The Iraqi National Museum reopened to the public on Monday in Baghdad welcoming Iraqi tourists and visitors, after three years of closure due to the pandemic and political developments.
Read alsoRestitutions: more than 300 cuneiform tablets returned to Iraq by a Lebanese museum
Turkish tourists, Western expatriates but also Iraqi visitors were able to admire remains of some 2,500 years, dating from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, or even ancient wooden doors and other Islamic artifacts from the 9th century.
“We waited a long time, we had been planning to come here for four years
,” enthused Tijen Kayralci, 65, among a group of tourists from Turkey.
"It exceeds my expectations, they are priceless, very precious pieces"
which
"reflect the depth of the history of Iraq"
, she adds.
Founded in 1926 to tell 5,000 years of Mesopotamia history, the Baghdad museum notably houses cuneiform tablets, or two imposing lamassu, fabulous winged bulls, found on the site of Nimrod in the palace of Assurnasirpal II (883-859 Before Christ).
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Moustafa al-Kazimi
“inaugurated”
the museum after
“rehabilitation and maintenance work in its rooms”
.
"It remained closed for about three years, because of the demonstrations and for security reasons,"
the director of the Iraqi Council of Antiquities and Heritage, Laith Majid Hussein, told AFP on Monday, referring to the protest against the power of 2019.
“Then there was the coronavirus pandemic
,” he added.
Thousands of coins returned
The establishment had officially reopened in 2015, more than a decade after the looting perpetrated in 2003, during the period of chaos following the American invasion against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Of the 15,000 pieces stolen at the time, the authorities were able to return a third to the museum, considered before 2003 as one of the richest in the world.
From 2014, the jihadists of the Islamic State group indulged in the lucrative trafficking of antiquities, also staging spectacular destruction on archaeological sites.
The government of Mustafa al-Kazimi has made the return of antiquities a priority.
In 2021, Iraq recovered thousands of artifacts, including 17,899 pieces returned by the United States.
The authorities had notably organized a ceremony in December celebrating the return of a
tablet of Gilgamesh
, a 3,500-year-old Mesopotamian jewel.