The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet
c. 1600 BC · Clay
Iraq Museum, Baghdad
National Museum of Iraq
Museum · Iraq Museum · Founded 1926
Closure confirmed 7 August 2026 · 22 sources
Closed to visitors - not permanently
National Museum of Iraq is currently closed, on the evidence sourced below.
Expected to reopen: The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage gave a target of 'early 2026' in December 2025, with renovation reported 90 percent complete. That target has passed: on 9 February 2026 the Ministry of Culture's own Tourism Authority, speaking on the record to Iraq's state news agency, described the museum's rehabilitation (begun 10 July 2025) as heading toward reopening only 'during the coming period' (khilal al-fatra al-muqbila) -- no date. As of this check (7 August 2026), no further public reopening announcement has been found. · a target, not yet confirmed
Closure confirmed 7 August 2026 from the institution's own page. We re-check this page on a schedule and will update it, from the institution's own announcement, the moment it reopens.
On this page 15 sections
ContentsClose
The museum's real strength is depth rather than polish: a continuous archaeological record running from the first farming villages of northern Iraq through the Abbasid caliphate, drawn overwhelmingly from documented excavations rather than the art market. Its Assyrian and Hatra holdings are judged the strongest rooms by visitors and specialists alike; its Sumerian holdings, depleted by the 2003 theft and partially restored since, still include objects -- the Warka Vase, the Mask of Warka -- that define how the earliest cities are pictured in general reference works that reproduce them. What it does not have, compared with the Mesopotamian galleries of the Louvre or the British Museum, is completeness: entire categories of material left Iraq before its own patrimony law restricted export, and some of what stayed was lost again in 2003 and has never come back.
| Local name | Iraq Museum |
|---|---|
| Kind | Museum |
| Founded | 1926 (as the Baghdad Antiquities Museum, growing out of a room of rescued antiquities Gertrude Bell began keeping in 1922; renamed the Iraq Museum on moving to its current building in 1966) |
| City and country |  Baghdad, Iraq |
| Address | Karkh district, Baghdad, Iraq (Salihiyya/Allawi area, near the west bank of the Tigris; no confirmed street address found) |
| Website | theiraqmuseum.com |
| Status | Closed temporarily, confirmed 7 August 2026 |
| Record last verified | 7 August 2026 |
Visiting
What it cost and when it was open, before the closureConfirmed 22 August 2026
- Hours (pre-closure)
- Saturday-Thursday (pre-closure)09:00 to 13:30Pre-closure hours. The museum has been closed in its entirety for renovation since 10 July 2025; still closed as of this check (22 August 2026), these hours are not currently in effect.
- Closed
- Friday (pre-closure weekly closing day). Currently closed every day for renovation since 10 July 2025.
- Admission (pre-closure)
- Foreign visitorsIQD 25,000Pre-closure price, consistently reported by visitors through July 2025. The museum remains closed for renovation as of this check (22 August 2026); this figure is not verified since the closure and may change on reopening.
- Iraqi citizensIQD 3,000Pre-closure price. One visitor reported it is waived for Iraqis on Fridays; that is not independently confirmed by a museum or SBAH source.
Free entry: Reported by a single visitor as free for Iraqi citizens on Fridays (pre-closure); not confirmed by a museum or SBAH source- Do I need to book?
- No standing online booking system found. Since the 2025 renovation closure, entry has been by special arrangement only, through guides or official channels, rather than open walk-in visiting.
- Address
- Karkh district, Baghdad, Iraq (Salihiyya/Allawi area, near the west bank of the Tigris; no confirmed street address found) MapTaxi The most practical way in. The museum sits in the Karkh district near the Tigris; a short ride from central Baghdad (Tahrir Square, Rashid Street) runs roughly 3,500-10,000 IQD depending on traffic and driver. Any driver recognises 'al-mat-haf' (the museum).
Walking Within walking distance of nearby central-Baghdad landmarks, but the walk from the outer security checkpoint to the museum entrance itself can be long. - Website
- theiraqmuseum.com
- Telephone
- +964 771 225 5256
Before you go how long, access, photography, bags, eating, shop
- How long to allow
- Two to three hours for a focused visit; one visitor who examined roughly two dozen halls in detail took about two hours, while a museum guide told another visitor a full survey would take three days.
- Access
- Not established in the sources consulted for this record.
- Photography
- Personal photography (phone or camera, no flash) has been reported as permitted; filming is reported as requiring special permission.
