
Previously untouched 600BC palace discovered under shrine in Mosul - nns
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/27/previously-untouched-600bc-palace-discovered-shrine-demolished/
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mcphage
Is there any article or essay or something, attempting to track the
antiquities plundered by ISIL? ISIL digs these sites up to find relics to sell
on the black market, to fund their war—who's buying them? Do they know the
relics they're buying are funding ISIL? Do they care?

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onion2k
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_herita...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_ISIL)
Obviously as it's Wikipedia there's a strong chance it's biased in some way or
another, but it leads to pages that explain why ISIL blow stuff up.

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mcphage
I'm not talking about why ISIL blows stuff up. I'm talking about the
antiquities they plunder and sell—like what they dug up from this palace. And
again, not from ISIL's perspective, I know why they're selling it (money). I'm
wondering about the buyers—who buys the stuff ISIL is selling, and do they
know that's what they're buying?

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toyg
Does it matter? The alternative is to leave relics in the hands of people who
will blow them up. It's ransom money, basically.

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mcphage
Well, it also leaves the money in the hands of the people who won't blow them
up, so yes—it matters a great deal. And considering sites like in this
article—ISIL has no intention to blow it up—or even way to, given it's buried.
They're plundering it merely for items to sell on the black market, they're
not holding it for ransom. If there were no buyers, they wouldn't have dug for
it in the first place.

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empath75
It's seems like they knew this was there but hadn't don't much excavation
because they didn't want to destroy anything around it.

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jlebrech
they probably didn't want to damage the tomb of a prophet.

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edaemon
They revealed this palace by blowing up a prophet's tomb.

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bdefore
Untouched. Really?

