Challenges, Strategies and High-Tech Applications for Saving the Cultural Heritage of Syria, pp. 15-20, 2022/03/24
Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016
It is not actually news to mention how important the antiquities of Syria are, and how truly they sharemajor elements of the world’s cultural heritage In Syria we have a sequence of history that continues from prehistoryto modern times without interruption It is also bears witness to major economic and cultural revolutions such as theinvention of agriculture and the first signs of alphabetic writing in cuneiform. After the Arab uprising of 2011, a lot ofarchaeological sites and monuments in the Middle East had been affected. The continuing conflicts also became harmfulfor archaeology as a science All the archaeological missions in Syria, foreign and national, had to be cancelled Alsoa lot of professors lost their positions For various reasons they were not able to attend their lectures, and after a whilethey were fired. On the other hand, the students were also not able to attend seminars and other educational activities,and in some hot areas, especially in those which were no longer under government control, the whole educationalsystem collapsed The harmful destruction that has occurred in the present decade was due to several reasons and themost important is what ISIS/ISIL has done, especially after their troops seized 50% of the landmass of Syria. The localsociety faced a high degree of responsibility, and some of them succeeded in safeguarding a lot of sites and museumsUnfortunately, all this would continue without international interference in order to prevent this cultural massacre
Keywords: archaeology; universities; cultural heritage; Syrian crisis; safeguarding Syria’s culture; museums in Syria
