Iraqi national museum reopens with recovered looted pieces

Baghdad, Mar 6 (EFE).- Iraq’s national museum on Sunday reopened after two years due to coronavirus restrictions displaying for the first time some of the thousands of looted pieces the country has recently recovered.

After the Baghdad-located museum closed its doors when the pandemic broke out in 2020, the authorities carried out rehabilitation and maintenance work on its rooms.

Over the past couple of years, the United States, Netherlands, Japan, Italy and Lebanon returned thousands of archaeological pieces looted mainly during the US invasion of the country in 2003.

Some of them are part of a new exhibit that was inaugurated by Iraqi prime minister Mustafa al Kazemi, his media office said in a statement.

The display features pieces dating from the Sumerian (4500-1900 BC), Akkadian (24th-22nd centuries BC), Assyrian (19th and XVIII BC) and Islamic (from VII AD), the media director of the General Antiquities Authority, Hakem al Shamri, told Efe. EFE

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