7 Historic Treasures Destroyed in Wars that Travelers Will Never Get to See

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5Temple of Bel — Palmyra, Syria

Often described as the Middle East’s most important temple alongside Baalbek in Lebanon, the Temple of Bel was built between 32 BC and the second century AD. Throughout its long history, it served first as a place of worship for the eponymous Semitic god Bel, before becoming a church and, later, a mosque.

That all changed in late-August 2015 when the UN revealed that much of the site — including the temple’s main building — had been destroyed by the Islamic State in a targeted attack on Syria’s diverse cultural heritage. Little remains of the Temple of Bel today, besides a few outlying columns.