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- Video has surfaced showing militants from the Islamic State destroying ancient
artifacts at a museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Men are seen toppling statues
and using sledgehammers and drills to destroy the artifacts. The Guardian
reports one of the statues destroyed was a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity
that dates back to the 9th century B.C. The Islamic State has also reportedly
destroyed the Mosul public library, which housed more than 8,000 rare books and
manuscripts. On Thursday, UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, called
for the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on protecting Iraq's
cultural heritage. "I condemn this as a deliberate attack against Iraq's
millennial history and culture, and as an inflammatory incitement to violence
and hatred," said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. We speak to Zainab
Bahrani, professor of Near Eastern and East Mediterranean art and archeology at
Columbia University.
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