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Ancient statues and additional items have been stolen from Syria's National Museum in the capital, sources confirm.

The theft was found on Monday, when museum workers reportedly found that a doorway had been damaged from the inside.

The six taken pieces were crafted from marble and traced back to the ancient Roman times, a source informed the Associated Press.

Syria's Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums said it had launched a probe to identify the "events surrounding the theft of a collection of items", and that actions had been enacted to improve security and monitoring systems.

The director of internal security in Damascus province, Brig-Gen Osama Atkeh, was cited by the government press as stating that law enforcement were investigating the robbery, which he said had affected several "historical artifacts and valuable objects".

He continued that security personnel at the institution and additional people were being interrogated.

The cultural institution, which was created in the early twentieth century, contains the most important cultural treasures in Syria.

It features clay cuneiform tablets originating to the 14th Century BC from an ancient city, where proof of the most ancient linguistic system was discovered; 1st and 2nd Century AD classical statues from historical site, a significant ancient sites of the classical era; and a 3rd Century AD Jewish temple that was built at another archaeological site.

The facility was had to cease operations in 2012, a year after the outbreak of the destructive conflict. A large portion of the artifacts was transferred and stored at undisclosed sites to ensure their safety.

It partially resumed in 2018 and returned to normal in the beginning of the year, one month after insurgents removed Syria's former leader.

Every one of nationally recognized sites were harmed or partly ruined during the civil war.

The IS organization demolished numerous temples and historical sites at the ancient city, asserting that they were un-Islamic. International authorities censured the damage as a war crime.

Many cultural items were also destroyed or looted from dig sites and cultural institutions.