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Previously untouched 600BC palace discovered under shrine in Mosul
- mcphage 10y agoIs there any article or essay or something, attempting to track the antiquities plundered by ISIL? ISIL digs these sites up to find relics to sell on the black market, to fund their war—who's buying them? Do they know the relics they're buying are funding ISIL? Do they care?
- saiya-jin 10y agopeople care in a same way they care about blood of enslaved and masacred african civilians when buying blood diamonds (aka practically any diamond on the market, regardless what seller tells you)
- onion2k 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_ISIL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_herita... Obviously as it's Wikipedia there's a strong chance it's biased in some way or another, but it leads to pages that explain why ISIL blow stuff up.
- jlebrech 10y agohere's another reason https://islamqa.info/en/20894 https://islamqa.info/en/20894
- mcphage 10y agoI'm not talking about why ISIL blows stuff up. I'm talking about the antiquities they plunder and sell—like what they dug up from this palace. And again, not from ISIL's perspective, I know why they're selling it (money). I'm wondering about the buyers—who buys the stuff ISIL is selling, and do they know that's what they're buying?
- toyg 10y agoDoes it matter? The alternative is to leave relics in the hands of people who will blow them up. It's ransom money, basically.
- mcphage 10y agoWell, it also leaves the money in the hands of the people who won't blow them up, so yes—it matters a great deal. And considering sites like in this article—ISIL has no intention to blow it up—or even way to, given it's buried. They're plundering it merely for items to sell on the black market, they're not holding it for ransom. If there were no buyers, they wouldn't have dug for it in the first place.
- empath75 10y agoIt's seems like they knew this was there but hadn't don't much excavation because they didn't want to destroy anything around it.
- bdefore 10y agoUntouched. Really?