Iran-War: Near Middle East Burning – Ancient History Repeating?
“Troy has perished, the great city. Only the red flame now lives there.”
- Homer, The Iliad
Watching the Iran-war in the Near Middle East region, our news screens project scene after scene of ominous dark smoke billowing from yet another target hit by an airstrike. The first week of April 2026 heralded the announcement that airstrikes on Isfahan in Iran and southern Lebanon has increased.
Besides being a psychology postgraduate, I am also an archaeology graduate with a particular interest in ancient civilizations in the Near Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region. I infuse my passion for history and archaeology with my expertise as a psychological profiler of crimes. In this case, I call attention to crimes against our collective right to heritage as a human race, outside the arena of geopolitics.
Dr Micki Pistorius writes regularly about crime, psychology, and human behaviour through a historical lens. You can follow her work on Substack
For thousands of years these civilizations have attacked and conquered each other. Civilians were killed, raped, captured and enslaved. Once the walls of their cities were broken with catapulted stones and breached, their homes, marketplaces, temples and citadels were set on fire and their cultural heritage destroyed. Thousands of years later, sifting among the ruins and artifacts archaeologists try to piece together the broken stories of the people who had once lived here. Sometimes we are awed by the splendour of their palaces, amazed at their craftmanship and engineering skills or touched with tenderness at the simplicity of a child’s toy. Besides the recognition of the Kings and Queens, the identities of the masses that built and created these structures and lived there have been lost in the dust of time, but their legacy becomes our collective heritage.
In 1901 in Susa in Iran the Code of Hammurabi, considered one of the first comprehensive legal texts in history, was discovered. It was compiled in 1755–1751 BC by the Babylonian King Hammurabi who was appointed by the gods to rule “to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak”. Among other topics, the law covers land rights. Four thousand years later, one wonders if our level of ‘civilization’ at the time of the current geopolitical war raging in the Near Middle East can be benchmarked by our respect for our cultural heritage – acknowledged in our humanitarian law?
“While geopolitics, national borders, critical infrastructure and military installations constitute the physical geography of conventional warfare, cultural property constitutes critical elements of the human domain of its geography. If this holds true, and if culture and identity politics do remain at the center of armed conflicts, we can expect cultural property to play an increasing role in conflict geographies. A strong argument can thus be made for placing cultural property broadly viewed – including historical buildings, sites of worships, monuments – at the heart of the human domain concept, and thus the Special Operations doctrine,”
Reads the NATO SPS CPP Outcome Report Outcome Report, NATO and Cultural Property: Embracing New Challenges in the Era of Identity Wars, 2017, P30.
Four thousand years after the Code of Hammurabi, and we came up with the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two protocols as part of the wider framework of international humanitarian law.
Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of World Heritage Centre says UNESCO urges all parties (involved in the current war) to ensure that cultural and heritage sites remain safe and reminds them of their obligations under the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. UNESCO has communicated to all parties the geographical co-ordinates of sites inscribed on the World Heritage List as well as those of national significance “to avoid any potential, irreversible damage.”
Besides UNESCO there is The Blue Shield network, often referred to as the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, committed to protect cultural heritage sites under international law, in particular, the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols of 1954 and 1999.
Since 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse, and watching the smoke rising as the war unfolds on my tv screen, I recall many of the Near Middle East ancient cities that were destroyed by enemy fire, and many of them are facing the same threat now.
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ANCIENT PERSIA / IRAN
In ancient times it was customary to completely sack and burn cities, unless they surrendered to the conquering forces. In some cases, cities were deliberately burnt in retaliation attacks.
Sardis (498 BC) (modern-day Sart in western Turkiye)
In 547 BC, the Persian Achaemenid King Cyrus the Great burnt Sardis to the ground when he conquered the ancient Lydian kingdom in Anatolia. The fire destroying the fortifications soon spread to the residential areas, and wooden structures and objects inside buildings were reduced to charcoal. Sardis was rebuilt, incorporated into the Persian satrapy of Lydia and formed part of the royal road from Persepolis to serve as a gateway to the Greek world.
