Why Syrian antiquities are flooding Facebook Marketplace
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Listed alongside the more familiar knackered sofas and unwanted books are ancient, stolen treasures: Facebook Marketplace has become a profitable hub for the sale of looted and trafficked Syrian antiquities.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, "widespread poverty" and the "collapse" of the nation's "once-feared security apparatus" have sparked a "gold rush" of looters, robbing 2000-year-old graves for artefacts to sell online, said The Guardian.
Syria's location in the "heart of the fertile crescent where settled civilisation first emerged", means it is "awash" with "mosaics, statues and artefacts" that "fetch top dollar" from Western collectors.
Nearly a third of the 1,500 Syrian cases that the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research project has documented since 2012 have occurred since December alone.
When Assad fell, there was a "huge spike on the ground", said Amr al-Azm, a co-director of the ATHAR project. There was a "complete breakdown" of any of the constraints that used to control looting. "The last three to four months has seen the biggest flood of antiquities trafficking I have ever seen, from any country, ever," said ATHAR's other co-director Katie Paul.
This has upset many Syrians and some have protested outside the National Museum in Damascus, demanding the protection of the nation's antiquities from illicit excavations. The "destruction" of our cultural heritage is a "blatant attack on our history", one of them told Syrian news agency Sana, and it must be confronted "by all possible means".
The looters, "armed with pickaxes, shovels and jackhammers", come by night to "disturb the dead", said The Guardian. Under "cover of darkness", they dig up ancient graves in Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, searching for historic booty.
Once the treasures are "out of the ground", they "make their way online", and Facebook has "emerged as a key hub" for their sale, with public and private groups offering "ancient coins, entire mosaics and heavy stone busts" to the "highest bidder".
In one post on Facebook, "a user offered a pile of ancient coins for sale", writing, "I have been holding them for 15 years, Free Syria." In a video "shared in a Facebook group in March", a man with a Syrian accent displays "a mosaic depicting Zeus on a throne, using his mobile phone for scale".
"This is the fastest we've ever seen artefacts being sold," said ATHAR's Paul. It used to take a year to sell a mosaic but now they can go in just two weeks. In response, ATHAR is tracking the route of trafficked Middle Eastern antiquities online and building a database of more than 26,000 screenshots, videos, and pictures.
But the team wants more help from Facebook. In 2020, the social media behemoth banned the sale of historical antiquities on its platform but Paul says the policy is rarely enforced.
So it continues to be used as a "gateway for traffickers", linking "low-level looters" in Syria to "criminal networks" that smuggle the artefacts out of the country and ship them "around the world to create fake bills of sale and provenance". After 10 to 15 years, the treasures make their way into legal auction houses, where collectors and museums, mostly in the US and Europe, "snap them up".
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Politico
26 minutes ago
- Politico
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CBS News
27 minutes ago
- CBS News
She married a U.S. citizen for love. After she alleged abuse, he threatened deportation.
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The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Timeline of tensions and hostilities between Israel and Iran
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Iran's nuclear program goes fallow under international pressure. Iran's new theocracy identifies Israel as a major enemy. August 2002 — Western intelligence services and an Iranian opposition group reveal Iran's secret Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. June 2003 — Britain, France and Germany engage Iran in nuclear negotiations. October 2003 — Iran suspends uranium enrichment. February 2006 — Iran announces it will restart uranium enrichment following the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Britain, France and Germany walk out of stalled negotiations. June 2009 — Iran's disputed presidential election sees Ahmadinejad reelected despite fraud allegations, sparking Green Movement protests and violent government crackdown. October 2009 — Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. and Iran open a secret backchannel for messages in the sultanate of Oman. 2010 — The Stuxnet computer virus is discovered and widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation. The virus disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges. July 14, 2015 — World powers and Iran announce a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limits Tehran's enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. 2018 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel obtained tens of thousands of pages of data showing Iran covered up its nuclear program before signing a deal with world powers in 2015. An ex-Mossad chief confirms the information was obtained by more than a dozen non-Israeli agents from safes in Tehran in 2018. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdraws from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers. 2020 — Alleged Israeli attacks against Iran's nuclear program are stepped up significantly after the disintegration of the 2015 nuclear deal meant to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. July 2020 — A mysterious explosion tears apart a centrifuge production plant at Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Iran blames the attack on Israel. November 2020 — A top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. A top Iranian security official accuses Israel of using 'electronic devices' to remotely kill the scientist, who founded Iran's military nuclear program in the 2000s. April 11, 2021 — An attack targets Iran's underground nuclear facility in Natanz. Iran blames Israel, which does not claim responsibility, but Israeli media widely reports the government orchestrated a cyberattack that caused a blackout at the facility. April 16, 2021 — Iran begins enriching uranium up to 60%, its highest purity ever and a technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. June 2022 — Iran accuses Israel of poisoning two nuclear scientists in different cities within three days of each other, though circumstances remain unclear. Oct. 7, 2023 — Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip storm into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage, beginning the most intense war between Israel and Hamas. Iran, which has armed Hamas, offers support to the militants. Feb. 14, 2024 — An Israeli sabotage attack causes multiple explosions on an Iranian natural gas pipeline running from Iran's western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province to cities on the Caspian Sea. April 1, 2024 — An Israeli airstrike demolishes Iran's Consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 16 people, including two Iranian generals. April 14, 2024 — Iran launches an unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel, firing over 300 missiles and attack drones in response to the Israeli airstrike in Damascus. Working with a U.S.-led international coalition, Israel intercepts much of the incoming fire. April 19, 2024 — A suspected Israeli strike hits an air defense system near an airport in Isfahan, Iran. July 31, 2024 — Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is assassinated by an apparent Israeli airstrike during a visit to Tehran. Israel had pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the Oct. 7 attack. Sept. 27, 2024 — Israeli airstrike kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard members who went to Lebanon in 1982 to fight invading Israeli forces, Hezbollah was the first group that Iran backed and used as a way to export its brand of political Islam. Oct. 1, 2024 — Iran launches its second direct attack on Israel, though a U.S.-led coalition and Israel shoot down most of the missiles. Oct. 16, 2024 — Israel kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip. Oct. 26, 2024 — Israel openly attacks Iran for the first time, striking air defense systems and sites associated with its missile program. April 30, 2025 — Iran executes a man it said worked for Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence agency and played a role in the killing of Revolutionary Guard Col. Hassan Sayyad Khodaei in Tehran on May 22, 2022. Friday, June 13, 2025 — Israel launches blistering attacks on the heart of Iran's nuclear and military structure, deploying warplanes and drones previously smuggled into the country to assault key facilities and kill top generals and scientists. Saturday, June 14, 2025 — Israel expands its airstrikes to include targets in Iran's energy industry as Iranian missile and drone attacks continue on Israel. Sunday, June 15, 2025 — Israel unleashes airstrikes across Iran for a third day and threatens even greater force as some Iranian missiles evade Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of the country. Planned talks on Iran's nuclear program in Oman between the United States and Tehran, which could provide an off-ramp, are called off.