- Bags
- Visitors pass through a military checkpoint at the outer gate, then a security screening point with bag storage before reaching the museum building itself.
- Eating
- None reported by visitors through 2024-2025; only a small gift shop selling books.
- Shop
- A small gift shop selling books was reported; no other retail.
The museum is closed (see above). These are the figures published before the closure, kept here for a visitor planning ahead rather than presented as bookable today, and you can check the current position at the source we used. We will re-confirm them once it reopens.
What is inside
Photograph by Neuroforever · CC BY-SA 4.0 Prehistory Hall
The museum's earliest material: Palaeolithic and Neolithic finds, including remains associated with the Shanidar Neanderthal skeletons, and painted pottery and burials from the early farming cultures of northern Iraq (Hassuna, Halaf, Samarra), among them the alabaster vessels and burials excavated at Tell es-Sawwan.
Photograph by Neuroforever · CC BY-SA 4.0 Sumerian Gallery
Material from Uruk, Ur and the early city-states of the south, including the Uruk vase tradition, votive statues of worshippers from the temples at Tell Asmar and Khafajah, and objects associated with the Royal Cemetery of Ur.
Akkadian and Babylonian Halls
The Bassetki Statue, a copper figure cast for the Akkadian king Naram-Sin around 2250 BC; a cast copy of the Code of Hammurabi (the original stele is in the Louvre); and the stele of Dadusha, king of Eshnunna, around 1800 BC.
Photograph by Solider 16IQ · CC BY-SA 4.0 Assyrian Hall
Reliefs and sculpture from the Assyrian capitals at Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh, including the carved Nimrud Ivories and lamassu (winged bull-man) figures. Visitors consistently name this and the Hatra hall as the strongest rooms in the museum.
Hatra and Parthian Gallery
Statues and limestone friezes from Hatra, the fortified Parthian-period city in the desert west of Mosul, including deity figures and images of Hatrene royalty. Alongside the Assyrian hall, this is the room reviewers single out most often as the museum's best.
Islamic Gallery
Carved stucco wall panels from Samarra (the ninth-century Abbasid capital), a carved mihrab, glazed tiles from provincial shrines, and an inscribed wooden mosque door, covering the Abbasid through late Islamic periods.
What to see first
The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet
Unknown Babylonian scribe, c. 1600 BCA fragment of the Gilgamesh epic looted from Iraq, smuggled into the United States in 2003, sold twice on a fabricated provenance, and bought by Hobby Lobby in 2014 for the Museum of the Bible. Seized in 2019 and forfeited by consent in 2021, it has been on display in Baghdad since 7 December 2021 as one of the highest-profile single-object antiquities repatriations of the decade. This archive holds a full separate record of its chain of ownership.16
Full record in this archiveThe Warka Vase (Uruk Vase)
Sumerian, UrukAn alabaster ritual vessel of about 3000 BC carved with one of the oldest known narrative relief scenes. One of forty objects stolen from the public galleries in April 2003; recovered in June that year broken into fourteen pieces and since restored.9
The Mask of Warka (Lady of Warka)
Sumerian, UrukA carved marble face, one of the earliest known naturalistic representations of the human face, dated about 3200-3000 BC and probably once fitted to a wooden cult statue, likely of the goddess Inanna. Buried by looters on a farm north of Baghdad after the April 2003 theft and recovered intact that October.13
The Bassetki Statue
Akkadian, for Naram-Sin of Akkad, c. 2250 BCA copper figure cast by the lost-wax method, among the earliest known examples of that technique, carrying a royal inscription of Naram-Sin. Looters coated it in grease and hid it in a cesspool after the 2003 looting; it was recovered in November 2003.15
The Nimrud Ivories
Assyrian court workshops, with Egyptian, Phoenician and Syrian stylistic influence, 9th-7th century BCCarved ivory furniture fittings and decorative plaques from the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud, among the finest surviving examples of Near Eastern ivory carving.9
The Golden Lyre of Ur
Sumerian, Royal Cemetery of Ur, c. 2500 BCMore than 4,500 years old. The museum's director in 2003, Donny George Youkhanna, has said the lyre's gold-covered head had already been moved to the Central Bank for safekeeping before the invasion, so looters took only a bronze-headed lyre left in its place -- one of the collection's few documented escapes from the 2003 theft.12
Statue of Entemena
Sumerian, for Entemena, ruler of Lagash, c. 2400 BCA headless royal statue, about 4,400 years old and the heaviest single piece taken in the 2003 looting. It surfaced in the United States and was recovered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July 2006 with the help of a New York antiquities dealer.9
Artworks recorded here
Gertrude Bell's museum, built from one rescued room
The institution began as an act of salvage rather than a building. Gertrude Bell -- traveller, archaeologist, and from 1917 the British administration's Oriental Secretary in occupied Baghdad -- started keeping antiquities from Iraqi excavations in a government room in 1922 specifically to stop them leaving the country, a collection she called the Room of the Babylonian Rocks. On 14 June 1926 the Iraqi government formally established the Baghdad Antiquities Museum with Bell as its first director; she died in Baghdad later that same year and was succeeded by the British Assyriologist Sidney Smith.
