SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq’s National Museum reopened on Monday to visitors after its closure due to the coronavirus pandemic and political unrest.
Treasures dating back 2,500 years to the neo-Assyrian empire alongside 9th century Islamic antiquities went back on display, according to AFP.
They included two winged bulls from the Nimrud site in the palace of Assurnasirpal II (883-859 BC), AFP reported.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi said at the official inauguration that the museum had gone extensive renovation.
The museum, founded in 1923 to display five millennia of history in Mesopotamia, or modern-day Iraq, was closed three years ago because of the protests and for security reasons, head of Iraq’s antiquities authority Laith Majid Hussein said.
“And then there was the coronavirus pandemic,” AFP quoted him as saying.
The museum, which has stood at its present site since 1966, was ransacked amid the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein.
The authorities have recovered around a third of some 15,000 artifacts that were looted at the time, according to AFP.
