When Layla Salih walks amid the rubble of Mosul with her quick, soft steps, she knows exactly where she wants to go. Whether in the Old City of Mosul, in Nimrod, or at a spot where some of the Mosul Museum’s antiquities were destroyed, Salih knows that rubble can often hide remnants of destroyed artifacts that can be put back together if one has the drive and patience to do so.
After graduating from the University of Mosul in 1999, Salih dived straight into archaeology. Until 2009, she worked at the Mosul Museum. In 2012, she was appointed as head of the Heritage Buildings in Antiquities Board of Ninevah province, the provincial section of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq. Meanwhile, she continued her academic studies and completed a master's degree in Islamic archaeology at Baghdad University in 2013.