DAMASCUS // ISIL militants have blown up several of ancient Palmyra’s famed tower tombs as they press their demolition of the Unesco-listed world heritage site, Syria’s antiquities chief said on Friday.
ISIL has carried out a sustained campaign of destruction against heritage sites in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq, and in mid-August beheaded the 82-year-old former antiquities chief in Palmyra.
News of the demolition of the tower tombs which date back to the first century AD comes after the militants’ destruction of the ancient shrine of Baal Shamin and the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, regarded as Palmyra’s masterpiece.
Antiquities director Maamun Abdulkarim said that among at least seven tombs destroyed were the three best preserved and most treasured funerary towers, including the famed Tower of Elahbel.
“We received reports 10 days ago but we’ve just confirmed the news,” he said.
“We obtained satellite images from the US-based Syrian Heritage Initiative, taken on September 2.”
The whole of Palmyra, including the four cemeteries outside the walls of the ancient city, has been listed as a world heritage site by Unesco since 1980.
In its listing, the UN agency singles out the tower tombs as the “oldest and most distinctive” of Palmyra’s funerary monuments -- “tall multistorey sandstone buildings belonging to the richest families”.
“On the fronts of those that survive, foremost among them the Tower of Elahbel, there is an arch with sarcophagus halfway up, which in ancient times supported a reclining statue,” it says.
“Corridors and rooms were subdivided by vertical bays of loculi (niches for the dead) closed by slabs of stone carved with the image of the deceased and painted in lively colours.”
Mr Abdulkarim said the Tower of Jambalik, built in 83AD was also destroyed, along with the Tower of Ketout, built in 44AD and famed for the vivid scenes etched into its walls.
He said the tower tombs were symbols of the economic boom of Palmyra in the first century AD, when it dominated the caravan trade between east and west from its oasis in the desert.
Some of Palmyra’s monuments still remain intact, including its grand amphitheatre and the Temple of Nabu.
The amphitheatre has instead been exploited by ISIL as a venue to parade its brutal version of religious justice to Palmyra residents since its capture of the city in May.
In one macabre display, child recruits executed 25 Syrian soldiers on the stage.
* Agence France-Presse
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
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The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
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Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
