Shortly after ISIS arrived in Palmyra, the regime launched air strikes on the city, heedless of its ancient monuments. A decade earlier, in 2003, the photographer Kevin Bubriski had been there, viewing the same sites through his Hasselblad lens. As if anticipating their fate, Bubriski preserved the beauty and grandeur of its various sites—including the Temple of Allat, the Valley of the Tombs, and the Monumental Arch—in exquisite black-and-white photographs that appear together for the first time in Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War. The book is a collection of arresting—and at times, haunting—photographs from three of Syria’s six UNESCO-designated world heritage sites. Five of these, including two captured in this volume, have since been partially or completely destroyed. 
Source : Syria’s Monumental Loss
