Iconic Ancient Temple Is Latest Victim in Civil War
The temple at Ain Dara in northern Syria was severely damaged in an airstrike by Turkish forces.
Much of the magnificent 3,000-year-old temple of Ain Dara, with its mysterious and massive footprints and a structure that provides clues for understanding the biblical temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, has been destroyed in a Turkish airstrike.
The temple, one of the largest and most extensively ancient excavated structures in Syria, is famous for its intricate stone sculptures of lions and sphinxes, and for its similarities to Solomon’s Temple—the first Jewish temple in Jerusalem, said to have held the Ark of the Covenant.
A Turkish airstrike destroyed much of the temple on Friday during an attack on the Kurdish-held area south of the city of Afrin, according to the Syrian Ministry of Culture and the Syrian Observatory for Human
