Salt is destroying the ancient monuments of Iraq - a request to pray for their preservation.
Peace be upon you. The authorities in Iraq are sounding the alarm: monuments that have stood for thousands of years are rapidly crumbling due to climate change. Because of the hot dry weather, water evaporates from the soil faster, and the salinity increases. Salt is eroding the ruins of cities like Ur and Babylon, and global warming is also contributing to desertification and the emergence of sand dunes where there used to be none.
Abdullah Nasrallah, an archaeologist at the Department of Antiquities in Dhi-Qar Province, talked about the state of the 4,000-year-old pyramid in Ur: “The combination of wind and sand dunes is causing erosion in the northern part of the structure. The third layer is already damaged, and now erosion has reached the second layer too.”
Not far from the pyramid, salt is eating away at the tombstones in the royal cemetery of Ur, which was uncovered in the 1920s. Kazem Hossun, an employee of the antiquities department, noted that salt deposits have appeared due to global warming, and they're destroying the clay bricks used to build all these structures.
The monuments of the Mesopotamian civilization in Ur are included in UNESCO's World Heritage list. In Babylon, ancient buildings are also made of clay and suffering from salt corrosion. Archaeologists fear that salt could also damage those artifacts that are still buried: “The high salt content threatens both surface monuments and those that have yet to be excavated,” said Montasir al-Hasnawi, the head of Iraq's Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
Please, remember in your prayers these historical sites and those who work to preserve them. May Allah ease the efforts of the scholars and safeguard our heritage.
https://islamnews.ru/2025/10/3