Iraq’s National Museum, the resting place of antiquities from the dawn of civilisation, reopened yesterday for the first time since it was denuded by looters six years ago under the eyes of US troops. About 6,000 of the 15,000 artefacts stolen during the anarchy after the fall of Baghdad have been recovered and were back on display yesterday after a $14 million (£10 million) refurbishment.

The opening almost did not happen because of feuding between the ministries of Tourism and Culture. Tourism officials wanted to open the museum with great fanfare, celebrating the emergence of Iraq from the brutal sectarian strife of the past few years.

The Culture Ministry objected, however, saying that the museum was not ready and that security remained a pressing issue.

The compromise was a partial opening, with only eight of the previous twenty-six wings of the museum open and with exhibitions focusing on items that were stolen and then recovered.

“Don’t expect it to be what it was before, when 26 wings told the story of Iraq through the ages,” Amira Eidan, the museum director, told guests and dignitaries. A backdrop of photographs told the story of the desecration of the museum in 2003, showing smashed doors, toppled statues and shattered pottery from Ancient Mesopotamia. Donny George, the museum’s director at the time, later accused US troops of “the crime of the century” for standing by while it was ransacked.

Looters smashed priceless antiquities, including a terracotta lion from the early second millennium BC, and beheaded ancient statues including several from the ancient city of Hatra.

A US tank also blasted a hole in the Assyrian Gate at the museum. Other, more professional thieves targeted specific pieces to smuggle overseas.

The inaction of the troops was witnessed by Western journalists who alerted them to the significance of the building, only to be told that they had not been given orders to protect it.

The Oil Ministry was among a handful of sites guarded during the mayhem, which was dismissed by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary at the time, with the remark that “stuff happens”.

At the reopening, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, thanked neighbours such as Iran and Syria for helping to recover treasures from the Sumerian and Babylonian eras.

Some of the artefacts were found as far away as Latin America and many were returned for rewards of up to $3,000. There are 7,000 pieces still missing however, including about 50 that are considered to be of unique historical importance.

“We have ended the fierce black winds and started the rebuilding,” Mr al-Maliki said, calling on archaeologists to help to make Iraq “a Mecca for research” into the history of mankind.

The museum had some of the oldest exhibitions anywhere in the world, spanning the Stone Age, Biblical times and the Islamic Golden Age.

Modern-day Iraq encompasses Ancient Mesopotamia, and its southern marshlands are believed to have been the site of the Garden of Eden.

RESTORING ORDER

- Mutanabi Street book market in Baghdad reopened in December, 18 months after it was bombed

- Shias on one bank of the River Tigris and Sunnis on the other met on the reopened al-Aima bridge in northern Iraq last - November. The symbol of sectarian division had been closed after 1,000 people died in a stampede after rumours of a suicide bomb attack in 2005

- The Adhamiyah sports complex reopened in Baghdad last month

- Four Baghdad swimming pools were reopened by the US military last summer at a cost of $1 million

Source: Times database

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