Photos reveal ISIL’s destruction to antiquities museum in Mosul

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MOSUL // The antiquities museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul is in ruins, with exhibition halls housing piles of rubble and the basement filled with ankle-deep drifts of ash.

Associated Press reporters were granted rare access to the museum on Wednesday after Iraqi forces retook it from ISIL earlier this week.

They saw the jagged remains of what appeared to have been an ancient Assyrian bull statue and fragments from cuneiform tablets. The museum once housed Mesopotamian artefacts dating back thousands of years.

ISIL captured Mosul in 2014 and released a video the following year showing fighters smashing artefacts in the museum with sledgehammers and power tools. The extremists view ancient artefacts as idols.

Iraqi officials at the time said most of what the militants destroyed were copies, as much of the museum’s inventory had been moved to Baghdad for safekeeping.

Federal police Corporal Abbas Muhammad said he was one of the first to enter the building after it was retaken from ISIL.

“Daesh came to Iraq to destroy our heritage because they don’t have their own,” he said.

The territory overrun by ISIL in Syria and Iraq is home to some of the region’s most important historical sites and monuments.

Over the past two and half years, the militants have systematically destroyed ancient palaces, temples and churches. They have even demolished some mosques, saying they were used to venerate saints, which ISIL considers a form of polytheism.

The extremist group is also believed to have looted ancient artefacts to sell them on the black market to finance its operations.

A handful of history books remained in the main entryway of the museum beside a bag of placards from old exhibits.

They describe flint objects found in Nineveh dating back to about 4,000BC, copper oil lamps discovered in Ur dating back to 2,600BC and Sumerian statues dating back to 2,050BC.

“Mosul is the heart of Iraqi civilisation,” said federal police Major Muhammad Al Jabouri, a Mosul native from a nearby neighbourhood.

“When I heard how Daesh destroyed this place,” he said as his eyes filled with tears. “Death would have been a greater mercy for me.”

* Associated Press