Restoring the Works of Art

A long and difficult job

Thanks to the patient and painstaking collaboration between French conservators, who are regularly sent on site by the Musée du Louvre, and the Iraqi teams of the Mosul Cultural Museum, some of the works of art destroyed during the Daesh occupation are gradually taking shape again. This inspires the hope of a symbolic victory over the desire to destroy these miraculously preserved vestiges. Many of these date back nearly 3000 years, with the bulk of the devastated works found in the Assyrian Hall. Exposed to jackhammering, explosions, and fires — not to mention looting — these works will forever bear the marks of the attacks they suffered.

As the prelude to an overall study for establishing plans to reassemble the works of art that were destroyed, the condition of each fragment must be sorted and noted and the breakage lines must be meticulously studied. Each of the fragments, from the most massive to the smallest, must be consolidated, strengthened if necessary, cleaned and prepared for reassembly. The plan for reassembly itself needs to be carefully evaluated to determine the best course of action.

All these operations require expertise and know-how, which are even more essential given the fragility of the collections in the Mosul Cultural Museum and the complexity of the problems encountered. In addition to the quality and number of conservators needed to deal with such an extreme situation, restoration equipment and workspaces must be optimally arranged within the museum to reduce the movement of remains that are already very delicate. Storage and handling facilities are also needed, particularly for monumental fragments.

What is restoration?

Art restoration refers to all the treatments and interventions carried out on a work of art to re-establish a given historical state. Restoration also makes it possible to improve the legibility (writing, drawings, engravings, etc.) and aesthetics of a work. Since the second half of the 20th century, members of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) have preferred to use the term "conservation-restoration" to refer to the discipline devoted to the physical examination of cultural property.

The conservator is the person who has the training, knowledge and experience to undertake conservation-restoration activities. Conservators are usually designated according to their area of specialisation: stone, metal, wood, etc.

The throne base of Ashurnasirpal II and the start of the restoration programme

This wide stone dais comes from the throne room of the Northwest Palace built by the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II in the 9th century BC. It was found at Nimrud (ancient Kalhu) by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard. Having been left in situ, it was rediscovered a century later, during the British excavations of Max Mallowan. This throne base bears a long text in the name of Ashurnasirpal II, inscribed in cuneiform characters in the Assyrian language.

During the occupation of the museum by Daesh, this throne base, which was in the middle of the Assyrian Hall, was deliberately blown up. The impact destroyed the monument, reducing it to a multitude of scattered fragments, and left a spectacular gaping hole in the museum floor.

The throne base was one of the artworks selected to start the restoration programme of the museum's collections as a priority. After careful sorting and study, the fragments were arranged, cleaned and consolidated before the various operations necessary to reassemble the whole could proceed. After two years, the throne base is back in shape thanks to the joint work of the Iraqi and French teams.

At the same time, operations were launched to restore several other damaged major artworks in the Mosul Cultural Museum, including a monumental lion and the famous Banquet Stele, also from Nimrud.