The man who saves history

In 2012, Professor Maamoun Abdulkarim was made head of antiquities at Syria’s National Museum. He wasn’t exactly thrilled by the promotion. “I had no idea how I could protect hundreds of thousands of objects from war and terrorists,” he told Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times. “If I wasn’t an optimist I would have lost my mind.” In the four years since then, Abdulkarim and his team of archaeologists have rescued more than 400,000 ancient artefacts from cities across Syria. They have worked night and day, smuggling the objects out of besieged areas, photographing and packing them, and hiding them in underground chambers throughout Damascus. He is aware that this may seem a strange priority to some. “I know that people’s lives are more important than heritage,” he says, “but my job isn’t to save people, it’s to save the memory of the country.”

This is dangerous work. Last year, after seizing the ancient Roman site of Palmyra, Isis captured his friend Khaled al-asaad, an 82-year-old archaeologist known as Mr Palmyra. “I said to Khaled, you should leave the city as I’m sure you will be condemned by Isis. But Khaled replied: ‘I’m an old man, my life is Palmyra, I live here and I will finish my life here.’” Sure enough, al-asaad was beheaded: one of 15 archaeologists, academics and museum guards to have lost their lives protecting Syria’s ancient treasures. “We are happy we rescued all this, but it has been a high cost,” says Abdulkarim. “I always say I am the saddest museum director in the world.”