A gem on the way to the renaissance. The museum in Mosul has still not reopened, but it is a first step: on Tuesday, a first exhibition was opened in the complex of the second museum of Iraq whose group islamic State (EI) has methodically destroyed historical treasures.

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For the first time since the jihadists had seized in the summer of 2014, this city in the north of the country, the visitors who came in droves, were able to discover paintings of artists, local or from elsewhere within the precincts of the museum of Mosul.

The reception room royal, “the oldest official building in the city,” has been “completely renovated” and is “used for the first time” with this exhibition, explains to the AFP one of the organizers of this event. It is proof that the war has not killed Mosul and that on the contrary it is undergoing a renaissance,” says his side Houda Hani, a student of 25 years.

The museum building of ochre stone to the refined architecture, remains on the other hand closed “for security reasons”, explains to the AFP Zeid Saadallah, its director. It is necessary, he said, “to protect what remains” inside the building that still bears the scars of fighting. Here, slabs of marble torn from the facade, where the windows pierced by bullets.

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In this case which contained priceless artifacts, the AR has ravaged to blows from a sledgehammer, and jackhammer of the ancient statues and treasures in the pre-islamic museum, featuring this hard in a video released in February 2015.

in particular, They have reduced to nil two winged bulls assyria human face of more than two metres in height and more than four tonnes, as well as a winged lion of similar proportions.

To try to revive them, the museum has in particular on the new technologies, such as 3D printing, so that a foundation set up by France and the united arab Emirates, ALIPH, has already allocated 480.000 dollars (420.000 euro) for the initial phase of restoration of the museum of Mosul.

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After the announcement in 2014 of its “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria, the ARS has increased the massive destruction, destroying ancient sites, like Nimrod, a jewel of the assyrian empire founded in the Thirteenth century before J.-C., and destroyed a bulldozer, a pickaxe, and blasting. Elsewhere, the group has launched in the trafficking of antiquities to fund its activities.