Five years ago today, Islamic State beheaded the Syrian archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad in Palmyra.

The jhadis had conquered the city a few weeks before and were setting about their own personal version of ‘decolonising the curriculum’ by trying to remove all evidence of pre-Islamic civilisations in the Middle East.

Khaled knew what this meant.

A few months earlier the jihadis had destroyed the ancient ruins of Nimrud in Iraq. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31759555

He’d spent his life studying and preserving the Palmyra – which had been an important hub on the Silk Road - and as the Islamic State advanced on the city, worked to remove and hide some of the smaller artefacts.

The jihadis arrested the 82 year-old archaeologist and interrogated and tortured him.

They wanted him to tell them were he had hidden the artefacts so they could sell them to help fund their genocidal, slave-trading campaign across the region.

Khaled refused, so they dragged him into the city’s central square, chopped off his head and hung his corpse from the columns of Palmyra’s ruins.

I often think about Khaled – bravery and integrity of his calibre are not normal qualities – and was reminded of him, again, earlier this year when Madeline Odent @oldenoughtosay, a curator from Royston Museum @RoystonMuseum tweeted advice on how to destroy historical artefacts.

This was when our own, home-grown, totalitarian kiddies were smashing up statues around the country because they, too, want to ‘decolonise the curriculum’ and they too, think that old men like Khaled, - the ‘pale, male and stale’ - are just getting in the way.

I think someone must have taken Madeline’s advice to heart because shortly after someone used the techniques she had advised to do this to a statue in Bristol. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-53011774

Thankfully many of the smaller artefacts from these ancient, Middle Eastern cities have been preserved by the sacrifice of people of the calibre of Khaled.

Many others were already safe in Western museums such as the British Museum.

But with British museums now employing people like Madeline, I wonder how long they will be safe there?

RIP Khaled.