The collection outgrew that first home. King Faisal II laid the foundation stone for a purpose-built museum, designed by the German architect Werner March, in 1957. The new building, in the Salihiyya neighbourhood of the Karkh district on the west bank of the Tigris, opened to the public on 9 November 1966, and it was at that point the institution took the name it carries today: the National Museum of Iraq, known locally and to most of the world simply as the Iraq Museum.
Five thousand years under one roof
What the museum was built to hold is close to the full archaeological record of Mesopotamia: prehistoric material from the Zagros foothills and the first farming villages of the north; the Sumerian city-states of Uruk, Ur, Lagash and Eshnunna; the Akkadian empire of Sargon and Naram-Sin; Babylon under Hammurabi and later dynasties; the Assyrian palace capitals of Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh; the Parthian desert city of Hatra; and the Islamic caliphates from the Abbasid capital at Samarra onward. At its fullest the collection has been put at somewhere between 170,000 and 200,000 catalogued objects displayed and stored across roughly two dozen galleries and vaults -- a number that, as with most of this institution's statistics, has to be read against everything that happened to it after 2003.
April 2003: three days that emptied the cases
On 9 April 2003, as Baghdad fell, museum staff left the building. Looting began the next day and continued through 12 April, carried out, in the later reconstruction by the U.S. Marine investigator who led the recovery effort, Matthew Bogdanos, by several distinct and overlapping groups: opportunistic looters who smashed whatever was in reach, thieves who went straight for specific high-value pieces in the public galleries in a manner that pointed to inside knowledge, and others who broke into storage rooms holding tens of thousands of smaller excavated finds. American forces did not secure the site until 16 April. The museum's own deputy director said afterward that a single tank and two soldiers posted at the gate would have prevented it; none were sent. Asked about the looting at a Pentagon briefing the day it ended, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that "freedom's untidy" and that "free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things" -- a line that became, for critics of the war, shorthand for the occupying power's failure to plan for the one building in the country whose importance archaeologists had spent months warning it about.
Early press estimates, based on the museum's full catalogue of some 170,000 inventoried lots, suggested the entire collection had been taken; the number that held up under investigation was roughly 15,000 objects missing, from three theft patterns -- forty pieces gone from the public galleries (of which the Warka Vase, the Mask of Warka and the Bassetki Statue were judged the most valuable), about 3,100 excavation pieces taken from above-ground storerooms, and roughly 10,000 smaller objects taken from plastic storage boxes underground. Donny George Youkhanna, the museum's director general at the time, returned to the building on Sunday 13 April to find more than 120 rooms ransacked, doors smashed and paperwork scattered; he has said the word "anger" does not cover what he felt.
Recovery, in pieces, for two decades
The recovery has never been a single event. U.S. Customs recovered nearly 40,000 manuscripts and about 700 artifacts within a month, on 7 May 2003; Nimrud's gold jewellery turned up intact in a flooded vault of Iraq's Central Bank on 7 June 2003, where museum staff had hidden it before the invasion. Bogdanos's team recovered roughly 10,000 objects between 2003 and 2006, including the Warka Vase (returned broken into fourteen pieces and since restored) and the Mask of Warka (found buried and undamaged). The Bassetki Statue, hidden in a cesspool, surfaced in November 2003. The headless statue of the Sumerian ruler Entemena, the heaviest single piece stolen, was traced to the United States and recovered by ICE in July 2006 with a New York antiquities dealer's help. Further returns followed for years: 540 pieces in September 2010, the same month 638 stolen objects turned up in the office of then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; 45 relics from Germany in January 2012; 17,000 objects from the United States in August 2021 -- the largest single repatriation in the museum's history, and the batch that included the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet -- and, in March 2023, ivory and gold-leaf furniture returned by the FBI from an American museum, the first confirmed case of Iraq Museum loot surfacing in a U.S. institutional collection rather than in private hands. By 2009, independent estimates put roughly 6,000 of the original 15,000 missing objects as still unaccounted for; the FBI's own "Most Wanted" list of art crime still carries an eighth-century BC ivory plaque from the museum, the Lioness and the Nubian, as unrecovered.
