Scarred but still standing, Mosul museum reopens at last

Ninevah’s renowned cultural heritage museum, known for the Islamic State's disastrous attack on its treasures, has finally reopened to the public.
The remains of carved feet of a "Lamassu" statue, an Assyrian deity often depicted as a winged-bull with a human head, stands inside the destroyed museum of Mosul on April 2, 2017 after Iraqi forces recaptured it from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Iraqi forces seized the museum from IS on March 7 as they pushed into west Mosul as part of a vast offensive to oust the jihadists from the northern city. / AFP PHOTO / AHMAD GHARABLI (Photo credit should read AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
The carved feet of a destroyed statue of a lamassu, an Assyrian deity often depicted as a winged bull with a human head, stands inside the destroyed museum of Mosul on April 2, 2017, after Iraqi forces recaptured it from Islamic State fighters. - AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
Joe Snell
Joe Snell
@joesnell03

Before 2014, Iraq's Ninevah province was home to five museums of natural history, modern art and antiquities. Within a year, that number fell to zero. 

Six years later, Ninevah welcomed the public back to the antiquities museum in Mosul, regarded by some as the region's crown jewel of cultural heritage.

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