New Delhi: Nearly seven years after Islamic State (IS) militants vandalised and destroyed historic sculptures in the ancient city of Hatra in Iraq during their brutal rule, some of the sculptures have been restored. Iraq Thursday unveiled three of the newly restored sculptures, news agency AFP reported.
In a video footage released in 2015, IS militants had shown how they went on a rampage in the ancient city, using guns and pickaxes to bring down the extensive remains dating back to the first and second centuries AD, when Hatra was a leading trade entrepot between the Roman and Parthian empires, the AFP report said.
On Thursday, Iraqi authorities showed to journalists a number of restored pieces, which included a Roman-style sculpture of a life-size figure.
Hatra, located 110 km northwest of Mosul in Iraq's Nineveh province, was inscribed in the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1985.
Iraqi experts are carrying out the restoration work in collaboration with the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies in Italy, with funding from the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas, the report said.
The first phase of the restoration work in the ancient city is complete, according to reports.
IS ‘Ripped Out And Shattered’ Works Of Art
“IS destroyed everything that was important in this city,” Ali Obeid Sholgham, a senior antiquities official, was quoted as saying in the AFP report.
Khair al-Din Ahmed Nasser, the provincial antiquities chief, said all the works of art were “ripped out and shattered”. He said fragments were found all over the site. “We recovered some pieces, Others which were missing we replaced with the same type of stone.”
Hatra was not the only site that faced such destruction at the hands of IS militants when they ruled much of the north and west of the country.
Similar destructions were carried out and filmed by the IS in Mosul Museum, 100 km northeast of Hatra, too.
It was in 2017 that Iraqi government forces retook Hatra, before claiming victory over the IS.