Closed for twelve years, reopened under guard
For most of the period between 2003 and 2015 the museum was effectively shut to the public, opening only for brief, heavily controlled events -- a 2003 press visit, a December 2008 ceremony, a February 2009 partial reopening for special groups that Youkhanna himself called premature and politically timed. Restoration, funded substantially by the United States and Italy and including new climate control and security systems, culminated in a full public reopening on 28 February 2015 under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, twelve years after the building had last stood open to ordinary visitors.
2025: closed again, and still closed
The museum shut again on 10 July 2025, this time by its own choice rather than through violence, for a renovation the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) has framed as bringing the building up to international display standards. In December 2025 SBAH's Maintenance and Preservation Department director, Mohammed al-Bayati, told Iraq's official newspaper al-Sabah that the work was 90 percent complete and that the museum would reopen in "early 2026"; SBAH's head, Ali Obaid Shalgham, separately reported that 27,000 recovered artifacts had by then been returned to the museum's holdings. Early 2026 came and went without a reopening. On 9 February 2026, discussing a wider tourism strategy, an official spokesman for Iraq's Tourism Authority told the state news agency only that rehabilitation work, begun on 10 July, was proceeding "toward reopening during the coming period" -- language with no date attached. As of this check, on 7 August 2026, no further public announcement of a reopening has been found: the museum's own website carries nothing current on the closure at all, and every other account located, from a travel guide's April 2026 update to visitor reports through mid-2026, describes access as limited to special, guide-arranged visits rather than open walk-in admission. For a reader planning a trip to Baghdad today, the building the museum's own street address still names is there, but it is not open.
What visitors say
Visitors who reached the museum before the 2025 closure rate it highly and single out the Assyrian and Hatra halls as the strongest rooms in the building. The collection is repeatedly described as extensive and largely authentic -- reviewers note most objects on display are originals rather than replicas -- and worth a dedicated visit despite Baghdad's limited tourist infrastructure. The most common complaint has nothing to do with what is on display and everything to do with what is not: individual halls, especially the Sumerian and Babylonian rooms, went in and out of closure for renovation for years before the museum shut completely in 2025, so more than one visitor who came specifically to see a particular room found it shut.
What is praised, what is criticised
- Praised: The Assyrian and Hatra halls, named independently by multiple visitors as the best rooms in the museum
- Praised: The scale and authenticity of the collection -- reviewers note most objects on display are originals, not replicas
- Praised: Free guided tours in English included with admission
- Praised: Staff described as kind and helpful
- Criticised: Individual galleries (Sumerian, Babylonian) repeatedly closed for renovation even while the rest of the museum stayed open, so a visitor could not count on seeing everything advertised
- Criticised: The foreign-visitor ticket price is judged high against the size of the collection -- one visitor compared it directly and unfavourably to the Louvre's admission-to-collection ratio
- Criticised: No cafe, and only a small gift shop
- Criticised: One recent visitor reported finding no mention anywhere in the exhibition of the 2003 looting -- the museum's own displays do not tell the story of what happened to the building
Youkhanna, by then teaching in the United States, said the memory of the looting still haunted him seven years on; said he had asked coalition forces to move a tank stationed nearby to the museum gate and was refused, since the troops had no order to intervene; credited the advance evacuation of the Golden Lyre's gold head to the Central Bank with saving it from theft; and called the museum's partial 2009 reopening premature and politically motivated.VOA News, on the record from Donny George Youkhanna, the museum's director general at the time of the 2003 looting, 30 March 2010 [12]
Ratings on other platforms
TripAdvisor: 4.5 from 113 ratings, read 7 August 2026
A platform average is a tertiary source: it moves, it is not audited, and we quote no visitor's words.
Questions about National Museum of Iraq
Where is National Museum of Iraq?
Karkh district, Baghdad, Iraq (Salihiyya/Allawi area, near the west bank of the Tigris; no confirmed street address found).
