{"id":4768,"date":"2015-08-19T11:37:48","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T11:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=4768"},"modified":"2015-08-19T11:37:48","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T11:37:48","slug":"syrian-archaeologist-killed-in-palmyra-by-is-militants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2015\/08\/19\/syrian-archaeologist-killed-in-palmyra-by-is-militants\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrian archaeologist ‘killed in Palmyra’ by IS militants"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The archaeologist who looked after ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria for 40 years is reported to have been killed by Islamic State (IS) militants.<\/p>\n

Khaled al-Asaad had been held for about a month by the group, which seized the Unesco World Heritage site in May.<\/p>\n

The 81-year-old’s family informed Syria’s director of antiquities Maamoun Abdul Karim that he had been beheaded.<\/p>\n

He described Mr Asaad as “one of the most important pioneers in Syrian archaeology in the 20th Century”.<\/p>\n

IS has demolished several ancient sites in Iraq, and there are fears that it will destroy Palmyra, one of the archaeological jewels of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

‘Insisted on staying’<\/h2>\n

The Syrian state news agency, Sana, and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Mr Asaad had been beheaded on Tuesday at a square outside the museum in the modern town next to the ruins, also known as Tadmur.<\/p>\n

\"A
Palmyra is considered one of the most important historical sites in the Middle East<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His body was then hung from one of the Graeco-Roman columns, Mr Abdul Karim said.<\/p>\n

IS militants had tried to extract information from him about where some of Palmyra’s treasures had been hidden to save them from destruction, Mr Abdul Karim added.<\/p>\n

Ms Asaad spent most of his life working to promote and protect Palmyra.<\/p>\n

He was in charge of the site for four decades until 2003, when he retired. He then worked as an expert with the antiquities and museums department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The archaeologist who looked after ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria for 40 years is reported to have been killed by Islamic State (IS) militants.<\/p>\n

Khaled al-Asaad had been held for about a month by the group, which seized the Unesco World Heritage site in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[865,1508,251],"tags":[623,1463,1464,900,586],"class_list":["post-4768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archaeology-2","category-extremism","category-islam","tag-archaeology","tag-is","tag-isis","tag-religious-extremism","tag-religious-fundamentalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}