Iraq plans new Baghdad museum funded by oil companies

Ambitious project is designed to build national identity following the defeat of ISIS

An artefact from the Great Mosque in Mosul at the Baghdad museum. WAM

Iraq is planning an ambitious new national museum complex in Baghdad potentially paid for by international oil companies.

The project is designed to rival the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo and will be built in the centre of the city.

It will replace the existing Iraqi museum in the city’s east, which will be converted into a centre of Islamic Art.

The museum and cultural centre proposals are part of efforts to rebuild historical and religious sites and recover artefacts following the systematic cultural vandalism by ISIS, the Iraq in Transition conference at Chatham House in London was told.

The current Iraqi museum was looted during the wave of lawlessness that gripped Baghdad following the US invasion in 2003.

The proposed cultural complex will be larger than the current museum and will display ancient artefacts from the birthplace of one of the world’s earliest major civilisations, dating back thousands of years. Iraqi officials want international oil companies to pay for the complex.

Much of the work to restore Iraq’s cultural heritage following the destruction wrought by ISIS has focused on the country’s second city of Mosul.

The northern city became the so-called caliphate’s de facto capital after ISIS forces raced across the border from Syria and encroached on Baghdad itself in the summer of 2014.

The destruction of the al-Nuri mosque, originally built in the 12th century, and its iconic leaning minaret by ISIS in 2017 became one of the most symbolic moments of the US-backed assault on the city.

The mosque’s reconstruction has become an important symbolic goal for the Iraqi government during the post-ISIS period.

In April 2018, the UAE, the United Nation’s educational and cultural organisation (Unesco) and Iraq completed a $50.4 million deal to reconstruct the mosque. Restoration work would begin at the site of the mosque in the first half of 2020, Unesco said last month.

The UN body and the Iraqi government said their goal was to revive the spirit of the city and to return Mosul’s old city to its former cultural glory. The historic centre bore the brunt of the worst fighting during ISIS’s last stand in the city.

The scheme also includes the reconstruction of Al Saa and Al Tahira Churches also in the old city have been included in the initiative.

Progress has also been made in rebuilding Mosul’s library and its university both of which were targeted by ISIS as it attempted erase the city’s cultural past during its three-year rule.