The National Museum of Iraq closed its doors for 12 years in 2003, amid the clash of arms and the silence of looted display cases. It was closed again since July 2025 for restoration work and will reopen at the beginning of 2026. The Iraqi authorities assure that 90% of the project is completed. The building has new air-conditioned rooms, reinforced conservation equipment and modern anti-theft devices. This reopening, more than twenty years after the looting of 2003, is presented as a “rehabilitation of national identity”.
Founded in 1922 by the British archaeologist Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) to house the treasures of Mesopotamia, the museum brought together at its peak nearly 200,000 pieces retracing the first Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian human civilizations. The museum was left unprotected after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, as American troops captured the capital. In just three days, some 15,000 objects (thousand-year-old sculptures, cuneiform tablets, jewelry and ritual pieces) were stolen. UNESCO and archaeologists from around the world denounced the “greatest looting in modern history” and accused the occupying powers of having failed in their heritage obligations.
For twelve years, the museum remained closed to the public. It only reopened its doors in February 2015 after initial restoration work. This partial reopening took place against a backdrop of conflict in Mosul.
International operations made it possible, between 2003 and 2025, to repatriate around 27,000 objects, seized in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. In 2021, the United States returned 17,000 antiquities, including a 3,500-year-old Sumerian tablet bearing an excerpt from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Other emblematic pieces, such as a Sumerian gold jar or ivories from Nimrod, were returned by Germany and Italy. At the same time, local amnesty campaigns have enabled the authorities to recover thousands of objects illegally held by Iraqi individuals. These returns, although partial, made it possible to gradually reconstruct the dispersed collection.
But if the museum is preparing to reopen, thousands of antiquities are still missing. Many are still in private collections, protected by the opacity of the art market. Others were destroyed or melted down. The void left by these losses cannot be filled only in numbers. It weakens the continuity of a national narrative.
