Iraqi National Museum

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Iraqi National Museum
National Museum Iraq.jpg
Iraqi National Museum (2008)
Data
place Baghdad , Iraq
Art
opening 1926
Website
ISIL OCLC MENMI

The Iraqi National Museum ( Arabic المتحف العراقي, DMG al-matḥaf al-ʿirāqī ) is a museum in Baghdad . It houses priceless finds of the Mesopotamian culture . The museum was founded by the British explorer Gertrude Bell . In 1926 it was opened as the Baghdad Archaeological Museum . One of its early directors was the Austrian archaeologist Wilhelm König .

The museum moved to a larger building in 1966 and was renamed the National Museum of Iraq . After the Second Gulf War , the museum remained closed until 2000. During and after the Iraq War (2003) the museum was ransacked and the former general manager Donny George Youkhanna fled to the United States in 2006.

On February 23, 2009, the then Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki opened the museum for one day. The museum was renewed and expanded with international support. In February 2015, the museum was officially reopened.

Collections

Because of the archaeological riches of Mesopotamia, the museum's collections are among the most important in the world; it includes important works of art from the more than 5000-year history of Mesopotamia in 28 galleries and vaults. The scope is more than half a million individual pieces. The gold treasure discovered by Nimrud in 1989 is only shown as a photo exhibition; the more than 1400 pieces of jewelry are stored in the Iraqi state bank. This includes the Bassetki statue .

During the occupation of Iraq , a journalistic controversy arose over the extent of the looting; British journalist David Aaronovitch summarized in June 2003:

"There was some damage and damage to a small number of galleries and storerooms, and that is grievous enough. But over the past six weeks it has gradually become clear that most of the objects which had been on display in the museum galleries were removed before the war. "
( “A few galleries and storage rooms have been looted and damaged, which is serious enough. However, over the past six weeks it has gradually emerged that most of the items on display in the museum's galleries were removed before the war were. " )

In a report for Die Zeit , Reiner Luyken mentions this precautionary measure as well as the suspicion that museum employees are said to have given professional thieves access to an underground safe from which "5000 amulets, appendages and pieces of jewelry, as well as almost as many Sumerian cylinder seals " were stolen. The whereabouts of this booty are largely unclear, while the works of art stolen by casual thieves have almost all been confiscated or voluntarily returned. In addition to this looting, there was also destruction: In the museum halls, the “exclusively local rioters”, according to Luyken, “damaged 28 of the 451 display cases”; The focus, however, was the devastation of office facilities, as a "revenge orgy" against the regime.

Web links

Commons : National Museum of Iraq  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ President Of Iraq Antiquities Board Appointed To Faculty At Stony Brook ( Memento October 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), press release from Stony Brook University.
  2. ↑ Iraqi National Museum reopened. dw.com, February 28, 2015, accessed September 30, 2017 .
  3. ^ David Aaronovitch: Lost from the Baghdad museum: truth . In: The Guardian, June 10, 2003.
  4. ↑ Reiner Luyken: The Robbery That Never Was . In: Die Zeit , No. 30, p. 42.

Coordinates: 33 ° 19 ′ 41.9 ″  N , 44 ° 23 ′ 7.4 ″  E