NEWPALMYRA Launches Online

21 October 2015

Open reconstruction of Palmyra goes public as ISIS destroys the ancient city

Archive note (2026): This milestone item was added to the news archive from project records and contemporaneous press coverage during the site modernization.

San Francisco, CA — NEWPALMYRA launched publicly in October 2015 as an online community to virtually reconstruct Palmyra and share the results under open licenses.

The project continued the Palmyra documentation Bassel Khartabil began in 2005, after his 2012 arrest left the original files unavailable. With the Islamic State's capture of Palmyra and destruction of major monuments that same year, the community focused on preserving what could be rebuilt from photographs, archaeology, and collective modeling work.

Global press coverage followed immediately — see the Press archive — and the first open models began appearing on newpalmyra.org/models/.

Date	21 Oct 2015
Title	NEWPALMYRA Launches Online