How much does it cost to visit?
Foreign visitors: IQD 25000; Iraqi citizens: IQD 3000. As confirmed 22 August 2026.
When is it open?
Saturday-Thursday (pre-closure) 09:00-13:30. Closed: Friday (pre-closure weekly closing day). Currently closed every day for renovation since 10 July 2025. As confirmed 22 August 2026.
How do you get there?
Taxi: The most practical way in. The museum sits in the Karkh district near the Tigris; a short ride from central Baghdad (Tahrir Square, Rashid Street) runs roughly 3,500-10,000 IQD depending on traffic and driver. Any driver recognises 'al-mat-haf' (the museum); Walking: Within walking distance of nearby central-Baghdad landmarks, but the walk from the outer security checkpoint to the museum entrance itself can be long.
What should you see first?
The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet (Unknown Babylonian scribe, c. 1600 BC); The Warka Vase (Uruk Vase) (Sumerian, Uruk); The Mask of Warka (Lady of Warka) (Sumerian, Uruk); The Bassetki Statue (Akkadian, for Naram-Sin of Akkad, c. 2250 BC); The Nimrud Ivories (Assyrian court workshops, with Egyptian, Phoenician and Syrian stylistic influence, 9th-7th century BC); The Golden Lyre of Ur (Sumerian, Royal Cemetery of Ur, c. 2500 BC).
What we could not confirm
- How many of the roughly 15,000 objects taken in April 2003 remain unrecovered today, and is there a current public count from SBAH rather than a figure last updated years ago?
- What is the museum's actual reopening date, now that the 'early 2026' target given in December 2025 has passed without a public announcement as of August 2026?
- Will admission prices and hours carry over unchanged from before the 2025 closure, or will the renovation change them?
- Has the exhibition itself been changed to address the 2003 looting directly, given at least one recent visitor's observation that it currently goes unmentioned in the displays?
Images
Sources
- 1David Stanley, "Iraq National Museum.jpg", Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, photographed 4 April 2016 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iraq_National_Museum.jpg
- 2Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), "Entrance into the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, Iraq. God Nabu stands before the facade.jpg", Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, photographed 14 March 2019 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Entrance_into_the_Iraq_Museum,_Baghdad,_Iraq._God_Nabu_stands_before_the_facade.jpg
- 3Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), "Courtyard of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, Iraq.jpg", Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Courtyard_of_the_Iraq_Museum_in_Baghdad,_Iraq.jpg
- 4Iraqi News Agency (INA), official state news agency: "al-Siyaha: i'dad istratijiyya li-istiqtab 10 malayin sa'ih ajnabi" [Tourism Authority: preparing a strategy to attract 10 million foreign tourists], 9 February 2026. On-the-record statement by Tourism Authority spokesman Ali Yassin: rehabilitation of the Iraq Museum began 10 July [2025], ahead of reopening 'during the coming period', no date given. Used as the open_status source: the closest available on-the-record government statement, obtained via the state news agency directly rather than a private news outlet's rewrite, after the museum's own site and SBAH's site were checked and found to carry no current closure notice. ina.iq/ar/local/254702-10.html
- 5"Iraq's national museum to reopen in early 2026", Iraqi News, 5 December 2025. SBAH Maintenance and Preservation Department director Mohammed al-Bayati (quoting his statement to Iraq's official newspaper al-Sabah): 90 percent of renovation complete, target of early 2026; SBAH head Ali Obaid Shalgham on 27,000 recovered artifacts returned to the museum. iraqinews.com/iraq/iraqs-national-museum-to-reopen-in-early-2026/
- 6"Iraqi Museum Closure for Maintenance - July 2025", Enlil Travels. Closure date (July 2025) and the originally stated 190-day maintenance period. enliltravels.com/posts/news/iraqi-museum-closure-for-maintenance-july-2025
- 7"Visiting the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad", Destination Iraq (destinationiraq.net/posts/iraqimuseum). Updated note confirming the museum remained closed for refurbishment with no confirmed 2026 reopening date as of the article's update; practical visiting detail (security checkpoints, photography and filming rules, free English-speaking guides, no cafe, small gift shop, visit duration). destinationiraq.net/posts/iraqimuseum
- 8"Information about visiting the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad, Iraq", Destination Iraq (destinationiraq.net/exploringbaghdad/iraqimuseum). Location description (Allawi/Karkh area), transport detail (taxi fares and directions from central Baghdad). destinationiraq.net/exploringbaghdad/iraqimuseum
