The video of ISIS running roughshod through an Iraqi museum in Mosul, defacing and smashing ancient statues is horrifying. Armed with sledgehammers, jackhammers, and other tools, members of the ultra-radical terrorist group destroyed millennia-old singular artifacts from the world’s earliest civilizations. The senseless destruction of cultural and historical monuments is a reminder of when Azerbaijan bulldozed, smashed, and pulverized an entire medieval Armenian cemetery – then turned it into a shooting range – not ten years ago.
Video of ISIS Destroying Museum Artifacts
Starting in 1998, Azerbaijan began to bulldoze thousands of intricately carved Armenian burial stones in Julfa, Nakhijevan, a territory granted to Azerbaijan during the USSR. After the turn of the century, Azerbaijani soldiers used sledgehammers to break up the headstones, some being reduced to mere gravel. The stones were then dumped in the Arax River, erasing any trace of Armenian culture there. The site of the cemetery was turned into a military shooting range shortly thereafter.
Video of Azerbaijanis Destroying Armenian Cemetery
ISIS destroyed artifacts over 2,500 years old; Azerbaijan destroyed and desecrated the final resting place of thousands of people. There is no better or worse, just different shades of sick.
Sick indeed! Steven Sim’s report on his 2005 visit to Nakhichevan is available here: http://www.djulfa.com/nakhichevan-2005-the-state-of-armenian-monuments/
Basically, once the authorities in Nakhichevan caught wind of Sim’s intention to survey the state of Armenian monuments and cultural heritage in the region, he was escorted by the police to Turkey. All denizens he encountered told him that Armenians have never lived in the region and that all images and studies of Armenian monuments are fabrications. You would think they would be confident enough in this position to have nothing to worry about but they have refused to allow third-party observers to survey the irreparable damage.
This is the message to us to be much more stronger so they can not distroy.
And we need to be much more smarter to ponish Them…