The Ancient Ruins Terror Can’t Destroy (The New York Times)
Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/opinion/sunday/the-ancient-ruins-terror-cant-destroy.html?_r=1
"Old stones make time travel possible...It is their age that makes these stones worth knowing, not their condition. Decay and loss is the point... I’ll take some consolation knowing the site has been explored and recorded by waves of archaeologists for more than a century. We know Palmyra’s secrets, and cannot lose them." — Patrick Symmes
Awesome exploration of possible silver linings to ISIS's destructive vendetta against Western archaeological gems. Most interesting to me was that it's erroneous to think we've preserved many sites at all; older methods employed to protect the ancient world often incorporated rebuilding structures so that they look as they once did, not true reflections of what they've been through thus far.
Also worth reading: http://www.outsideonline.com/1926886/syria-world-closed(in which the Druse Walid's surreal character is further explored).
