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Valuable statues and cultural objects have been removed from the National Museum of Syria in Damascus, sources confirm.

The burglary was found on the start of the week, when employees reportedly found that one of the museum's doors had been damaged from the inside.

The half-dozen taken sculptures were made of marble and traced back to the Roman period, an authority stated to the news agency.

Cultural heritage officials said it had opened an investigation to establish the "events surrounding the loss of a collection of exhibits", and that measures had been implemented to strengthen safeguarding and monitoring systems.

The head of internal security in the Damascus region, Brig-Gen Osama Atkeh, was referenced by the state-run Sana news agency as stating that security forces were probing the robbery, which he said had focused on several "historical artifacts and valuable objects".

He continued that guards at the facility and additional people were being questioned.

The Damascus Museum, which was created in the early twentieth century, houses the primary historical artifacts in Syria.

It includes ancient inscribed tablets originating to the Bronze Age from historical site, where indications of the earliest complete alphabet was found; Greco-Roman period Greco-Roman sculptures from historical site, one of the most important ancient sites of the historical period; and a third century synagogue that was established at another archaeological site.

The facility was compelled to shut in 2012, one year after the beginning of the devastating civil war. A large portion of the artifacts was evacuated and preserved at undisclosed sites to safeguard them.

It began limited operations in 2018 and resumed full operations in early this year, one month after opposition groups deposed President Bashar al-Assad.

Every one of the country's cultural landmarks were affected or partly ruined during the conflict.

The militant faction demolished numerous religious structures and additional edifices at the archaeological site, asserting that they were un-Islamic. International authorities denounced the damage as a war crime.

Numerous historical objects were also lost or stolen from historical locations and collections.