The limestone sculptures, statues and reliefs smashed by militants in northern Iraq provided valuable historical insights into kingdoms that flourished thousands of years ago and were crucial in the formation of early Arab identity, experts say. The destruction took place in Mosul, in one of the most important museums in the Middle East.
On Friday, archaeologists and historians in Iraq and around the world studied a video posted by the Islamic State showing millenniums-old artifacts being smashed by sledgehammers, seeking to come to terms with what artistic and historical riches had been lost in an exercise clearly meant to promote the militants’ extreme beliefs and project their power.
Paul Collins, curator of the Ancient Near East at the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, said Mosul’s treasures were mainly from two eras, the Assyrian Empire and the kingdom of Hatra, a trading city from the first and second century A.D., whose ruins are in the desert about 60 miles southwest of Mosul. “You are seeing two very significant moments in Iraqi and Middle Eastern history — from the seventh century B.C. and the second century A.D. — being destroyed at the same time,” he said.
Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, called it an “act of catastrophic destruction.”
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Omar Al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from Baghdad.
A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2015, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Destruction Of Antiquities By Militants Is Denounced. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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