A blast rocked the ancient ruins in Syria’s Palmyra on Sunday but the site’s famed Temple of Bel appeared to be largely intact, Syria’s antiquities chief said.
Maamoun Abdulkarim confirmed reports of an explosion at the UNESCO World Heritage-listed site, but said Palmyra’s most important temple did not appear to have sustained major damage.
“The frontal columns and the cella (interior) of the temple do not appear to have been damaged,” Abdulkarim said on Monday.
“According to the information we received from the town, the temple is still standing, but antiquities staff are not able to enter the site to see close up,” he said. On Sunday night, a monitor and activists said the temple had been partially destroyed by ISIS group militants who detonated explosives inside the famed site. The reports came a week after the jihadist group blew up the smaller Baal Shamin temple at the Greco-Roman site.
That destruction was confirmed by photos published by the group and satellite images of Palmyra taken by the United Nations.