Valuable Artifacts Removed from the National Museum Located in Damascus
Historic statues and additional items have been stolen from the National Museum of Syria in the capital, officials say.
The theft was discovered on Monday, when museum workers allegedly found that an entrance had been broken from the interior.
The multiple missing statues were crafted from marble and dated back to the ancient Roman times, a source stated to the news agency.
The nation's antiquities authority said it had opened an investigation to determine the "details surrounding the loss of a collection of artifacts", and that measures had been enacted to strengthen safeguarding and observation methods.
The head of national security in Damascus province, Brig-Gen Osama Atkeh, was cited by the official media as saying that authorities were investigating the theft, which he said had targeted several "historical artifacts and valuable objects".
He added that security personnel at the museum and other persons were being interrogated.
The Damascus Museum, which was established in the early twentieth century, holds the most important historical artifacts in the country.
It contains clay cuneiform tablets originating to the Bronze Age from Ugarit, where evidence of the earliest complete alphabet was uncovered; 1st and 2nd Century AD Greco-Roman sculptures from Palmyra, one of the most important ancient sites of the historical period; and a ancient religious building that was established at another archaeological site.
The facility was forced to close in the early 2010s, one year after the start of the destructive conflict. A large portion of the holdings was evacuated and kept at secret locations to protect them.
It began limited operations in recent years and returned to normal in the beginning of the year, four weeks after rebel forces deposed Syria's former leader.
All six of Syria's Unesco World Heritage sites were affected or partially destroyed during the civil war.
The Islamic State group destroyed numerous religious structures and other structures at the archaeological site, claiming that they were un-Islamic. Unesco denounced the destruction as a war crime.
Many historical objects were also destroyed or looted from historical locations and museums.
