🔗 Share this article

Historic statues and cultural objects have been removed from Syria's National Museum in the capital, officials say.

The robbery was noticed on the start of the week, when employees apparently found that one of the museum's doors had been broken from the inside.

The half-dozen taken statues were made of marble and originated to the ancient Roman times, an authority informed the Associated Press.

The nation's antiquities authority said it had launched a probe to identify the "events surrounding the disappearance of a collection of items", and that actions had been taken to improve safeguarding and monitoring systems.

The chief of internal security in the Damascus region, Brig-Gen Osama Atkeh, was cited by the state-run Sana news agency as saying that authorities were investigating the incident, which he said had focused on several "ancient sculptures and valuable objects".

He noted that security personnel at the facility and additional people were being interviewed.

The National Museum, which was founded in the early twentieth century, contains the primary historical artifacts in the country.

It includes ancient inscribed tablets tracing back to the ancient era from Ugarit, where indications of the earliest writing system was found; Greco-Roman period classical statues from the ancient city, one of the most important ancient sites of the historical period; and a ancient synagogue that was built at an ancient location.

The institution was forced to close in the early 2010s, one year after the start of the devastating civil war. The majority of the collection was evacuated and stored at undisclosed sites to safeguard them.

It began limited operations in recent years and completely reopened in early this year, a month after opposition groups deposed the Assad regime.

Every one of the country's cultural landmarks were affected or partially destroyed during the civil war.

The Islamic State group demolished several temples and other structures at Palmyra, claiming that they were un-Islamic. The cultural organization denounced the destruction as a atrocity.

Numerous cultural items were also destroyed or stolen from archaeological sites and collections.