In 499 BC Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, incited the Ionian Revolt, a military rebellion by several Greek regions of Asia Minor against the Persian Achaemenid rule of King Darius the Great, and in 498 BC the Persian city of Sardis was again reduced to ashes. When King Darius the Great heard of the burning of Sardis, he swore vengeance upon the Athenians who participated in the Ionian revolt and tasked a servant with reminding him three times each day of his vow: “Master, remember the Athenians”. Eighteen years later in 480 BC Xerxes, the son of Darius, burnt down Athens and the temples to honour his father Darius’ resolve.
Finally in 447 BC the Athenians celebrated the end of the Greco-Persian Wars by constructing the Parthenon – a temple dedicated to Athena on the acropolis of Athens. For centuries, it stood as a monument to human engineering, architecture, art and craftsmanship adorned with beautiful sculptures. Greece was occupied by the Ottomans in 1456 and during the Sixth Ottoman–Venetian War in 1687, the Ottomans used the Parthenon as a munitions store. It was bombed and almost completely destroyed by the Venetians. From 1800 to 1803, the 7th Earl of Elgin controversially removed many of the surviving sculptures to England. Since 1975 strenuous restoration has been ongoing to restore it to its former splendour. The Parthenon has become a symbol of humankind’s collective cultural heritage, appreciated all over the world. No-one can gaze upon it and not regret the Venetian bombing and no-one has even considered bombing Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice in retaliation.
The Burning of Persepolis (330 BC)
Persepolis, a ceremonial seat of the Persian Achaemenid kings was built by Darius the Great, in the sixth century BC. The complex consisted of many palaces, or ceremonial halls where the vassals of the vast Achaemenid empire brought homage to the kings during the celebration of Nowruz, (20 March) occurring at Spring equinox and heralding the Persian New Year. In 330 BC during his campaign to conquer Persia, Alexander the Great finally entered Persepolis and after a drunken celebration revelry, his troops burnt down the great palace complex, including the palace of Xerxes, the son of Darius, and the surrounding city. Some ancient sources suggest it was a deliberate act of revenge for the burning of Athens and its temples by Xerxes I in 480 BC, while others report it as a drunken impulse urged on by the Athenian courtesan Thais.
Adur Gushnasp (623 AD):
During the Sassanid Empire (224 BC–651 AD), Adur Gushnasp, located in the city of Shiz, was one of three major Fire Temples. This temple was constructed by the Sassanian kings, the warrior class. King Bahram V (r. 420–438 AD) celebrated Nowruz at this site. Several kings after him made offerings at Adur Gushnasp, especially before they went into battle. In 623/4 AD during the Byzantine–Sassanian War, Adur Gushnasp was completely destroyed by fire, but not before the Iranians saved the sacred fire. It burned until the 11th century AD, when a Muslim ruler built his palace on top of the ruins of the Fire Temple.
Daily, we see retaliation attacks from all parties in the current Iran War.
Iran 2026
Following the American assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, president Donald Trump wrote in a social media post that “if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have … targeted 52 Iranian sites … some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.” Six years later, to date, in the current 2026-Iran War, 56 cultural sites, museums and historical sites have been damaged, although not targeted as direct hits.
Tehran: Golestan Palace
The Golestan Palace in Tehran consists of a complex of eight palatial royal structures, extended from earlier palaces in Tehran’s royal citadel, dating back to the reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I (r. 1666–1694). Agha Mohammad Khan of the Qajar dynasty (1742–1797) chose Tehran as his capital and the palace of Golestan became his official residence. The palace was extended to its current form in 1865 by Haji Ab ol Hasan Mimar Navai. During the Pahlavi era (1925–1979), the Golestan Palace was used for formal receptions, such as the coronation of Reza Shah, who ironically had a large part of the complex demolished. The Golestan Palace was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and repurposed as a museum. It showcases magnificent craftsmanship in tile work and stained-glass windows and mirrors.
On 2 March 2026, shockwaves and debris hit the complex shattering windows, doors, mirrors and statues after an air strike on nearby Arg Square.
