National Museum of Iraq

The National Museum of Iraq (Arabic: المتحف العراقي) is a museum located in Baghdad, Iraq. Also known as the Iraq Museum, it contains precious relics from the Mesopotamian civilization. After World War I, archaeologists from Europe and the United States began several excavations throughout Iraq. In an effort to keep those finds from leaving Iraq, British traveler, intelligence agent, archaeologist, and author Gertrude Bell began collecting the artifacts in a government building in Baghdad in 1922. In 1926, the Iraqi government moved the collection to a new building and established the Baghdad Antiquities Museum, with Bell as its director.Bell died later that year. In 1966, the collection was moved again, to a two-story,...