The Basrah Museum ( ar, متحف البصرة) is a museum in the
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
i city of
Basra
Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...
, housed in a former palace of
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
. Its collection is related to
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
n,
Babylonian,
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
n civilisations, as well as the history of the city itself. Basrah Museum opened its doors to the public in March 2019.
The Director of the Basrah Antiquities & Heritage is Qahtan Al Abeed, who has managed the project from the start with the cooperation of the State Board of Antiquities & Heritage and the Ministry of Culture and with support from the UK Friends of Basrah Museum.
History
The museum was closed in 1991, when it was among nine museums looted by mobs opposed to Saddam Hussein at the close of the first Gulf War.
The Basrah Museum opened its first Gallery of the Museum in September 2016. The Friends of Basrah Museum is the organisation that raised the funds for the first gallery's installation through generous corporate and individual donations. FOBM received a UK Cultural Protection Fund
PFref> Grant award in December 2016, managed by the British Council in partnership with the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to support the completion of the new Basrah Museum. The London-based
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
was also one of the Western organisations which supported the Basrah Museum at the start of the project in 2010.
The museum officially opened its doors to the public in March 2019 with three new galleries: Babylon, Sumer and Assyrian. With the assistance of the Iraq Museum and the Basrah Museum thousands of artefacts dating back as far as BCE 6,000 are back on display in the southern province.
These include artefacts from the original museum looted in 1991 that are now on display in the Basrah Gallery. The museum now has labels in English and Arabic throughout all four galleries, worked on by Qahtan Alabeed and others with assistance from the Friends of Basrah Museum and The British Institute for the Study of Iraq for the English language labels.
References
External links
Basra Museum project briefing(British Museum)
Museums in Iraq
Buildings and structures in Basra
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