Before September, the people in this picture had never picked up a chisel. Now, only a few months into World Monument Fund’s conservation stonemasonry training programme, they can carve arabesques for zakhrafa jambs, prepare rectangular billet mouldings, or work an ovolo return. Not yet perfect maybe, but still astonishing progress, made more remarkable still given […]
Syria
Syria: Cultural heritage in conflict
As the conflict in Syria escalates, Emma Cunliffe reports for CWA on the damage being done to the country’s heritage.
Syria: Tell Brak
Civil unrest, violent clashes, an oppressive authority: we could be talking about Syria today. But this is 6,000 years ago, during the Late Chalcolithic Period.
Syria: Upheavals halt excavations
Archaeologists in Syria have been forced to pull out of the country because of civil unrest, with protesters opposing the government of President Bashar al-Assad. International teams were recording sites threatened by the Halabiyeh hydropower scheme. Now they fear that many of these important and little-explored sites will be lost to flood waters, if the […]
Dura-Europos
A new exhibition in New York reveals the secrets of another strikingly cosmopolitan city, one with a long and turbulent past.
Gas Warfare at Dura-Europos
Romans versus Persians – a gruesome story of gas warfare at the ancient siege site of Dura-Europos
Restoration of Syria’s Medieval Castles
Aga Khan to restore Syria’s medieval castles
Dramatic end for Syrian acrobat
Archaeologists investigate the mysterious death of an acrobat who met his end around 2300 BC
City of Sweyhat
How did the city of Sweyhat thrive in the Mesopotamian outback?
Jerablus and the Land of Carchemish
The site of Jerablus Tahtani, which rises up in the Uruk period, becomes strongly fortified in the Early Bronze Age, but is abandoned around 2,300 BC
Qatna, Syria
Peter Pfalzner, of the University of Tubingen writes of the extraordinary Brinze Age royal tombs at Qanta
Palmyra Mosaics and their Hidden Meaning
A detailed look at the finest mosaics discovered anywhere in the Roman world for a generation, recently discovered in the desert city of Palmyra