Replica of Syrian arch unveiled in New York City

Replica of Syrian arch destroyed by Isis unveiled in New York City

Model of Palmyra’s Arch of Triumph, an 1,800-year-old Roman arch blown up by the extremist group last year, was made using 3D printing technology

A recreation of the Palmyra arch, a Roman arch destroyed by Isis, goes on display at City hall Park in New York Photograph: Raya Jalabi for the Guardian

Raya Jalabi in New York

 

@rayajalabi

Tuesday 20 September 2016 13.19 EDT

 A recreation of Palmyra’s Arch of Triumph was unveiled in New York on Monday, almost a year after Islamic State militants destroyed the original structure.

The 1,800-year-old Roman arch was blown up by the extremist group last October, but a team of archeologists at Oxford University’s Institute for Digital archeology (IDA) set about recreating it, in an act of resistance to Isis’s rampant acts of cultural destruction in Iraq and Syria.

Standing at two-thirds the scale of the original, the arch is made of Egyptian marble and was built using 3D printing technology, based on photographs of the original arch.

Isis captured the city from government forces in May 2015, and progressively damaged its Roman-era ruins, staging mass executions in the ancient amphitheater. In addition to destroying artefacts, the extremist group looted and resold them to fund its activities.