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Iraq Museum Mesopotamian Civilization Treasures

Explore the Iraq Museum, one of the world's great archaeological museums where the treasures of Mesopotamian civilization — from Sumerian gold to Babylonian astronomical tablets to Assyrian palace reliefs — chronicle the development of human civilization in the cradle of cities.

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1
Museum Entrance Hall
Enter the Iraq Museum through its grand entrance hall where the scale and ambition of the collection — spanning 10,000 years of human civilization from the Paleolithic through the Islamic period — becomes immediately apparent, the museum reopened in 2015 after years of closure following the 2003 looting.
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Sumerian Gallery
Walk the Sumerian gallery where artifacts from Ur, Uruk, and the other early cities of southern Mesopotamia — including jewelry from the Royal Cemetery of Ur, votive statues, cuneiform tablets, and cylinder seals — document the world's first urban civilization and the invention of writing around 3200 BCE.
3
Babylonian Section
Explore the Babylonian section where the cultural achievements of Hammurabi's empire, the Neo-Babylonian renaissance under Nebuchadnezzar II, and the astronomical science that gave the world accurate celestial prediction are documented through artifacts including the famous Lion of Babylon sculpture.
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Assyrian Palace Reliefs
Stand before the Assyrian palace reliefs where the monumental bas-relief carvings from the palaces of Nimrud and Nineveh depict the military campaigns, royal hunts, and divine encounters of the Assyrian kings who created one of the ancient world's most powerful empires in the 9th-7th centuries BCE.
5
Islamic Period Gallery
Enter the Islamic period gallery where the treasures of Abbasid Baghdad — metalwork, ceramics, textiles, and manuscripts from the Golden Age of Islamic civilization (8th-13th centuries CE) — document the period when Baghdad was the most sophisticated city in the world and the center of global intellectual life.
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Hatra and Parthian Collection
See the extraordinary collection from Hatra, the ancient city in northern Iraq whose Parthian-period sculptures combine Hellenistic, Persian, and local artistic traditions in a cultural synthesis unique to the Silk Road intersection where this city stood, the monumental stone sculptures among the finest ancient art from Iraq.