Shafaq News/ Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi inaugurated the newly-renovated National Museum in Baghdad on Sunday.
The event came after many artifacts and relics previously smuggled abroad and kept in foreign museums were returned to Iraq.
In early February, over 300 Iraqi artifacts were returned to the country from Lebanon, where they had been kept in a private museum.
Kadhimi visited a section of the museum containing recovered archeological pieces from five countries, including the US, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, and Lebanon, according to a statement from his office.
The Iraqi PM called on the cultural authorities to continue efforts to bring back those archeological items, many of which had been stolen from the country’s national museum before and after the toppling of the former Baathist regime in 2003.
He also called on the educational officials to organize regular trips to the museum for Iraqi students so they can become more familiar with their country’s heritage.
“One who does not own a history will not have a future,” Kadhimi said.
In 2021, the Iraqi foreign ministry announced that nearly 18,000 artifacts had been returned from abroad.
A 3,500-year-old clay tablet featuring an engraving from part of the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh was also returned from the US in late 2021.
