Cultural genocide in action
[Spoiler (click to open)]
ISIS Jihadists Destroy 3,000-Year-Old Statues in musuems.
ISIS burns Mosul library: Why terrorists target books.
In northern Iraq, Islamic State militants burned the Mosul public library, which housed more than 8,000 rare old books and manuscripts.
According to reports, ISIS militants rigged the entire building with explosives and carried out multiple detonations to raze the historical landmark and its contents. Among its lost collections, according to the Fiscal Times, were manuscripts from the 18th century, Syriac books printed in Iraq's first printing house in the 19th century, books from the Ottoman era, Iraqi newspapers from the early 20th century, and treasured antiques like an astrolabe and sand glass used by ancient Arabs.
The Exorcist shot on location in North Iraq in the 1970s at the Hatra Complex; the area is in territory claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq. It's not clear if the temples and statuary were destroyed.
Clip from The Exorcist:
Click to viewNBC Nightly News report on the destruction.
The desecration is "an affront to any civilized person anywhere," Peter Herdrich, co-founder of The Antiquities Coalition, told NBC News by email. "These objects are part of humanity's shared cultural heritage and help to tell the story of all of us. Since they are irreplaceable, it's impossible to put a value on them, so it is safe to say they are priceless." In New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N.'s cultural agency, UNESCO, is examining the video. "The destruction of cultural heritage is reprehensible and criminal," Dujarric said, adding that it robs current and future generations of their past.