Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi issued instructions July 30 to reopen the Iraqi National Museum after the recovery of 17,000 looted artifacts from the United States. The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Aug. 3 that Iraq had received the Assyrian "Gilgamesh Dream Tablet" and other artifacts from other countries.

Thousands of antiquities were looted from Iraq after the US invasion of 2003, either by smugglers, or at the hands of the Islamic State, which controlled a third of Iraqi territory between 2014 and 2017.

The deserts of Iraq are home to thousands of neglected archaeological sites. Citizens find archaeological pieces in the wild by coincidence, which encourages illegal excavations.

Ministry of Culture spokesman Ahmed al-Alawi told Al-Monitor, “The recovery of this huge number of artifacts accelerated the reopening of the closed National Museum. The Ministry of Culture and the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage are working to meet the requirements for the reopening. The museum was closed for maintenance because it is an ancient museum and suffered from unstable security conditions.”