With all respect to the points in this article, and to archaeologists… I would rather reformulate the call to action as:
“Document in as much detail as possible, make the results available to as many as possible”.
All physical stuff gets destroyed over time, only information stands a chance of getting replicated forever.
Pretty difficult to document anything while it is having 2,000 pound bombs dropped on it.
And if that mosaic doesn’t get bombed into oblivion this time, it will get the next one.
Think about it this way: the pyramids were once white, in cities like Tarragona (present Spain) some buildings are made from chunks of Roman statues and stelae, we know a lot about Tutankhamen because he was a shitty forgotten pharaoh so his tomb didn’t get ransacked… until the British came. Italy has more ancient artifacts than it can care for… and so on.
Bombs, thieves, “recyclers”, and similar, have been destroying archaeological artifacts since the first guy smashed a useless old pot into pieces.
Such is life.
Good job on whoever took the photo that’s in the article.
