That’s why a team from the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) is turning to the next best option—using technology to protect cultural heritage.

Founded in 2012 by Roger Michel, IDA is a joint effort between Harvard University and Oxford University to create an open-source database of high-resolution images and three-dimensional graphics of things like paper and papyrus documents, epigraphs and small artifacts.

Work on what IDA has named the Million Image Database began in early 2015. — newsweek.com

Islamic State militants in northern Syria have blown up another monument in the ancient city of Palmyra, officials and local sources say.

The Arch of Triumph was "pulverised" by the militants who control the city, a Palmyra activist told AFP news agency.

It is thought to have been built about 2,000 years ago.

IS fighters have already destroyed two ancient temples at the site, described by Unesco as one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. — bbc.com

Islamic State has destroyed part of another ancient temple in the Syrian city of Palmyra, according to activists on social media and a group monitoring the conflict, this time targeting the Temple of Bel. [...]

It is the second temple that Islamic State has attacked in Palmyra this month. On 25 August, the group detonated explosives in the ancient Baal Shamin temple, an act that the cultural agency Unesco has called a war crime aimed at wiping out a symbol of Syria’s diverse cultural heritage. — theguardian.com

Islamic State blew up the ancient temple of Baal Shamin in the Unesco-listed Syrian city of Palmyra, the country’s antiquities chief has said. [...]

Baal Shamin was built in 17AD and it was expanded under the reign of Roman emperor Hadrian in 130AD. Known as the Pearl of the Desert, Palmyra, which means City of Palms, is a well-preserved oasis 130 miles north-east of Damascus. — theguardian.com

In an apparent video message, ISIS forces occupying the ancient city of Palmyra and its environs have stated that they do not intend to bulldoze its architecture, but plan to “pulverize” unspecified statues that they believe have been worshipped by “heretics” in the past. [...] The veracity of the message cannot be independently confirmed, but it has been assumed to be authentic by specialists on the subject, including the journalist Hassan Hassan, co-author of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.” — artinfo.com

Islamic State militants swept into the desert city of Palmyra in central Syria on Wednesday, and by evening were in control of it [...].

Palmyra has extra resonance, with its grand complex of 2,000-year-old colonnades and tombs, one of the world’s most magnificent remnants of antiquity [...] that has raised fears both locally and internationally that Palmyra, a United Nations world heritage site, could also suffer irrevocable damage. — nytimes.com

The ruins of an ancient city that have withstood centuries of conflict in the Syrian desert are now facing their greatest threat yet: the militants of the Islamic State.

Activists, officials and citizens of the city say ISIS has launched a prolonged assault on Palmyra, an "oasis in the desert" north of Damascus that the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO says contains the "monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world." — mashable.com

South of San Francisco, a whole town is being deformed by plate tectonics. [...]

This is Hollister, California, a town being broken in two slowly, relentlessly, and in real time by an effect known as “fault creep.” A surreal tide of deformation has appeared throughout the city.

As if its grid of streets and single-family homes was actually built on an ice floe, the entire west half of Hollister is moving north along the Calaveras Fault, leaving its eastern streets behind. — bldgblog.blogspot.com

My name is Abdallah AlQassab, nearly 50% of us are unemployed and we are very available to show you around — Theguardian

Islamic State militants ransacked Mosul’s central museum, destroying priceless artefacts that are thousands of years old, in the group’s latest rampage which threatens to upend millennia of coexistence in the Middle East.

The destruction of statues and artefacts that date from the Assyrian and Akkadian empires, revealed in a video published by Isis on Thursday, drew ire from the international community and condemnation by activists and minorities that have been attacked by the group. — theguardian.com

The Chinese government has promised to protect a rural mountain village that contains some of the country’s oldest temples and residences. [...]

Despite designating Banpo as a protected heritage site in 2007, the Jincheng city government nonetheless allowed the Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group to displace the village later that year. [...] Nearly every building was destroyed and those that remained were left in ruins. — theartnewspaper.com

The mere utterance of Vanport was known to send shivers down the spines of "well-bred" Portlanders. Not because of any ghost story, or any calamitous disaster—that would come later—but because of raw, unabashed racism. Built in 110 days in 1942, Vanport was always meant to be a temporary housing project, a superficial solution to Portland’s wartime housing shortage. [...] In a few short years, Vanport went from being thought of as a wartime example of American innovation to a crime-laden slum. — smithsonianmag.com

The city estimates that some 4,500 of its total 10,750 sidewalk miles are in disrepair. According to a 2007 USC study, the city repaired a grand total of 64 miles of sidewalks, or 1.4 percent of damaged sidewalks, improving the city’s backlog to 72 years.

The reasons for this civic embarrassment go back even longer than 72 years. They are twofold. One is political, the other arboreal. — nextcity.org

It is a cruel irony that a region so blessed with the treasures of early human civilizations is also among those most troubled by conflict. As the violence threatens to annihilate some of history's greatest monuments, we count the cost of our irreplaceable losses — edition.cnn.com

Six years ago the then-mayor launched an ambitious plan to reconstruct the lost walls, watchtowers and Ming-style homes of the city – resettling tens of thousands of residents and transforming Datong into a tourist site. Now few want to live here — theguardian.com