Isfahan: Chehel Sotoun Palace
Cyrus the Great (559–530 BC) unified Persian and Median lands into the Achaemenid Empire and Isfahan became an example of his policy of religious tolerance, where diverse ethnical groups and people of different religions lived together. Another example of Cyrus’ tolerance was to release the captive Jews from Babylon and allowing them to return to Jerusalem in 538 BC.
The Sassanid Empire presided over massive changes in their realm, instituting sweeping agricultural reforms and reviving Iranian culture and the Zoroastrian religion.
Queen Shushandukht, the Jewish wife of Sassanid Emperor Yazdegerd I (reigned 399–420 AD) and mother of Bahram V who celebrated Nowruz at Adur Gushnasp Fire Temple, settled a colony of Jewish immigrants in Yahudiyyeh, just two miles northwest of the Zoroastrian city of Gabae on the northern bank of the Zayanderud river. After the Arab conquest of Iran, Gabae and Yahudiyyeh merged to become the city of Isfahan. The Arabs made Isfahan the capital of al-Jibal province in 642 AD. Isfahan grew prosperous under the Persian Buyid dynasty. The Turkish conqueror and founder of the Seljuq dynasty, Toghril Beg, elevated Isfahan as the capital of his domains in the mid-11th century.
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Isfahan’s city’s golden age began in 1598 when the Safavid ruler Abbas the Great (reigned 1588–1629) made it his capital and rebuilt it into one of the largest and most beautiful cities of the 17th-century. He commissioned the building of Chehel Sotoun pavilion and garden. Chehel Sotoun is famously known for its frescoes and ceramic work.
Those art works have now been damaged in the Iran War. Other Safavid palaces Ashraf Hall, Ali Qapu Palace and the Masjed-e Jāmé in the vicinity have also sustained damage.
The governor of Isfahan has accused America and Israel of a “declaration of war on a civilisation” as heritage sites across the country suffer damage in their bombing campaign.
Khorramabad: Pre-historic valley and Falak-ol-Aflak Castle
Archaeological evidence shows humans occupied the caves and rock shelters of Khorramabad Valley 63,000 years ago. The Khorramabad Valley was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2025 and despite UNESCO providing geographical coordinates of the sites to all combatants, scarcely a year later, this as yet unexplored site holding potential for future discoveries, has now been damaged.
Thirteen kilometres further 1,800-year-old Falak-ol-Aflak Castle, dating back to the reign of Sassanid King Shapur I, crowns the city of Khorramabad. It was narrowly missed being hit in March 2026, but the administrative offices as well as adjacent archaeological and anthropological museums were hit and five members of staff were injured.
Visuals of damage to these cultural sites have been trickling in through individual’s social media accounts. According to Professor Patty Gerstenblith, chair of the Blue Shield International Working Group on Countering Trafficking of Cultural Objects, the internet ban limits access to on-the-ground reporting and satellite imagery, preventing independent verification of damage. It is believed conscientious Iranian cultural officials have taken pro-active measures to protect its moveable heritage, for example by boxing up museum items for safekeeping and installing the Blue Shield logo on more than 100 cultural monuments.
ANCIENT PHOENICIA / LEBANON
The Phoenicians was a maritime civilization that descended from the Bronze Age Canaanites, who inhabited city-states along the Levantine coast of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily in present-day Lebanon and parts of coastal Syria.
Tyre
As a key Phoenician port, Tyre has been one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world spanning 4,700 years. It became the main city of the Phoenician civilization in 969 BC under the Tyrian King Hiram I, who forged close relations with the Hebrew kings David and Solomon as he exchanged cedar wood for the construction of the temple in exchange for trade goods. Kings Hiram and Solomon also formed a maritime Red Sea trade union. Later King Ahab of Israel married Queen Jesebel of Tyre.
Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered the Tyre in 539 BC. It fell under Persian rule in 572 BC and was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. It remained largely independent during the Roman era and the Tyre Hippodrome - now a UNESCO World Heritage site - dates back to the second century AD. It was destroyed during the 551 AD Beirut earthquake.
