One of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces has been transformed into a museum

26 February 2017

On 27 September 2016, a new museum opened in the city of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, located at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which merge to form the Shatt al-Arab. The museum, set up in one of the many palaces that Saddam Hussein had built all over the country, has replaced the old museum in the city’s historic centre, which was partly ransacked at the time of the first Gulf War in 1991, and then partially destroyed in 2003, its collections evacuated to Bagdad.

The project, financed through an association founded by John Curtis, the Assyriologist and conservator, was supported by the British army (whose personnel were initially accommodated in the former palace after the fall of Saddam Hussein), and by the British Museum. Qahtan al-Obaid, the Director of the new museum, has overseen the progress of the project for almost ten years, and likewise the works undertaken on the old ‘Lake Palace’ since 2011. Close attention has been paid to making the building secure.

Unable to raise sufficient funds, Qahtan al-Obaid decided to begin by opening a gallery measuring 400m² dedicated to local history, starting out from the Hellenist era and progressing all the way up to the nineteenth century. More than five hundred items were transported by road from Bagdad to be installed in the display cases of the new museum.

Eventually, three further galleries will be created, also underwritten by the United Kingdom. These will be devoted to the Sumerians (third millennium BCE), as well as to the Babylonians and the Assyrians (second millennium to first millennium BCE).

In a country ravaged by war and strife for more than twenty-five years, where ancient sites and archaeological remains have been plundered and destroyed, one can only rejoice to see one of the fallen dictator’s ostentatious edifices being transformed into a cultural centre that highlights this region’s extraordinarily rich past! It is to be hoped that the other palaces built by Saddam Hussein will undergo a similarly redemptive repurposing.