PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Archeologists studying ancient civilizations in northern Iraq during the 1930s also befriended the nearby Yazidi community, documenting their daily lives in photographs that were rediscovered after the Islamic State militant group devastated the tiny religious minority.

The black-and-white images ended up scattered among the 2,000 or so photographs from the excavation kept at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, which led the ambitious dig.

In 2022, Penn doctoral student Marc Marin Webb discovered a photograph of a Yazidi shrine, nearly a decade after it was destroyed by IS extremists plundering the region. Webb collaborated with others to gather almost 300 photos to create a visual archive of the Yazidi people, who are among Iraq’s oldest religious minorities.

The systematic attacks, labeled a genocide by the United Nations, caused massive loss of life and displacement, decimating much of Yazidi cultural history. This has left the dwindling community scattered across the globe.

Emotional reactions emerged upon viewing the rediscovered photographs. Ansam Basher, now a teacher in England, felt overwhelming joy when she saw photos from her grandparents’ wedding in the early 1930s and stated, “No one would imagine that a person my age would lose their history because of the ISIS attack.”

The archive opens a window into Yazidi culture and heritage that IS attempted to erase. Marin Webb is collaborating with Toronto documentarian Nathaniel Brunt to present it to the Yazidi community through exhibitions and digital formats.

The first exhibitions began in April during the Yazidi New Year, serving as impactful reminders of their history amidst the backdrop of ethnic cleansing campaigns. Basher’s brother recognized their grandparents during the exhibit, bringing closure to some family history.

The collection, featuring traditional daily life, has allowed the Yazidis to reclaim their narrative, as Marin Webb noted, showing they are more than victims of violence. 

Despite facing long-standing persecution, the resilience of the Yazidi people is highlighted through these photographs as crises threaten their historical memory. Basher reflects on the contrast between the perception of Iraq and its actual richness, affirming, “We’ve been suffering a lot, but we still have some history.”

Marin Webb and others aim to wake the dormant collections in museums around the world, preserving cultural legacies before they vanish forever.