Relations between Tyre and Israel remained cordial as Jewish sages from Israel, including amoraim such as Yaakov of Naboria and Rabbi Mana bar Tanchum, travelled to Tyre to engage in halakha instruction, answer questions, and interpret biblical verses. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai highlighted permissible Shabbat travel routes, including one from Tyre to Sidon. Under the early Muslim period Tyre became a multi-cultural centre of the Arab world which hosted many well-known scholars and artists and a large Jewish community, involved in trade, prospered in the city.
On 7 July 1124, in the aftermath of the First Crusade, Tyre was the last city to be taken by the Crusaders and it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Jewish community remained active in producing and trading glassware, silk and purple dye. The original Temple of Melquart, was replaced by the Fatimid Grand Mosque and eventually the Saint Mark Cathedral. In 1291 Tyre was conquered by the Mamluk Sultanate’s army of Al-Ashraf Khalil, who burnt the city and destroyed the cathedral.
Two years later Tyre sank into obscurity. It was revived and fell again during the Ottoman and Egyptian periods and eventually Tyre was captured on 24 September 1839 during allied naval bombardments. During the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, Napoleon III commissioned archaeological excavations.
On 1 September 1920, the new State of Greater Lebanon was proclaimed, under the guardianship of the League of Nations represented by France. According to the 1921 census, 83% of Tyre’s population were Shiites, 4% Sunni, and some 13% Christians.
Lebanon officially gained independence from the French Mandate on November 22, 1943. When the state of Israel was declared in May 1948, thousands of Palestinian refugees fled to Tyre and this reoccurred after the Six-Day War of June 1967. Today, Tyre (modern-day Sour) hosts three of the twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, however the population of neighbouring towns are now flooding it in the wake of evacuation warnings.
During the previous Israel-Hezbollah conflict from October 2023 – November 2024, Tyre was heavily bombed by the Israeli army and continued to be periodically targeted, despite the cease-fire agreement.
In September 2025, the UNESCO archaeological site of the Hippodrome caught fire. Maha Chalabi, president of the Lebanese Committee for the Safeguarding of Sour (Tyre) called it a deliberate intent to attack Lebanese monuments to erase national identity.
Since late March 2026, Al Jazeera reported Israel issued urgent evacuation orders for several areas in and around Tyre, targeting locations near historical sites. Heavy airstrikes are continuing and most bridges over the Litani River have been destroyed, isolating the city from the rest of Lebanon. Israeli defence minister said Israel would apply a ‘Gaza approach’ to southern Lebanon, meaning cities and towns would be razed, to create a buffer-zone. Will 4,700 years of human heritage be obliterated? The next few days will tell us.
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Baalbek
Just east of the Litani river in the Beqaa valley, scarcely 4 miles from the city of Baalbek, lies another world-famous UNESCO world heritage site, the Roman temple complex of Baalbek.
Humans have occupied Baalbek for 11,000 years but it has become an attraction due to the temple complex, considered an outstanding archaeological and artistic site of Imperial Roman Architecture. It includes the Temples of Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus. Their exact age is undetermined but they were probably built during the second and first century BC. However, there is archaeological evidence that these temples were erected on older temples built during the first three millennia BC (Canaanite period), primarily devoted to the Heliopolitan Triad: a male god (Baʿal), his consort (Astarte), and their son (Adon).
In October 2024 Baalbek-Hermel Governor Bachir Khodr expressed concern that Israeli airstrikes hit 500 meters from the Baalbek archaeological site. The city of Baalbek is known as a seat for Hezbollah and has seen increased airstrike activity since March 2026.
JERUSALEM
Temple in Jerusalem
The First Temple in Jerusalem was built in the 10th century BC, during the reign of King Solomon who ruled over the united Kingdom of Israel. King Hiram of Tyre sent cedar wood for the building of this temple referred to as the Temple of Solomon. Relations were good between Tyre and Israel then as the two kings also formed a naval pact. King Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 587 BC, during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. However in 538 BC, Achaemenid Persian King Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple.
