Mosul museum retaken from IS, but it’s in ruins
MOSUL, Iraq — The antiquities museum in the Iraqi city of Mosul is in ruins. Piles of rubble fill exhibition halls and a massive fire in the building’s basement has reduced hundreds of rare books and manuscripts to ankle-deep drifts of ash.
Associated Press reporters were granted rare access to the museum on Wednesday after Iraqi forces retook it from the Islamic State group the day before.
After examining AP photographs of the destruction, two Iraqi archeologists confirmed that many of the artifacts destroyed by IS were the original ancient stone statues dating back thousands of years, rather than replicas as some Iraqi officials and experts previously claimed.
IS captured Mosul in 2014 and released a video the following year showing fighters smashing artifacts in the museum with sledgehammers and power tools. The voice narrating the IS video justified the acts with verses from the Quran referencing the Prophet Mohammed’s destruction of idols in the Kaaba.
“These statues and idols, these artifacts, if God has ordered its removal, they became worthless to us even if they are worth billions of dollars,” the narration said.
The sacking of the Mosul museum was just a single act in nearly three years of systematic destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage at the hands of IS. The militants leveled ancient palaces, temples and churches throughout Nineveh province and beyond, often releasing videos boasting of their acts. IS has even demolished some mosques, saying they were used to venerate saints, which IS considers a form of polytheism.
Inside the Mosul museum’s main exhibition hall, the floor was littered with the jagged remains of an ancient Assyrian bull statue and fragments from cuneiform tablets.