Syrian and Kurdish authorities have reportedly blamed Turkey’s Afrin offensive for blowing to bits the 3,000-year-old lion sculptures that were part of the temple of Ain Dara in northern Syria.
The structures’ paws are all that the bombardment left behind, reports the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, noting the temple is a testament to the Iron Age.
AFP notes:
Syrian and Kurdish authorities have blamed the damage squarely on Ankara’s nearly two-week offensive on Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled pocket of northwest Syria that borders Turkey.
Perched on a hilltop in northern Syria, the neo-Hittite temple of Ain Dara dates back to the Aramaic era from around 1,300 to 700 BC, and is named after a village located in Afrin.
The identity of the deity worshipped there has not been officially determined, but one theory is that it is Ishtar, the goddess of love.
Turkey reportedly bombed the Ain Dara temple on January 26.
Turkish military warplanes destroyed up to 50 percent of the temple, estimated Salah el-Din Senno, an archaeologist and member of Afrin’s local antiquities council.
Turkey launched the Afrin offensive against the Syrian Kurds, dubbed Operation Olive Branch, in the region on January 20.
Since then, Syrian and Kurdish officials have accused Ankara of bombarding religious and cultural structures, historical artifacts, archaeological sites, and public facilities.
Meanwhile, the Turkish military claims it has taken extra precautionary measures not to target those sites.
“Religious and cultural buildings, historical sites, archaeological ruins and public facilities are absolutely not among the targets of Turkish Armed Forces,” insists Turkey’s military.
Nevertheless, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which uses a network of ground sources to monitor the war-ravaged nation, reported that the Turkish military recently targeted ancient sites and mosques in and around the Afrin region.
“The Turkish military destroyed archeological sites dating back more than 1400 years and demolished the Salahaddin Mosque in the town of Raju, all while Turkish president [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan claims he defends Muslims,” the monitor group said in a statement.
“Another mosque was bombed in Jandaris on Thursday, the SDF reported,” added the Kurdish outlet.
Fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), are fighting the Turkish army to protect the Kurdish-held Afrin region in Syria.
The PYD controls swathes of northern Syria where it has established an autonomous area.
Turkey has long considered the Syrian Kurdish groups to be an affiliate of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington have deemed a terrorist organization.
Syria’s temple of Ain Dara stood as “one of the most important monuments built by the Aramaeans in Syria during the first millennium BC” until last week, reports AFP, citing Syria’s department of antiquities.
“Today, visitors can barely make out the dark, engraved steps that once led into the temple but are now covered with rocks and debris,” points out AFP. “And the frescoes of imposing winged animals carved in black basalt stone have been reduced to indistinguishable piles of rubble.”
The only section spared by the bombing is the temple’s rear area, including a basalt sculpture of a lion standing guard, overlooking the green hills of Afrin.
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