During the reign of the Persian Achaemenid King Darius the Great, the Second Temple, constructed around 516 BC, was completed. It was later enhanced by Herod the Great, the Roman client Jewish king of Judea, around 18 BC, consequently also being known as Herod’s Temple thereafter. In 70 AD during the First Jewish–Roman War, the Second Temple was destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Only the Western Wall remained. A Roman temple was erected on the former site of Herod’s Temple for the practice of Roman religion.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built at the site of Christ’s crucifixion at Golgotha under Constantine the Great of Byzantine, in the 4th century AD
The Sassanian Empire ruled ancient Iran from 224 BC to 654 AD. In 614 AD, during the Byzantine–Sassanian War, between 20,000 and 26,000 Jewish rebels joined the Sassanian army’s assault on Byzantine Jerusalem and it was sacked, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For the first time since 136 AD, the Jews were allowed to re-enter Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was first conquered by the Arabs in 636 AD. In 691, the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik commissioned the construction of the Dome of the Rock over a large outcropping of bedrock on the Temple Mount. The Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the same axis as the Dome of the Rock in the eighth century AD, but suffered much damage during earthquakes and was frequently restored.
Al-Aqsa Mosque
The Muslim conquest of the city had solidified Arab control over the region of Palestine, which remained part of various Sunni Caliphates until the Shia-led Fatimid Caliphate took over in 969. In 1073 the Seljuk Turks took control of Jerusalem, and Christian rulers regained control at the time of the First Crusade in 1099 and established the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Tancred of Galilee is credited as the first Christian to enter Jerusalem during its conquest in 1099. Many of the city defenders surrendered to Tancred and he gave them his banner to fly over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and promised them protection. However, once the rest of the Crusaders entered the city, they had a bloodlust and massacred the refugee soldiers in the mosque, defying Tancred’s promise. It was recorded to have been knee-deep in blood. Thereafter the mosque was used as a palace and as the headquarters of the religious order of the Knights Templar.
The second wave of Islamization occurred after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 won by Saladin. The eventual fall of the Crusader states by 1291 led to a period of almost-uninterrupted Muslim rule that lasted for seven centuries, and a dominant Islamic culture was consolidated in the region during the Ayyubid, Mamluk and early Ottoman periods. In1917 the Ottomans were defeated by the British at the Battle of Jerusalem during the First World War. Since the 19th century, the Old City has been divided into four quarters—the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters. Jerusalem was proclaimed the capital of the State of Israel in 1949. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981.
Jerusalem 2026.
Large fragments from Iranian missiles landed near the Temple Mount, close to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in March 2026.
Comment
‘Dolus malus’ means: “evil intent, a Latin legal term that applies to crimes that are committed wilfully and with the intention of harming, rather than accidentally or without the intention of hurting anyone or damaging anything.”
As a psychologist my empathy lies with the daily turmoil, devastation and post-traumatic stress experienced by the innocent civilians being displaced and those who lost loved ones in the war. As an archaeologist my anger rises as I read about air strikes ‘perilously close to historical sites’. We cannot say victims who die in arson or bomb attacks are incidental and we cannot say historical cultural heritage being blown up is collateral damage. We need to take accountability.
I write about crime, not only about the perpetrators but also about the plight of the victims and the suffering of the communities – destroying these heritage sites is a crime against us all, it is a transgression of humanitarian law.
Four thousand years ago, King Hammurabi was portrayed as dutiful in restoring and maintaining temples. His code warned those who defied the laws would experience the wrath of the gods:
“may the god [of wisdom] Ea ... deprive him of all understanding and wisdom, and may he lead him into confusion.”
What would archaeologists two thousand years into the future say of us, and our ‘civilization’ when they uncover the concrete rubble that once was ancient Canaan, the destruction of Phoenician harbours and temples or when they excavate the ruins of palaces that had stood for thousands of years in Persia and the broken Temples and Mosques of Temple Mount in Jerusalem, before some 21st century idiots, deprived of wisdom, destroyed it?
America, Israel, and Iran are all parties to the 1954 Hague convention, which requires that cultural sites be protected during conflict.
At the onset of the Οperation Epic Fury, American Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said:
“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win and we don’t waste time or lives. As the president warned, an effort of this scope will include casualties. War is hell and always will be.”
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