Satellite Imagery-Based Analysis of Archaeological Looting in Syria

Abstract

The Bronze Age site of Mari on the Euphrates River in eastern Syria appearing in a satellite image from April 11, 2015. The upper mound of the site, surrounding the excavated palace of Zimri-Lim, has been severely looted in recent years. Imagery © Digital Globe 2015.

Remote assessments of the archaeological heritage situation in Afghanistan

“…Our major conclusions-that looting is a regionally-specific phenomenon in Afghanistan carried out by multiple actors (not just the Taliban) and that other forms of development-related DRAFT OF PUBLISHED ARTICLE: PLEASE CITE ONLY PUBLISHED VERSION destruction (related to agriculture, urban expansion, and mining) are individually and collectively more pressing threats to archaeological sites than looting-are paralleled by those of collaborative projects studying the fate of cultural heritage in the post-Arab-Spring Middle East. For example, spatial analysis of recent looting patterns at over almost 3000 sites in Syria showed that looting is carried out in territory controlled by various factions involved in the Syrian Civil War, not just extremists like the Islamic State, whose performative destructions have been the focus of international media reports [2,28]. Further, this systematic study found that agricultural and urban expansion were the most prevalent forms of damage to heritage sites in war-torn Syria, not looting or military damage.…”

“…To date, we have examined only sites from the 1982 Gazetteer, which are likely to be among the largest sites in Afghanistan. Different phases of systematic damage assessment across Syria, Iraq, southern Turkey, and Lebanon show that heritage conclusions shift based on whether assessments include only large, important "priority" sites [2,29] or whether they include sites mapped only via satellite imagery that have previously been unknown to researchers [28].…”

“…CORONA imagery shows us that military damage of some sites stretches back to DRAFT OF PUBLISHED ARTICLE: PLEASE CITE ONLY PUBLISHED VERSION the 1960s. For example, Cham Qal'a (Gazetteer site 169) 2 in Baghlan Province and Islam Qal'a (Gazetteer site 454) 3 in Herat Province both appear to have been damaged by military installations in the mid-to-late 1960s.…”

“…The performative destruction at iconic sites like Nimrud, Hatra, Nineveh, and the Mosul Museum by the Islamic State has understandably captured the attention of archaeologists, policymakers, and the public [e.g., 1]. Satellite images of systematically looted sites in Syria like Dura Europos, Mari, and Apamea, as well as art market data and other forms of evidence indicate a thriving illegal trade in stolen antiquities [2][3][4]. Parallels have been drawn between the situation in Afghanistan and that in Syria and Iraq, with both providing examples of similarly organized looting as a possible funding source for Islamic terror groups [5].…”

“…Academic researchers have assembled a considerable body of diachronic data on looting and other forms of destruction at sites across Syria and Iraq using satellite imagery. A large volume of Syria/Iraq publications cover peacetime heritage destruction [17][18][19], conflict-related looting and destruction since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003 [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], and especially conflict-related looting since the 2011 Arab Spring [2,7,[28][29][30][31][32]. By contrast, the situation in Afghanistan has been reported only anecdotally and primarily by the international media [33][34][35][36][37][38] as well as through reports from officials or heritage NGOs [e.g., 39,[40][41][42][43] with few systematic analyses [but for analyses of the sites of Jam and Lashkari Bazar, see 44,45].…”