Mosul Museum

The Mosul Museum is the second-largest in Iraq after the National Museum in Baghdad, with collections spanning Assyrian, Hellenistic, Parthian, and Islamic periods. The building was looted and badly damaged during the ISIS occupation, and the video of the deliberate destruction broadcast in 2015 became one of the defining images of the conflict. Restoration work, supported by the Iraqi government and international organisations including the Smithsonian, has been ongoing since 2017.

The museum is reopening in stages as pieces are restored, returned from lending institutions, or replaced with scholarly replicas. Visiting now means seeing a live cultural recovery project — some galleries are operational, some still being reconstructed. Check current opening hours before visiting as the schedule is still evolving. The museum stands on the east bank of the Tigris, about a kilometre south of the main bridge.

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A story
In February 2015, ISIS released a video showing their fighters inside the Mosul Museum using sledgehammers and drills to smash ancient Assyrian statues and replicas, then bulldozing the lamassu at the Nergal Gate with heavy equipment. The footage shocked the world. What wasn't known at the time was that museum staff had secretly removed many of the most important originals before ISIS arrived, storing them in Baghdad — so some of what was destroyed were high-quality replicas.

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