( CNN ) Thousands more art treasures could be destroyed in Iraq and Syria , antiquities experts fear , after ISIS released a video showing militants smashing artifacts at a museum in Mosul , Iraq . `` It 's tragic to see this destruction , '' William Webber , from the UK-based Art Loss Register , told CNN . `` Each time you see this you think it ca n't happen again , but it does . Now other Greco-Roman treasures are at risk around Mosul in Iraq , as well as other artifacts in Palmyra and Raqqa in Syria . '' The video shows men taking sledgehammers to statues , and hammers and drills to the treasures . Qais Hussain Rashid , director general of Iraqi museums at the Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism , said Friday on Iraqiya TV he believed most of the artifacts shown in the ISIS video were real -- including a famed , millennia-old winged bull that 's seen being defaced with a drill . `` Mosul Museum has 173 original pieces , and there were preparations to reopen the Mosul Museum before ISIS invaded the city on June 2014 , '' Rashid said . He added that Mosul has more than 1,700 historical sites that are potentially at risk . An unnamed militant offers the following explanation : `` These antiquities and idols behind me were from people in past centuries and were worshiped instead of God . `` When God Almighty orders to us destroy these statues , idols and antiquities , we must do it , even if they 're worth billions of dollars . '' CNN has extensively reported on ISIS ' destruction of some ancient and deeply meaningful sites in Iraq . Officials there have said ISIS has blown up shrines such as the tomb of Jonah . `` If you 're going to eradicate someone 's identity the best way is to eradicate their art , '' Webber said . `` They see this art as blasphemous because it portrays deities . In areas of Syria , ISIS is also attacking anything that 's pre-Islamic or that they do n't agree with in Shia areas or in Christian churches . '' Most of the sculptures being destroyed were from the Assyrian period [ roughly 2500 to 605BC ] , Webber said . Militants were pulling them over and smashing them ; bigger relief pieces were being smashed with hammers . `` It 's very depressing and shocking . If they have control of the whole museum they could destroy the whole lot , or sell some pieces such as coins , tablets and cylinder seals . '' It 's unclear from the footage how many of the pieces were originals , versus replicas . Webber said he hoped that some of the items were copies rather than the real thing , but added that at least some of those shown in the video were genuine . `` Much of the material in the museums was made out of limestone or fragile stone , so if you threw it to the floor it might look as though it was made of plaster of Paris , but really it 's just fragile . It 's tragic to see it . '' Webber said that following vandalism at provincial museums in the wake of the first Gulf War , many antiquities were moved to Baghdad , where they were ransacked in 2003 . `` It appears that they had not been moved from this museum in Mosul . '' Other experts agreed that the items destroyed appeared to be genuine . `` On repeated viewing of that very grainy video , we now suspect that there ( were ) far more originals in the museum than I first thought , '' said Eleanor Robson , chairwoman of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq . `` Whilst there was indeed a program to relocate antiquities to safekeeping in Baghdad , it looks now as though it did n't reach that particular museum . ''
Antiquities experts fear thousands more art treasures could be destroyed in Iraq and Syria after ISIS militants steal artifacts . Video shows men taking nails to statues , and hammers and nails to the treasures . Other Greco - Roman treasures are at risk around Mosul in Iraq , as well as other artifacts in Palmyra and Raqqa in Syria , says one expert .