Once home to a major collection of archaeological artifacts from Assyrian times to the Islamic era, the Museum of Raqqa is barely a pale shadow of its former self. All that remains in the 19th-century building in the war-torn city on the northeastern bank of the Euphrates are some pottery, a couple of destroyed mosaics and two ancient tombs whose contents have been emptied by looters.

While finding the looted antiquities will be a long, ongoing project, efforts are currently afoot to renovate the damaged building. The Roya (Vision) Organization, a civil society group, worked on the building's rehabilitation during the second half of 2018 with assistance from Raqqa's Civil Council.

During the first phase of the project, from June through November 2018, Roya cleaned the museum’s burnt interior and repaired the damaged exterior. Interior and exterior walls were painted, holes patched with clay bricks and the floors and pathways laid with clay flagstones. The next phase of the project has been approved, but the start date is unclear given the uncertainty in the area created by President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from the country.

Islamic State (IS) captured Raqqa in January 2014 and made it the headquarters of its so-called caliphate. The group held the city for three years, until the city’s liberation in October 2017. The current sad state of the museum is symbolic of the destruction wrought on the city itself, the home of such monuments as the the ancient wall around the Old City and the Baghdad Gate.