Revolutions - Help Scott Help Syria

Episode Date: June 8, 2015

Promoting a fundraising drive spearheaded by Scott Chesworth at the Ancient World podcast to help preseve Syria's massively important cultural treasures. Link to The Ancient World for all the Details. Direct Link to the Syrian Heritage Initiative Direct Link to Scott's findraising page for the International Rescue Committee  

Hello. For those of you who have been around since the history of Rome days, you know that I love the crisis for the third century in general, and the adventures of my favorite Emperor Aurelian in particular. Adventures that the city of Palmyra played a key role in. If you want a quick refresher on the history of all this and didn't see the link I posted the other day, I actually wrote an article for Reuters called When Paul Myra Rivaled the Roman Empire, and the link is posted up at the top of Revolutionspodcast.com. So you will probably not be surprised to learn that it was with mounting horror that I watched Islamic State advance on Palmyra at the end of May, and then with severe dread that I watched

them take the city. Palmira has been on my must-visit list for years. Google some pictures of the ruins. They are spectacular. And they now hang under a grave threat. Now, the last word we got is that Islamic State does not intend to destroy the ruins, only that they are going to destroy any statues that they deem pagan or idolatrous. I hope that's true, and I'm kind of horrified anyway, that they're going to destroy all the statues.

But this is all starkly highlighted what happens when one of the cradles of Western civilization gets engulfed in a 27-way civil war. Historical treasures that should be prominently displayed and studied are instead being smashed to bits, or hastily boxed up and carted off to God knows where. So this is all to say that Scott Chesworth of the Ancient World podcast has been watching this all unfold with similar dread, not just the Palmyra's situation, but everything that's been going on in Syria and Iraq over the last decade. And he has decided to try to help do something about it by spearheading a fundraising drive for two organizations. The first is the Syrian Heritage Initiative, whose mission is to document all the cultural destruction that has become so depressed. routinely routine, and then organize emergency responses if some new artifacts or site comes under threat. The second group is the International Rescue Committee, because though we all share this

niche interest in the legacy of the ancient world, what's happening over there is a real humanitarian crisis. So if you'd like to help the people caught in the middle, the International Rescue Committee are the ones providing critical refugee support. Or you can help both at the same time because this isn't some mutually exclusive choice between saving columns and arches on the one hand or living people on the other. You can do something to help both. So Scott has some prizes that he's doling out for contributions of various amounts and all you have to do is email him the receipt and you can get some cool ancient world prizes. One of which is if you give 150 bucks to one group or the other or split between the two, you'll get an autographed transcript of one of his episodes.

and I have decided to throw my hat into the ring on this one. So if you email me and say that you gave $150 to the Syrian Heritage Initiative or the International Rescue Committee or both, then I'll send you a signed transcript of the History of Rome episode 118, the Palmireen Wars. So please go to ancient worldpodcast.com or Revolutionspodcast.com for all the details. I'm going to go donate right now, and I hope that you will join me. The fundraising drive runs through June the 30th, and at the end of it, I'd like to be able to say that we made a difference, and that something precious that might have been destroyed was instead saved.