News / Syria / Editor's Choice

Syria reopens museum in sign of return to normal life

Monday, 29 October 2018 11:37 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 30 October 2018 8:06 AM ]

Visitors leave the national antiquities museum in the Syrian capital Damascus after visiting it on October 28, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Syria has reopened its National Museum in the heart of the capital Damascus after more than six years, in a move hailed as a return to normal life amid victories against foreign-backed militants.

Officials, foreign archaeologists and restoration specialists attended the reopening to get a first-hand glimpse of invaluable treasures which had been emptied as the country’s war encroached on the capital.

“The opening of the museum is a genuine message that Syria is still here and her heritage would not be affected by terrorism,” Syria’s Minister of Culture Mohamed al-Ahmad said. “Today, Damascus has recovered.”

The event marked the bustling capital's return to normal life disrupted by occasional shelling by foreign-backed militants.

Syrian troops moved in on terrorist-held enclaves on the outskirts of Damascus in May, expelling them to their last bastion in Idlib and restoring calm.

The war, however, has had a devastating impact on the country’s rich heritage.

File photo of the Temple of Baalshamin, a historical ruin in Syria's Palmyra. The ancient city's historical sites were badly damaged during the Daesh invasion in 2015.

As the conflict began in 2011, authorities closed museums and safely relocated more than 300,000 artifacts, but many sites were destroyed by Daesh and other terrorist groups, damaged by the fighting or looted.

Four of the five sections of the National Museum will be opened to display hundreds of archaeological findings that date back to the prehistoric, historical, classical and Islamic eras, an official said Sunday.

Some artifacts restored or confiscated by the Syrian authorities would be among the pieces set to go on display, head of the general directorate for antiquities and museums Mahmoud Hammoud said.

According to the official, 9,000 artifacts have been restored and reclaimed out of hundreds of thousands of significant articles and sculptures that were smuggled abroad during the militancy.

Visitors will also be able to watch specialists restoring hundreds of objects reclaimed from Palmyra, which was overrun and sacked by Daesh in 2015.

The ancient city, known as Tadmur in Arabic, is home to one of the Middle East's most spectacular archaeological sites but many of them were badly damaged under the Daesh occupation which lasted for months.

Palmyra is a world heritage site protected by the United Nations' cultural agency, UNESCO. Daesh began looting and demolishing the city's monuments and temples after seizing it in May 2015.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk