11/01/2018

SYRIA'S WAR-SCARRED MUSEUM


SYRIA'S National Museum of Damascus reopened its rich trove of antiquities to visitors again this Sunday, seven years after the war forced them to close and months after the government recaptured all rebel areas near the capital.

Only part of the  museum, and its collection drawn from the  civilizations  that have ruled  Syria over the millennia,  will be reopened immediately , its deputy director Ahmad Dech said.

''We will exhibit  a group of artefacts  from all periods from prehistory, the ancient east and the classical and Islamic eras in this section,'' he said.

The reopening is a sign of the government's attempts to restore normality in the capital after a succession of  Russia- backed  army victories since 2015 that have ended the threat to  President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

A bloody army offensive this spring forced the rebels to surrender western Ghouta in April, and the remaining insurgent enclaves near Damascus  capitulated in the following weeks.

The conflict continues, with swathes of the country still outside  Assad's control, but it has stablised with  Russian-Turkish  deal over the last rebel bastion in the northwest, and  U.S. backing for  Kurdish-led forces in the northeast.

The fate of  Syria's  ancient heritage has hung in the balance for much of the conflict, as fighting erupted in major sites such as Old City of Aleppo and others, including the desert ruins of Palmyra, fell into the hands of iconoclastic jihadists.

As the emergency began to spread in 2011, the government evacuated the museum's collection, one of the most important in the Middle East, along with those of provincial museums, hiding their artefacts far from the battlefield. [Agencies].

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