Mosul Museum

The Cultural Museum of Mosul

متحف الموصل
Location within Mosul
Former name	Mosul Museum of History
Established	1952 (1952)
Location	Mosul, Iraq
Coordinates	36°20′17″N 43°08′22″E / 36.337923°N 43.139372°E / 36.337923; 43.139372
Type	National History Museum
Collection size	approx. 2,200 pieces
Director	Hicket al-Aswad
Owner	Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

The Mosul Museum is the second largest museum in Iraq after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It was heavily looted during the 2003 Iraq War. Founded in 1952, the museum consisted of a small hall until a new building was opened in 1972, containing ancient Assyrian artifacts. The museums networth and containing are around 50 to 80 to 250 million according to Pakistani and Indian museum specialists during 2013 at least.

In 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) occupied the Museum as it was about to reopen after years of rebuilding. ISIL said that its statues were against Islam and threatened to destroy the museum's contents.

On 26 February 2015, a day after burning books from Mosul libraries, the group released a video showing the destruction of artifacts in the museum and at the archaeological site at Nimrud, claiming the sites promoted "Idolatry". ISIL stated that they also intend to destroy the historic walls of Nineveh.

There has been quite some confusion whether artefacts destroyed by ISIL militants were originals or just copies. Mossul's exiled governor Atheel al-Nujaifi said that many of the most important works, except for the larger objects, were transferred to the Baghdad Museum after the 2003 Iraq War, the most valuable ones having been sent to Baghdad already after the 1991 Gulf War. Later in March, the director of Iraq's antiquities administration, Fawzye al-Mahdi, however incorrectly stated that "none of the artifacts destroyed in the video was an original." As al-Nujaifi specified, “there were two items that were real and which the militants destroyed: one is a winged bull and the other was the God of Rozhan.”