Looted from Syria, sold on Facebook: antiquities smuggling surges after fall of Assad

William Christou, 'Looted from Syria, sold on Facebook: antiquities smuggling surges after fall of Assad' Guardian

Sun 8 Jun 2025 Experts and officials say the looting and trafficking of Syria’s antiquities has surged to unprecedented levels since rebels overthrew the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December, putting the country’s heritage further at risk.

According to the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research Project (ATHAR), which investigates antiquities black markets online, nearly a third of the 1,500 Syrian cases it has documented since 2012 have occurred since December alone.

“When the [Assad] regime fell, we saw a huge spike on the ground. It was a complete breakdown of any constraints that might have existed in the regime periods that controlled looting,” said Amr al-Azm, a professor of Middle East history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio and co-director of the ATHAR project.

The collapse of Syria’s once-feared security apparatus, coupled with widespread poverty, has triggered a gold rush. Located in the heart of the fertile crescent where settled civilisation first emerged, Syria is awash with mosaics, statues and artefacts that fetch top dollar from collectors in the west. [...]

Syria’s new government has urged looters to stop, offering finder’s fees to those who turn in antiquities rather than sell them, and threatening offenders with up to 15 years in prison. But preoccupied with rebuilding a shattered country and struggling to assert control, Damascus has few resources to protect its archaeological heritage.

Much of the looting is being carried out by individuals desperate for cash, hoping to find ancient coins or antiquities they can sell quickly. In Damascus, shops selling metal detectors have proliferated while ads on social media show users discovering hidden treasure with models such as the XTREM Hunter, which retails for just over $2,000 (£1,470).

With 90% of Syria’s population living in poverty, stopping desperate individuals from looting is a gargantuan task. Instead, experts have said that the responsibility for regulation should fall on the west, which is the primary buyer of the Middle East’s cultural antiquities.

“How do we stop this? Stop the demand in the west,” [Amr al-Azm, professor of Middle East history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio and co-director of the ATHAR project] said. “Until the security issue improves, you won’t see an improvement. We focus on the supply side to abrogate the responsibility of the west.”