| Summary/Abstract |
THE DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION of architectural monuments and works of art has a history that runs into millennia. The ravaging of Rome by the Gauls in 390 B.C., the demolition of churches during the 17th-century civil war in England, the methodical bombing of historic buildings during World War II, the destruction of cultural monuments in northern Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of it in 1974, the 1991 bombardment of the old part of Dubrovnik, a city that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has had on its World Heritage list since 1979, the smashing by the Taliban of two giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan's Bamyan mountains in 2001, looting and illegal archaeological excavations in Iraq after 2003, and the destruction of cultural objects by Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, Syria and Libya1 are just a few examples of the outrages that have deprived world civilization of cultural gems and have supplied the black market with antiquities.
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