DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Polish experts back from assessing damage at the museum in the Syrian city of Palmyra offer grim new details about the extent of the destruction caused by the Islamic State group.
The museum was trashed and some of its best-known artifacts and statues were smashed by the extremists during the 10 months they controlled the town, before being driven out last month.
Bartosz Markowski, from the Polish Archaeological Center at the University of Warsaw, told The Associated Press in Damascus on Saturday that most of the 200 objects which were exhibited on the ground floor were destroyed, many of them with hard tools.
He and his colleagues spent a week collecting fragments of sculptures and preparing them for transportation to Damascus for conservation. He says many artifacts have been stolen.
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