Description
ISIS asked a man past eighty where the treasure was. Khaled al-Asaad had looked after Palmyra for forty years, and the city's fifteen-tonne lion once stood at the door of an ancient Arabian goddess, with a line on its paw blessing whoever sheds no blood. This is what happened to the man, the lion, and the treasure.
Small corrections to the narration: Khaled al-Asaad was 81 to 83, not 80 (sources differ on his birth year). The lion wasn't broken up in antiquity: after Rome took Palmyra in 272, the Roman army took it apart with its wall and laid the blocks in the temple's foundation. Manat's name most likely means "to mete out" fate. And the lion probably guarded the entrance to the temple's grounds rather than the temple door.
Sources: UNESCO (2017) · Reuters and AFP on the lion (2015–17) · AP on Khaled al-Asaad (2015) · Interview with Michał Gawlikowski, The Art Newspaper (2016) · Herodotus 3.8 · Ibn al-Kalbi (ranking of the three; many historians doubt how reliable his book is) · Palmyrene inscription PAT 1122
Accounts differ on why Khaled al-Asaad was killed. Syrian officials said he wouldn't reveal where antiquities were hidden. His son said he refused to pledge allegiance to ISIS. Gawlikowski, who knew him for fifty years, said there was nothing to reveal.
The lion was on show in the National Museum of Damascus from 2017. Should it stay there, or go back to Palmyra?
Music: "Lama Bada Yatathana" (piano) by Maizou Pianist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSRVPfw0mtk