Hatra, Ninawa Governorate, Iraq, ca. 3rd-2nd c. BCE. Seleucid Empire. Photos by Jean-Jacques Gelbart

Hatra, Ninawa Governorate, Iraq, ca. 3rd-2nd c. BCE. Seleucid Empire. Photos by Jean-Jacques Gelbart, via UNESCO.

On March 7, ISIS militants used bulldozers and explosives to raze the ruins of Hatra—the most recent in a series of atrocities rightly identified by UNESCO as “war crimes” and acts of “cultural cleansing.” Like the ancient city of Nimrud, with its great Palace of Ashurbanipal, the treasures of the Mosul Museum, and the countless antiquities scattered across the black market, Hatra is now lost to history. The site weathered centuries of upheaval, only to fall to a gang of thugs.

It seems inevitable, when reckoning with these losses, to compare them to the human casualties of ISIS. But to measure the worth of art against a human life is to miss the point. One informs and enriches the other, and in this time of intolerance and extremism, sites like Hatra were emblems of cultural diversity. With temples to the deities of at least five different faiths, Hatra reflected a pluralism repellent to ISIS. This erasure of Iraq’s cultural heritage is a symbolic gesture with tangible consequences, and not just for art historians and archaeologists. With so many Iraqi artworks exported to western museums, Hatra was an emblem of national identity. More broadly, it was a pinnacle of human achievement. It helped us understand how ancient peoples saw their world, and shaped the way we view our own.

News outlets have begun to report that another ancient city, Khorsabad, has fallen victim to ISIS. This is disgusting.