ISIS' Looting of Mosul's Relics Bared
As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) flees Mosul to avoid offensives of coalition forces, authorities who returned to the city have discovered the damage wrought by the terror group to important archaeological sites which include artifacts dating back to the Old Testament times.
Layla Salih, who is in charge of antiquities for the Nineveh province, led AFP to a labyrinth of tunnels which ISIS dug up under a hill, the site of the Nabi Yunus shrine where the tomb of the Prophet Jonah can be found. The shrine is now ruined after it was blasted by ISIS.
In the process, ISIS exhumed more than 700 archaeological items that were sold on the black market. The artifacts came from King Esarhaddon's palace, dating back to the Assyrian period during the 8th century.
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"These finds are very important. They teach us more about Assyrian art," Salih said.
But not everything has been plundered. Found on a wall in the tunnel are mural sculptures of winged bulls in white marble. Recently, authorities found at a house in east Mosul 107 pottery items still in good condition believed to have been looted from Nabi Yunus.
ISIS has been known to destroy archeological and religious sites which it considers a form of idolatry as it did when it overran northern Iraq and west of Baghdad in July 2014. As if to show off its conquest, the terror group posted online footage of Nimrud, jewel of the Assyrian empire that was founded in the 13th century being dynamited and bulldozed.
At a UNESCO-organized conference in Paris last month, Qais Rashid, Iraq's deputy Culture Minister, bewailed that in the Mosul region alone, "at least 66 archaeological sites have been destroyed, some of them transformed into parking lots. Muslim and Christian places of worship have suffered massive destruction, thousands of manuscripts have disappeared."
