Tour Inside Baghdad's Impressive Iraq Museum

The Iraq Museum reopened last week with a lot of international media spotlight, due mainly to the destruction of artifacts in the Mosul Museum by ISIS.

"The events in Mosul led us to speed up our work and we wanted to open it today as a response to what the gangs of Daesh [ISIS] did," said Qais Hussein Rashid, Iraqi Deputy Tourism and Antiquities Minister according to the BBC .

It is the first time that the museum has fully reopened to the public since the US-led invasion of Baghdad 12 years ago. At the time of the invasion, the museum was looted and approximately 15,000 antiquities were stolen. Around one-third of these have since been located and returned to the museum.

Most of us living outside Iraq probably won't be making it to Baghdad for a tour in the very near future. But that shouldn't stop us from exploring the museum a bit, albeit virtually . Click on the image below to be directed to a virtual tour highlighting some of the different sections and artifacts the museum has to display. It also shows how the museum has transformed over the years since its opening in 1926.

According to the museum's website, the space consists of 28 galleries which contain artifacts spanning some 5,000 years of history. Specifically the items on display represent the Mesopotamian region, the historic name for what we now call Iraq.

And check out some of these photos shared via social media from inside the re-opened museum. The history and artifacts are truly incredible.

We send our congrats to the museum on re-opening and we are excited to visit, someday. For now we'll have to be satisfied with the virtual tour and the pictures we can find online.