’s just pockmarked.”
Thousands of vital archaeological sites—remains from Bronze and Iron Age settlements as well as from Islamic, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine civilizations—are now at risk. Humans built the first cities in the region, and some spots have been continuously occupied for more than six thousand years. “It’s a cliché, but it’s true. This is the cradle of civilization,” the director of research at the Penn Cultural Heritage Center, at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Brian Daniels, told me.
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Previous Post: Worries Rise That ISIS May Destroy The Ancient Complex At Hatra And The Site That Was Used In The Movie 'The Exorcist'
My Comment: As I had mentioned on more than one occasion .... a thousand years from now future historians will refer to this time as the age of barbarism and the wanton destruction of man's early history.
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