According to reports from Palmyra, IS militant have destroyed the Arch of Triumph – an important Roman monument at the site.
To read our Special Report on the archaeology lost to Islamic State ideology and to looting to fund terrorism in Iraq and Syria click here.
Following the destruction of the Triumphal Arch at Palmyra, one CWA reader has sent in this poem.
Palmyra
Behold the storied, desert waste
That looks on centuries with haste!
Two-thousand years of spice can’t mask
Rank tragedy east of Damask.
Two-thousand years—but ours must tell
Palmyra’s gods their temple fell.
Amorite, Aram, Arab, Jew
Palmyra in their time once knew,
And even Egypt’s ritual gloom
Led some Palmyrans to the tomb.
Semitic structures there were made
Along with Grecian colonnade.
Oasis served those far from home
Who made their way to trade with Rome.
So when Today the Anger thronged,
‘Twas the world, all the world, they wronged.
They rode to spread a cult-and-state
That worshiped idols: Pow’r and Hate.
The Prophet spoke of Love and Peace,
Not of these selfish zealotries.
The sin these pledged in Allah’s name
He heard and curse to Him became.
While I and all my like tisk-tisked,
One valiant scholar’s life was risked.
From Bloodshed’s tread he could have fled,
But stayed his heart and lost his head
Defending broken frieze and urn,
And with them all that we could learn.
War’s ignorance he’d not excuse,
Just like that mind from Syracuse.
The treasures’ sanctum he’d not give,
His virtues in their safety live!
To him, with shame, I pause to tell
They razed the ruined Temple Bel.
Yet, piled ages heaped on higher
Serve not to feed the jihad’s pyre.
His broken pillar’s shadows cast
A symbol longer than the last.
– Michael Stanley