Iraq and Syria Cultural Heritage Destruction Resources List

Here’s a quick round-up of a few of the programs and resources mentioned last night:

• The American Schools of Oriental Research is running Heritage Monitor, a website to enable people to submit anonymous reports when they observe the destruction of cultural heritage sites and objects. The website is available in both English and Arabic and allows users to submit photographs and tag geographic locations.http://www.heritagemonitor.com/en
  
• ASOR’s Syrian Heritage Initiative publishes weekly updates on new destructive actions in Syria.http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/
  
• The American Association for the Advancement of Science is sponsoring the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project, which is providing satellite photographs of war damage in Syria.http://www.aaas.org/program/geospatial-technologies-and-human-rights-project
• The International Council of Museums maintains a Red List Database for a number of countries, including Iraq and Syria. The database is not a database of stolen artifacts and is not exhaustive, rather, the lists are designed to help customs officials and art collectors identify types of artifacts which are likely to have been stolen.http://icom.museum/resources/red-lists-database/
• The International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property runs programs based in the United Arab Emirates to train heritage conservation professionals from throughout the Arab world.http://athar-centre.org/
• The Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage works with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and the Kurdistan Regional Government also works to train Iraqis in historic preservation and heritage conservation.http://www.artcons.udel.edu/public-outreach/iraq-institute