- 9"Iraq Museum", Wikipedia, consulted 2026-08-07. Founding chronology, building history, the April 2003 looting figures and timeline, the 2003-2023 recovery chronology, and the 28 February 2015 reopening. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Museum
- 10"The Iraq Museum: A Brightness in the Darkness", World History Encyclopedia. Gertrude Bell's founding role and the Room of the Babylonian Rocks, architect Werner March, King Faisal II's 1957 foundation stone, the 1966 opening, and pre-closure hours (Saturday-Thursday, 9:00 AM-1:30 PM) and admission (3,000 IQD citizens / 25,000 IQD foreigners). worldhistory.org/article/1355/the-iraq-museum-a-brightness-in-the-darkness/
- 11"International outrage as Iraq's National Museum is sacked by civilians", The Art Newspaper, 1 May 2003. Contemporary account of the looting and international reaction, with named quotes from UK Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. theartnewspaper.com/2003/05/01/international-outrage-as-iraqs-national-museum-is-sacked-by-civilians
- 12"Former Director of Iraq National Museum Remains Haunted by 2003 Looting", VOA News, 30 March 2010. On-the-record account from Donny George Youkhanna, the museum's director general in April 2003: the looting, the refused request to move a tank to the museum gate, the advance evacuation of the Golden Lyre's gold head to the Central Bank, and his characterisation of the 2009 partial reopening as premature and political. voanews.com/a/iraq-national-museum-looted-in-2003-is-open-for-special-visitors-only-89612802/165146.html
- 13"Mask of Warka", Wikipedia. Object history: discovery 22 February 1939 by a German Archaeological Institute expedition at Uruk; theft between 10-12 April 2003; recovery intact in October 2003. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mask_of_Warka
- 14"Iraq Museum: History, Collections, Looting, and Recovery" (World History Encyclopedia summary material) and corroborating search results on the Bassetki Statue theft and recovery, cross-checked against source 15. worldhistory.org/article/1355/the-iraq-museum-a-brightness-in-the-darkness/
- 15"Bassetki", Wikipedia. Bassetki Statue: cast for Naram-Sin of Akkad c. 2250 BC; stolen April 2003; recovered November 2003, having been hidden, coated in grease, in a cesspool. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bassetki
- 16U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, press release 21-922, 23 September 2021; BBC News, "Gilgamesh Dream Tablet: Iraq puts looted artefact on display", 7 December 2021. Repatriation and Baghdad display of the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet; cross-referenced against this archive's own dedicated record for the object (incoming_new/gilgamesh-dream-tablet.json), which cites both primary documents in full. bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-59561151
- 17"The Iraq Museum - All You SHOULD Know Before Going 2026 (with Reviews)", TripAdvisor, read 2026-08-07. Aggregate rating 4.5 of 5 from 113 reviews, ranked #1 of 46 things to do in Baghdad. Individual dated reviews characterised, not quoted at length, per house policy: Vadim (Nov 2024/Oct 2025), Kenneth G (Oct 2025, confirming the museum closed until 2026), Sandra B (May/Jul 2025, admission price and Friday-free claim), Esperanza D (Feb 2024) and Randy M (Mar 2024), both on individual halls closed for renovation before the 2025 full closure. tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294001-d3177457-Reviews-The_Iraq_Museum-Baghdad_Baghdad_Province.html
- 18Solider 16IQ, "Assyrian Hall, National Museum of Iraq.jpg", Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, uploaded 7 December 2016. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Assyrian_Hall,_National_Museum_of_Iraq.jpg
- 19Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), "Prehistory Hall, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, Iraq.jpg", Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, photographed 14 March 2019. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prehistory_Hall,_the_Iraq_Museum_in_Baghdad,_Iraq.jpg
- 20Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), "Sumerian Gallery of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, Iraq.jpg", Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sumerian_Gallery_of_the_Iraq_Museum_in_Baghdad,_Iraq.jpg
- 21"National Iraq Museum, Baghdad", TripHobo listing. Source for the phone number +964 771 225 5256; this is an aggregator listing, not a first-party museum source, and is flagged as such in notes_for_editor. triphobo.com/places/baghdad-iraq/national-iraq-museum
- 22Wikidata Q521251. Tertiary, used only to cross-check identity and coordinates. wikidata.org/wiki/Q521251
