Iraq: Mechanisms for dealing with damaged antiquities

INA - BAGHDAD 

Iraqi Museums Department, one of the departments of the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, confirmed movements to establish new halls in the Iraqi Museum to accommodate more antiquities.

"The recovered antiquities are recorded and stored in the Iraqi Museum. The museum is full of antiquities and contains 24 halls, as there are efforts to open new halls to display the recovered antiquities," said the Director General of the Museums Department, Laith Majeed, to the Iraqi News Agency - INA.

Majeed explained, "The museum is unable to accommodate all the antiquities, so there is an urgent need to establish a large new museum," noting that "one of the strategic plans set is the opening of the Grand Iraqi Museum to display antiquities and heritage artifacts."

"Many antiquities have been recovered, and two years ago the largest recovery process took place from the United States of America with 17,000 artifacts, in addition to the recovery of 337 pieces from Lebanon," he added, stressing that "the recovery operations are ongoing and there are important artifacts that will return to the Iraqi Museum from several European countries."

He highlighted, "The Iraqi Museum has a maintenance department and a laboratory, as in the event that there are damaged antiquities that have been returned to the museum, and this department perpetuates the piece in order to preserve it properly, in addition to the presence of courses outside Iraq for museum staff related to maintenance work on artifacts."

"Antiquities smuggling gangs are spread all over the world, and the issue of antiquities smuggling is an international problem, so there is international cooperation by Interpol to follow up on smuggled antiquities and arrest smuggling gangs," he included.