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It was carved for Yalhi bin Yalhabouda, a high
priest in Palmyra, upon his death in 120 AD, his status apparent
from his tall hat and laurel wreath. It was illegally dug up
during Islamic State's occupation of the desert town.
"This civilization is not only for Syria, but we are the
custodians of it and we preserve it for the world," said Khalil
Hariri, head of the Palmyra antiquities department.
Syria stood at the heart of the ancient Middle East, a crucible
for some of the world's earliest civilizations and was at times
incorporated into Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite,
Persian, Greek and Roman empires.
After its descent into a messy, multi-sided civil war in 2011,
when the country was fragmented into numerous enclaves, the
warring parties began to plunder that inheritance, looting
museums and excavating ancient sites.
Islamic State, which from its days as the al Qaeda branch in
Iraq had long experience of selling stolen antiquities for
profit, seized Palmyra and its extensive Roman-era ruins, a
UNESCO world heritage site, in 2015.
As with other parts of Syria and Iraq which it turned into a
short-lived "caliphate", it made a public show of destroying
many artefacts and ancient buildings as idolatrous, while
secretly benefiting from the illicit trade in historical goods.
The group blew up Palmyra's monumental arch and beheaded its
82-year-old antiquities chief, hanging his body from an ancient
column. After changing hands more than once, it was retaken by
the Syrian army last year.
The life-sized image of Yalhi bin Yalhabouda, standing out in
relief from a stone tombstone, was excavated from Palmyra's
ancient tombs, said the city's new antiquities chief Hariri, and
found in a house in the modern town.
It is inscribed with his name and year of death and shows him
carrying a cup of sacred oil and a bowl of cereal, such as would
have been ritually distributed after his demise.
Iconoclast jihadists had smashed part of the sculpture's cheek
and hat, but it was restored. As with all other stolen Palmyra
relics seized by the government, it will be returned to the
city, Hariri said.
But while thousands of stolen objects have been recovered, tens
of thousands more are missing - many of them likely outside
Syria and in the hands of specialist dealers ready to wait
decades before selling them to private collectors.
The 500 objects displayed in Damascus this week were from eras
ranging from 10,000 BC to the Islamic period and were found in
captured areas by the army, said Mahmoud Hammoud, head of
Syria's antiquities department.
(Reporting By Kinda Makieh, writing by Angus McDowall. Editing
by Patrick Johnston)
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