Archaeologists Save 30,000 Treasures from ISIS in Syria

While war tore through eastern Syria, a team of archaeologists launched a daring mission to save 30,000 ancient treasures from certain destruction.

The artifacts were rescued from the Deir ez-Zor Museum before ISIS captured the city in 2014 and 2015. During this time, the terrorist group was destroying archaeological sites and looting museums across Syria and Iraq, erasing irreplaceable pieces of human history.

Archaeology professor Maamoun Abdulkarim led the operation as director-general of Syria's antiquities department. He described the mission as "extremely dangerous" and said there was no perfect time to act during armed conflict.

"Often, delaying a decision in search of greater certainty poses a greater danger than acting under uncertainty," Abdulkarim explained in a new study published in Museum Management and Curatorship. His team had to make split-second decisions while chaos surrounded them.

Deir ez-Zor, the largest city in eastern Syria, became a major battleground during the country's civil war because of its oil and gas fields. As fighting intensified and looting spread, protecting cultural heritage became urgent.

The rescued items included pottery, sculptures, and artifacts like an ancient ostrich egg dating back to the second millennium BCE. Each piece represented thousands of years of history from the Euphrates region.

The Ripple Effect

Abdulkarim's courage extended far beyond this single rescue. Between 2012 and 2017, he oversaw the evacuation of roughly 300,000 museum items from threatened sites across Syria.

"We were protecting thousands of years of memory that war threatened to erase," he said. The rescued artifacts aren't just museum pieces but vital connections to the identity and memory of local communities.

His willingness to face personal and professional risks set an example for heritage protection during conflict. The operation required institutional resilience, rapid adaptation, and above all, trust among team members working in impossible conditions.

Today, those 30,000 treasures from Deir ez-Zor survive as proof that courage and quick thinking can preserve humanity's shared past, even in the darkest times.