The first steps
Mosul and its region were the cradle for the first archaeological explorations in the Middle East, which were known from the mid-19th century for the rediscovery of the Assyrians. However, it was not until the 1940s that the city of Mosul thought of acquiring an archaeological museum.
The Mosul municipality chose a plot of land in the centre of the city, on the west bank of the Tigris River, where a Royal Pavilion of 1,200 square metres had been built for King Ghazi of Iraq. In 1950, the General Directorate of Antiquities acquired the pavilion with the support of the mayor and governor of Mosul. It took two years to transform the building into a museum, which was inaugurated by King Faisal II on 27 March 1952.
The Mosul Museum, or Mosul Cultural Museum, was Iraq’s second museum — after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, which opened in 1926. The dynamic development of Mosul's heritage initiated by the museum’s opening led to the creation of other local museums. For example, in Nineveh — the archaeological site in the city of Mosul — a museum was created in situ in 1956 during the restoration of the Nergal Gate.
The museum's first collections
The collections of the Mosul Cultural Museum were first displayed in a single space (Hall 1). This space contained mainly late antique sculptures from Hatra. Eighteen display cases of various small objects from the same site complemented the sculptures and artworks from Nimrud completed the display. Assyrian ceramics and ivories were also displayed in two separate showcases.
A second space (Hall 2) was opened in 1958 to exhibit objects from prehistory to the modern period. The aim was to provide a comprehensive overview of the region's history, similar to the National Museum in Baghdad. Hall 2 was then split into two spaces, with a third room (Hall 3) dedicated to the Islamic Medieval periods.
The Mosul Cultural Museum produced two guidebooks to introduce the building and its collections. The first, with a preface by Fuad Safar, General Director of Iraqi Antiquities, was published in 1958 in Arabic and English at the opening of Hall 2. The second, published in 1966 and prefaced by Faisal al-Wailly, was a revision of the first guidebook with museographical updates.
