Thread by @Moudhy

The Iraq Museum is one I hope to get to visit someday, but until then, I am grateful that @Mehiyar sends me incredible photos that momentarily make me feel like I’m there.

A short thread.

Reconstructed from surviving parts, like inlays made of mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli, the Golden Lyre is named for its bull head made of gold and was found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur in southern Iraq (c2600 BCE).

Photo by @Mehiyar

The Uruk Vase is a 5,000-year-old masterpiece that stands at about a metre high and may show a figure—possibly Uruk’s ruler—delivering provisions to the goddess Inanna, represented by two reed bundles. It was stolen from and returned to the Iraq Museum in 2003.

Photo by @Mehiyar

Known as the Lady of Warka, this life-sized model of a head often interpreted to be that of a woman, is suspected by some to be part of the figure of a goddess.

Either way, it is an incredibly early depiction of a human face from the late 4th millennium BCE. Photo by @Mehiyar

In the Middle Babylonian, or Kassite, period in ancient Mesopotamia, boundary stones were used to record land grants.

They often featured mythological figures and iconography, like the crescent of the moon god Sîn (top left) and a lightning fork (bottom left). Photo by @Mehiyar

Stumbled upon this beautiful guide to the Iraq Museum that opens with a foreword by Dr. Amira Edan.

In her words, “Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilisation, and its museum is a vast colourful window displaying the authentic and priceless objects created by an immortal people.”