Page 32 - Saad Ahmed News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

“I remember my first time there,” Richard Kurin, an ambassador-at-large for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, told Artnet News. “It was a total war zone.” He was among the first to visit the museum after the occupation ended. A joint Iraqi-Smithsonian team works to document the damage in the Mosul Cultural Museum’s Assyrian Hall in February 2019. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution. In addition to missing artifacts, some 25,000 volumes from the museum library had been burned and the buildings themselves had suffered considerable damage, most notably an 18-foot-long hole in the floor of the Assyrian hall, caused by a bomb. In minutes, ISIS had wrought destruction that would take years to repair.

Liwa irbilUnited statesFrance generalSmithsonian institutionDistrict of columbiaSebastian meyerSaad ahmedRichard kurinBrian michael lioneZaid ghazi saadallahZaid ghazi saadullahIraq mosul cultural museumInternational alliance for the protection of heritageMosul cultural museumWorld monuments fundMosul cultural museum islamic hall