STORY HIGHLIGHTS      
    Baghdad (CNN) -- There's been no shortage of    news coverage of the atrocities carried out by ISIS against the    people of Iraq and Syria, from beheadings to massacres to    selling kidnapped women into sexual    slavery.  
    What's less well known is the devastation the Sunni extremist    group is wreaking on Iraq's priceless cultural heritage.  
    Thousands of years before the birth of Christ, the people of    Mesopotamia mastered the first writing system, mathematics,    astronomy, literature and law.  
    Iraq's past, however, is threatened by the nightmare of its    present.  
        ISIS is not only at war with the Iraqi state, it's also at    war with Iraq's very identity -- blowing up religious shrines,    slaughtering and enslaving minorities such as the Yazidis,    Christians and Turkmen, and executing its enemies.  
    And what it hasn't destroyed, ISIS is selling on the black    market.  
    Qais Hussain Rashid, director general of Iraqi museums, told    CNN of the depredations carried out by ISIS militants.  
    "They cut these reliefs and sell them to criminals and antique    dealers," he said, gesturing toward an ornate carving dating    back thousands of years.  
    "Usually they cut off the head, leaving the legs, because the    head is the valuable part."  
Excerpt from:
ISIS threatens Iraq's cultural heritage