Saving Cultural Heritage in Iraq and Syria

A timely archeology lecture on Monday Nov. 16 at 4:30 p.m. in the GMOA:

experience a talk straight from current headlines: As the Cradle Crumbles: Islamic State, the destruction of archaeological sites, and saving cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria.

The lecturer, archaeologist Tina Greenfield, has worked in archaeological sites in Iraqi Kurdistan, among other Near Eastern sites, researching the earliest empires of the ancient world. She was forced to cut this fall’s excavation of an Assyrian Empire site short by the approaching threat of the terrorist organization ISIS into the region.

This is a unique opportunity to hear a first-hand account of the destruction being wrought by ISIS to the cultural heritage of “the cradle of civilization,” Iraq and Syria, and how local and international archaeologists continue to fight back as they return to these lands to document, excavate, and preserve archaeological sites in a race against time.

Free and open to the public. There is so much we don't understand, much less appreciate, about this part of the world despite our sustained presence there for the last twelve years. Never too late to start learning now.

Image: Taq Kasra, ‫طاق كسرى / تاق کسرا / ایوان مدائن . a Sassanid-era Persian monument located near the modern town of Salman Pak, Iraq. It is the only visible remaining structure of the ancient city of Ctesiphon. The archway is the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork in the world