Palmyra: Heritage Adrift

This report contains details on all damage done to the archaeological site of Palmyra between February 2012 and June 2015.
Palmyra is one of six Syrian sites registered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the World Heritage List since 1980. On June 20, 2013, Palmyra and the other five sites (Bosra, Damascus, Crac des Chevaliers and the Citadel of Salah ed-Din, Aleppo, and the Ancient Villages of Northern Syria) were then registered on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Syrian army made significant changes in the structure of the archaeological site and its surroundings to ensure better control and to install armored vehicles and other military equipment. The changes included the following:
• Removing soil and digging trenches.
• Building roads, dumps, and levees.
The different types of damage include:
• Building of roads within the archaeological area
• Building of levees
• Creation of positions for military equipment
• Creation of spaces to collect and bury scrap metal
• Removing and displacing ancient stone blocks in the center of the archaeological site for defensive purposes (especially to protect tanks, rocket launchers, and other armored vehicles positioned in the archaeological area, including adjacent monuments such as funerary towers).