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Ancient statues and other artefacts have been removed from the National Museum of Syria in Damascus, authorities report.

The robbery was noticed on Monday, when museum workers apparently found that one of the museum's doors had been forced from the interior.

The multiple taken sculptures were marble creations and traced back to the ancient Roman times, a source told the Associated Press.

Cultural heritage officials said it had launched a probe to establish the "circumstances surrounding the loss of a group of exhibits", and that actions had been enacted to improve safeguarding and observation methods.

The director of national security in the capital area, Brig-Gen Osama Atkeh, was cited by the official media as saying that law enforcement were examining the robbery, which he said had targeted several "ancient sculptures and valuable objects".

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

The National Museum, which was established in the early twentieth century, contains the significant archaeological collection in Syria.

It features clay cuneiform tablets originating to the 14th Century BC from historical site, where evidence of the most ancient linguistic system was found; Greco-Roman period classical statues from Palmyra, a significant ancient sites of the ancient world; and a third century Jewish temple that was built at another archaeological site.

The museum was forced to close in the early 2010s, one year after the beginning of the internal strife. A large portion of the collection was evacuated and preserved at undisclosed sites to protect them.

It partially resumed in 2018 and completely reopened in early this year, one month after rebel forces removed Syria's former leader.

Each of the six of Syria's Unesco World Heritage sites were affected or partly ruined during the conflict.

The Islamic State group destroyed numerous religious structures and historical sites at the ancient city, claiming that they were idolatrous. International authorities censured the damage as a atrocity.

Numerous cultural items were also lost or looted from archaeological sites and collections.