Khaled Asaad

Khaled Mohamad al-Asaad (, January 1932 – 18 August 2015) was a Syrian archaeologist. He was the head of antiquities in the city of Palmyra for more than forty years. In May 2015, Palmyra came under the control of the terrorist militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Asaad was amongst those captured during this time. He was executed on 18 August 2015.Islamic State militants behead archaeologist in Palmyra - Syrian official , Aug 18, 2015.IS tötet früheren Chef-Archäologen von Palmyra, tagesschau.de, Aug 19, 2015.

Honours and medals
Syrian honors
 Order of Civil Merit (2015) - Awarded posthumously

Foreign honors
  Poland – Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1998)

  Italy – On 17 October 2015, the President of Italy inaugurated the rehabilitated  in Pisa which was renamed after al-Asaad.

Film
 A 2019 film titled Dam al Nakhl (Blood of the Palm Trees) portrays al-Asaad's brave resistance against the Islamic State.

Selected publications
 ; 2nd edition 1990.



 Asaad, Khaled; Yon, Jean-Baptiste (2001), Inscriptions de Palmyre. Promenades épigraphiques dans la ville antique de Palmyre (= Guides archéologiques de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie du Proche-Orient Bd. 3). Institut Français d'Archéologie du Proche-Orient, Beirut 2001; .
 Asaad, Khaled; Schmidt-Colinet, Andreas (eds) (2013), Palmyras Reichtum durch weltweiten Handel. Archäologische Untersuchungen im Bereich der hellenistischen Stadt. 2 vols. Holzhausen, Vienna 2013; , .

References

Other websites
 Virtual visit of Palmyra dedicated to Khaled al-Asaad

Category:1934 births
Category:2015 deaths
Category:Archaeologists
Category:Murders by blade weapons
Category:People murdered in Syria
Category:Syrian people