Photo: AfricaNews
Hatra was an important religious and trading centre under the Parthian empire. Recently it suffered from a brief but brutal jihadist rule. Now a private museum is trying to lure back visitors.
Source: UNESCO world heritage site Hatra receives boost as tourists return
Photo: CNN
Iraq – Hatra
UNESCO Director-General welcomes the liberation of Hatra and will send Emergency Assessment mission “as soon as possible”
Following several reports and discussions with the Iraqi authorities, UNESCO has confirmed the liberation of the archeological site of Hatra, located in the Governorate of Nineveh in Iraq.
The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, has reiterated her support to the government and people of Iraq and expressed the readiness of UNESCO to help protect and promote Iraqi heritage as a force for national cohesion, peace and recovery for the country.
“The liberation of the ancient city of Hatra, a UNESCO world heritage site, is good news for Iraq and beyond. For two years, Hatra has been one of the symbols of the cultural cleansing plaguing the Middle East” declared the Director-General.
Iraq – Hatra
Following several reports and discussions with the Iraqi authorities, UNESCO has confirmed the liberation of the archeological site of Hatra, located in the Governorate of Nineveh in Iraq. The Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, has reiterated her support to the government and people of Iraq and expressed the readiness of UNESCO to help protect and promote Iraqi heritage as a force for national cohesion, peace and recovery for the country.
“The liberation of the ancient city of Hatra, a UNESCO world heritage site, is good news for Iraq and beyond. For two years, Hatra has been one of the symbols of the cultural cleansing plaguing the Middle East. The destruction and looting of the remains of the capital of the first Arab Kingdom, is an immense loss for the Iraqi people and the world. ” declared the Director-General.
Iraq – Hatra
The full extent of destruction to Hatra, a historic UNESCO-listed site, is not yet known. The city’s liberation from the “Islamic State” is part of the battle by Iraqi forces to regain full control of Mosul.
Iraqi pro-government militias announced on Wednesday that they had wrested control of historic Hatra from radical Sunni “Islamic State” (IS) militants, who had previously inflicted grave damage to the ancient town’s walls, statues and buildings.
An official in Iraq’s Shiite parliamentary group stated that the US-backed “Popular Mobilization forces have managed today to liberate the town of Hatra after fierce battles with against [Islamic State].”
No details on potential causalities were provided.
Hatra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site founded in the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. and renowned for its temples, is located in the desert around 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of Mosul.
Iraq – Hatra
This week in the public square that has come to symbolize the heart of the Renaissance, Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, a freestanding arch appeared at the edge of the L-shaped square overnight.
With the imposing, crenellated Palazzo Vecchio, now City Hall, and the giant marble copy of Michelangelo’s David looming nearby, the arch appeared small and fragile.
Curious Florentines and visitors alike paused to gaze at it before reading the information plaque that explained it was a precise replica of the Monumental Arch of Palmyra, Syria, dating back to ancient-Roman times.
It is the same arch destroyed by ISIS in 2015 in an act that can only be described as iconoclastic idiocy.
Like many other archaeological sites in Iraq, access to Hatra has been limited by instability and cycles of violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Baghdad – The ancient city of Hatra withstood Roman invasions nearly 2,000 years ago and decades of more recent war and instability in Iraq but then jihadists marked it for destruction.
The Islamic State (ISIS) vandalised Hatra, 110km south-west of Mosul, and is reported to still have a presence in the area, which may put the famed archaeological site in the line of fire as Iraqi forces fight to drive the jihadists back.
Hatra, known as Al-Hadhr in Arabic, was established in the second or third century BC and became a religious and trading centre under the Parthian empire.
It was surrounded by two walls — one of earth and another of stone that was dotted with towers.
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Aizudin Zainal
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