Thieves in Syria are looting ancient artifacts from archaeological sites like Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage city dating back to the 3rd century BCE, and selling them on Facebook Marketplace. The looting has surged since the overthrow of former president Bashar al-Assad in December, with traffickers listing funerary gold, statues, and mosaics alongside ordinary secondhand goods. The Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project reports that nearly one-third of its 1,500 Syrian cases occurred in December alone, and sales are happening faster than ever—mosaics that once took a year to sell now move in two weeks.
This matters because the looting threatens Syria's irreplaceable cultural heritage, already damaged by Islamic State militants in 2015, and exploits widespread poverty affecting 90% of the population. Facebook Marketplace has become a new hub for these illegal sales despite the platform's 2020 ban on historical artifact transactions, as enforcement remains weak. The Syrian government has imposed jail sentences of up to 15 years and offered finder's fees for returned artifacts, but limited resources and political instability hamper protection efforts. The case highlights the growing challenge of policing antiquities trafficking on mainstream social media platforms.