Elderly antiquities scholar killed by ISIS in ancient city of Palmyra

Ruins in Palmyra, Syria.
(Image credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

An elderly antiquities scholar in the ancient city of Palmyra has been killed by Islamic State militants, Syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim announced Tuesday.

Khaled Asaad, 82, was the head of antiquities in Palmyra for more than 50 years. "Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded...and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the center of a square in Palmyra," Abdulkarim told Reuters. "The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on [Palmyra] and every column and every archaeological piece in it."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.