The UN’s cultural agency UNESCO said two sites listed on its World Heritage list in Syria and Turkiye sustained damage in the devastating earthquake and warned several others may also have been hit.
The earthquake early Monday affected one of the longest continuously-inhabited areas on the planet within the so-called Fertile Crescent, which has witnessed the emergence of different civilizations from the Hittites to the Ottomans.
This rich history has left behind a plethora of archeological sites – many of them thousands of years old – which have been major tourist attractions for decades.
As well as the damage to the old city of Syria’s Aleppo and the fortress in the southeastern Turkiye city of Diyarbakir, UNESCO said at least three other World Heritage sites could be affected including the famous archaeological site Nemrut Dag.
