An ancient temple made famous in the film The Exorcist has fallen into the hands of the Islamic militants who have taken over northern Iraq, the Telegraph has learnt.
The pre-Christian worship complex at Hatra, a vast network of 200-ft high sun-god temples that is a Unesco world heritage site, features in the opening sequence of the 1973 horror classic.
But it now lies in the territory claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis), prompting fears that its stone statues could be destroyed as idolatrous images by the militants.
Already, Isis fighters in the city of Mosul, 70 miles north-west Hatra, have demolished a statue of Othman al-Mousuli, a 19th Century Iraqi musician and composer, and the statue of Abu Tammam, an Abbasid-era Arab poet.
A councillor from the Hatra area told The Telegraph that the 20-strong squad of Iraqi policemen who had guarded the temple from looters had fled after the area fell to tribal militants and Isis fighters a fortnight ago
Locals say that since then, the area has been targeted by Iraqi warplanes that have dropped bombs on the militants less than a mile from the temple itself.
“The guards all ran and left their weapons behind when they heard that the tribes and Isis were coming,” said councillor Mohammed Abdallah Khozal, whose own son was killed in the fighting with the militants.
“Currently there is no one protecting the temple at all, and it is in control of the rebels. I am concerned about its safety, although I am also worried about government forces doing bombing.”
An oasis of pre-Christian civilisation in the middle of the desert that stretches toward Syria, Hatra’s columns and statues make it one of the most impressive of Iraq’s archaeological sites.
Dating back to around the 3rd century BC, it is dedicated mainly to the sun god Shamash, whose statues and masks adorn its vast limestone and gypsum walls.
Director William Friedkin filmed in Hatra for the first scene in The Exorcist, in which a priest at an archaeology dig unearths an ancient talisman belonging to Pazuzu, an ancient Mesopotamian demon. A child bogeymen in Mesopotamian folklore, Pazuzu is said to be alerted whenever his talismans are disturbed or touched, and in The Exorcist he goes to possess a young American girl.
READ MORE
http://ift.tt/1muQPDM
No comments:
Post a Comment