With the high toll in lives paid to Syria's civil war, the burning of Aleppo's ancient souq was treated as a side issue. But destruction of the old city is a crippling blow to living history. And as one expert says, if you fire a gun at history, you fire a cannon at the future.
On display in Room 34 at the British Museum in London is a small coin that speaks volumes about the cultural significance of Aleppo, a treasure of a city whose ancient mosques, souqs and alleyways echo with historic resonance central to the story of the Arab world.
The silver dirham, unearthed by archaeologists in Aleppo, was struck in 1184 by order of Salah al-Din Yusuf, or Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty that held sway over large parts of the Middle East from the 12th to the 15th century.
Two years after the coin was minted, Saladin's Muslim army drove the European Crusaders from the holy city of Jerusalem.
Saladin, who seized Aleppo in 1182, was just one of a series of rulers and invaders who have left their mark on the city, which has roots that can be traced back to the 10th century BC.
Built at the crossroads of important trade routes between East and West, the city has seen more than its share of war and violence.
Architecturally and culturally, Aleppo carries the genetic imprint of a succession of ruling powers and invaders including Hittites, Assyrians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, crusading European Christians, Mamelukes and Ottomans.
But now, a city that over the centuries has survived the attentions of countless besieging armies, appears in danger of being destroyed from within by its own people, with shocking images of the ancient souq consumed by fire as Syria's civil war pits rebels and government forces for control of one of the world's oldest cities.
"I do not have the words that can possibly express my dismay and horror at what has happened to Syria," says Prof Jeremy Johns, director of the Khalili Research Centre and professor of art and archaeology of the Islamic Mediterranean at Oxford University.
In addition to the destruction being wrought on priceless archaeological monuments, Prof Johns fears for the future of the nation's artefactual heritage.
"I know that antiquities looted from archaeological sites are already reaching the international market," he says.
The antiquities department of the Syrian government, he says, "has done what it can to protect archaeological sites and museums, and certain vulnerable treasures have been moved from museums into safe storage".
But he fears "the problem is insoluble. There's a civil war going on and no side can possibly police all of the monuments, archaeological sites and museums there are in Syria because there are literally thousands".
He was last in Aleppo in November 2010 and says he holds fear for a city that offers a unique perspective on regional, and world, history.
"The key thing is it's not one site but a whole complex of sites within what was a remarkably well preserved environment," Prof Johns says.
"The damage that's being done to the monuments is only part of the damage because those monuments are still living buildings, whether they are mosques or markets or bath houses, or whether, as in the case of the Citadel, it's a museum site that is used as a centre for culture for the people of Aleppo.
"The monuments are being destroyed but also the whole social fabric around them is being destroyed at the same time."
Prof Johns also worries about the future of the city's relatively modern history.
"The Armenian Baron Hotel where [TE] Lawrence and all sorts of other players in that extraordinary early 20th century colonial game stayed, including archaeologists, politicians and spies, is in the centre of Aleppo and I have little doubt that will be damaged."
Unesco declared Aleppo a World Heritage Site in 1986 and says it has "exceptional universal value because it represents medieval Arab architectural styles that are rare and authentic, in traditional human habitats".
It is, for example, "an outstanding example of an Ayyubid 12th century city, with its military fortifications constructed as its focal point following the success of Sala El-Din against the crusaders".
The multilayered history of the city, reflected in its disparate mix of buildings, layout and spaces, constitutes "testimony of the city's cultural, social and technological development, representing continuous and prosperous commercial activity from the Mameluke period.
"It contains vestiges of Arab resistance against the Crusaders, but there is also the imprint of Byzantine, Roman and Greek occupation in the streets and in the plan of the city."
The monumental Citadel of Aleppo "rising above the souqs, mosques and madrasas of the old walled city, is testament to Arab military might from the 12th to the 14th centuries".
Today, that might is represented by its occupation by troops loyal to President Bashar Al Assad.
Here, in the walls of mosques, palaces and bath buildings, can be found evidence of occupation by civilisations dating back to the 10th century BC. In Aleppo, every ancient brick tells a story - and every shattered brick threatens the loss of that story for future generations.
The extraordinary thing about the Citadel, says Prof Johns, "is that is essentially an artificial mound that has grown up with human detritus over the millennia, and that you can stand in the remains of the Ottoman fortress, looking down to the excavated remains of cultures that go back into the second millennium BC.
"There's continuity in that whole site that sums up the historical and architectural development of Syria and the whole region, and that is what is under threat."
According to a report from the city this week, the wooden gates of the Citadel are now destroyed and a medieval stone engraving above them badly damaged.
"A bomb crater now marks the entrance and its walls are pockmarked with bullet holes," the report said.
"A stump is all that remains of the minaret of the 14th century Al Kiltawiya school. A rocket has crashed into el-Mihmandar Mosque, also built some 700 years ago."
On Sunday, after news that fire had destroyed hundreds of shops in Aleppo's ancient souq, Unesco director general Irina Bokova described what was happening to the city as "deeply distressing".
"The human suffering caused by this situation is already extreme," Ms Bokova said. "That the fighting is now destroying cultural heritage that bears witness to the country's millenary history, valued and admired the world over, makes it even more tragic."
Aleppo's souqs, she added, had been a part of the city's economic and social life since its beginning: "They stand as testimony to Aleppo's importance as a cultural crossroads since the second millennium BC."
Ms Bokova reminded the government that Syria was a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict.
As such, "it is bound to do its utmost to safeguard this heritage from the ravages of war".
All forces, she said, should "do their utmost to spare these monuments to human history" - not least because they had contributed so much to Syria's growth and prosperity and would "undoubtedly prove vital to the country's reconstruction".
For Walid Al Akhras, professor of Islamic history and archaeology at Aleppo University, Syria is nothing less than "a museum of Islamic history.
"[Whoever] fires a gun at history, it is as if he has fired a cannon at the future," Prof Al Akhras said this week.
With as many as 30,000 dead in the Syrian conflict, some sources say, and with the fighting in Aleppo now into its second month and showing no sign of abating, few are paying much attention to the loss of history.
But historians and archaeologists are growing increasingly worried that the true toll on Aleppo's ancient fabric - both as a result of fighting and of heritage looting of the type that ravaged Iraq's museums - will prove far greater than is currently known.
On Monday, experts in Cairo had their first glimpse of the damage when members of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Isesco) gathered at Cairo University for an emergency debate and to watch footage from an amateur video shot in Aleppo.
For Abdel Aziz Salem, a representative of Isesco, which is comprised of 50 nations and is based in Saudi Arabia, the fate of Aleppo was not just about a city and its people but the fate of "Islamic and Arab identity".
Cairo University antiquities professor Mahmoud Al Banna said he could not believe what Syrians were doing to their own heritage in Aleppo.
"No different than what the Tatars or Mongols did," he said, referring to invasions in the 13th and 14th centuries that devastated the region. "We are talking about the history of all people, of humankind and not just of Islam."
As such, Prof Al Banna added, it was the responsibility of the world to act, before it was too late.
"The war has been going on for 18 months, but you - the world - where have you been?"
* With additional reporting by Associated Press