(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Iraq's national museum officially reopened yesterday after 12 years of painstaking efforts during which close to a third of 15,000 pieces looted during the US-led invasion were recovered.
The reopening was brought forward in what officials said was a response to the destruction of priceless artefacts by Islamic State group jihadists in the northern city of Mosul.
"We have been preparing to reopen for the past couple of months, the museum should be open to everyone," Qais Hussein Rashid, the deputy tourism and antiquities minister, told AFP.
"The events in Mosul led us to speed up our work and we wanted to open it today as a response to what the gangs of Daesh did," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.
On Thursday, the jihadists who have occupied the second city of Mosul since June last year released a video in which militants smash ancient statues with sledgehammers in the city's museum.
Militants are also seen using a jackhammer to deface a colossal 40-tonne Assyrian winged bull in an archaeological park in Mosul.
The destruction sparked global outrage, calls for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and fears over the fate of other major heritage sites in areas under IS control.
The Mosul destruction was the worst disaster to strike Iraq's treasures since the national museum in Baghdad was looted in the chaos that followed the toppling of Saddam Hussain.
The pictures of jihadists gleefully hacking away at treasures dating back several centuries before Christ drew comparisons with the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.
One jihadist speaking to the camera claims they are destroying them on religious grounds because the statues are symbols of idolatry.
But officials and experts argue the IS militants are seen destroying the pieces that are too bulky to be smuggled and sold to finance their self-proclaimed "caliphate".
The 2003 plundering of the Baghdad museum, footage of which was beamed around the world at the time, has been compared to the 13th century Mongol sack of the city's library.
The museum was considered to host one of the world's greatest archaeological collections.
Officials said yesterday that about 15,000 pieces were looted in 2003, of which 4,300 have been recovered. "We are still tracking down more than 10,000 artefacts in markets and auctions. What we got back were the most important," Rashid said.
The museum is due to reopen to the public today. Tickets will cost 1,500 dinars (just over a dollar) for Iraqis, $10 for foreign Arabs and $20 for other foreigners.
"This is a very happy day," said Rashid. "For the first time there's a whole generation of Iraqis who never knew what the national museum was. Starting tomorrow, kids and families will visit the museum to see the artefacts and touch them."
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