A fire destroys the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 2, 2018. Founded in 1818, it housed several landmark collections including Egyptian artifacts and the oldest human fossil found in Brazil. The bulk of its collection of more than 20 million items was destroyed or badly damaged.

Damage in Palmyra after Syrian troops recaptured the ancient city from the Islamic State on March 2, 2017. Militants destroyed the facade of the Roman amphitheater, a second-century UNESCO World Heritage site.

Left: Afghan girls walk past the empty seat of Buddha destroyed by the Taliban in Bamiyan on July 6, 2008. Right: A view of the taller Bamiyan Buddha statue, known as Salsal and dating to the sixth century, in its giant niche in November 1975.

The remains of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, built between 1884 and 1914, after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010. The National Palace and the Supreme Court also collapsed in the quake that killed an estimated 230,000 people.

India’s National Museum of Natural History, which housed thousands of irreplaceable natural specimens including a 160-million-year-old dinosaur bone, is destroyed by a fire in New Delhi on April 26, 2016.

Zahi Hawass, the Egyptian state minister of antiquities, shows one of the pieces damaged by protesters and repaired at the Egyptian Museum on Feb. 16, 2011. Arab Spring demonstrators broke into the museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, shattering 13 display cases and damaging at least 70 artifacts.

The remaining walls of the Rova of Antananarivo seen in March 2005 after it was gutted by a fire in 1995. The palace, which has since been restored, dates to the 17th century and was home to Madagascar royalty.

U.S. coalition forces, seen in May 2008, set up a military base on a Babylonian archaeological site in 2003, making it a regular target of attacks and causing damage from heavy tanks and artillery during the Iraq War. The site includes the Ziggurat temple dating to 2,100 B.C., the remains of Abraham’s house, 7,000-year-old graves, and an important unexcavated site.

The ruins of Dharahara Tower in Kathmandu, Nepal, on April 24, 2016. An earthquake in 2015 destroyed the nine-story tower, built in 1825.

Firefighters battle a fire at the Namdaemun gate in Seoul on Feb. 10, 2008. The city’s oldest wooden structure, called “National Treasure No. 1,” was constructed in 1398, rebuilt in 1447, and had been frequently renovated. Since the fire, set by an arsonist, the gate has been completely rebuilt.

The Keriya mosque, built in 1237, in Xinjiang, China, on Sept. 17, 2012. Satellite images from 2018 shared by the student activist Shawn Zhang appear to indicate that the mosque has been bulldozed as part of China’s campaign to destroy religious sites used by the local population.

Smoke and flames engulf the spire and roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15. The church was constructed between 1163 and 1345.