Reuters, Moscow :
First units of Russian demining experts have arrived in Syria to demine the historic part of the ancient city of Palmyra, Russian news agencies quoted the Defence Ministry as saying on Thursday.
Russian archaeologists offer to help rebuild Palmyra
Ancient Syrian city was recently recaptured from ISIL fighters who had demolished some of its best-known monuments.
Archaeologists in Russia are offering help to rebuild Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra following its recapture from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, gained control of the city earlier this month after days of intense fighting, state media and a monitoring group said.
Palmyra, known as the “bride of the desert”, used to attract tens of thousands of tourists a year before the conflict started in 2011.
In May, ISIL took Palmyra in a matter of days and later demolished some of its best-known monuments.
The group also destroyed the infamous Tadmur prison, where thousands of government opponents were reported to have been tortured.
Through ISIL-produced videos and satellite imagery, it was already known that the Temple of Bel – dating back to 32 AD – three funerary towers, the Temple of Baalshamin – one of the most complete ancient structures on the site – and the 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph had been destroyed.
The extent of the damage, however, was not verifiable until now.
“The overall image is very frustrating, especially to an archaeologist that has been looking at these images before, it’s a horrible sight,” Otto Ottonello, a digital archaeologist, told Al Jazeera.
“So we recreated most of the things that we thought were destroyed or partially damaged and made some three-dimensional models of them. And then we thought about making holograms of it.”
Moscow report adds: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Russia’s RIA news agency that the people of Syria are not interested in the Russian military contingent leaving the country either now or in the future, the agency reported on Thursday.
First units of Russian demining experts have arrived in Syria to demine the historic part of the ancient city of Palmyra, Russian news agencies quoted the Defence Ministry as saying on Thursday.
Russian archaeologists offer to help rebuild Palmyra
Ancient Syrian city was recently recaptured from ISIL fighters who had demolished some of its best-known monuments.
Archaeologists in Russia are offering help to rebuild Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra following its recapture from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, gained control of the city earlier this month after days of intense fighting, state media and a monitoring group said.
Palmyra, known as the “bride of the desert”, used to attract tens of thousands of tourists a year before the conflict started in 2011.
In May, ISIL took Palmyra in a matter of days and later demolished some of its best-known monuments.
The group also destroyed the infamous Tadmur prison, where thousands of government opponents were reported to have been tortured.
Through ISIL-produced videos and satellite imagery, it was already known that the Temple of Bel – dating back to 32 AD – three funerary towers, the Temple of Baalshamin – one of the most complete ancient structures on the site – and the 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph had been destroyed.
The extent of the damage, however, was not verifiable until now.
“The overall image is very frustrating, especially to an archaeologist that has been looking at these images before, it’s a horrible sight,” Otto Ottonello, a digital archaeologist, told Al Jazeera.
“So we recreated most of the things that we thought were destroyed or partially damaged and made some three-dimensional models of them. And then we thought about making holograms of it.”
Moscow report adds: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Russia’s RIA news agency that the people of Syria are not interested in the Russian military contingent leaving the country either now or in the future, the agency reported on Thursday.
