Titulka

  • Address:

    Mosul, Iraq

  • Client:

    Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA

  • Description of works:

    Research and structural analyses

  • Realization:

    2019

The GEMA ART International s.r.o. was a part of an international team implementing the first stage of the “Rehabilitation of the Mosul Museum” project (2018 – 2023). This project is financed by the ALIPH Foundation (International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas). The task of the GEMA ART experts’ participation was to examine the range of the building structural damages.

The Mosul Museum was known by its diverse collection of prehistoric and neo-Assyrian objects from the Nineveh, artifacts from Hatra and collection of an Islamic art, documenting multicultural and multireligious history of the city and its region. But in 2015 ISIS extremists severely damaged the Mosul Museum building, its collections and its library, books were lit on fire.

The task of the “Rehabilitation of the Mosul Museum” project is to reopen the museum in 2024. The implementation started in close cooperation with the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH), Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities and the Mosul Museum staff in 2018. The Musée du Louvre and the Smithsonian Institution are the main project implementers and the GEMA ART had been involved into the project due to its long-term experience of restoration works in Iraq. The first stage of the project on situ research was implemented in Mosul under a special security and safety regime in February 2019. The GEMA ART carried out a research, building structural analyze and elaborated a draft of shoring up collapsing floors. The resulting documentation became a part of the assessment of the range of the damages of the Mosul Museum building and its collections to implement immediate measures.

For more information about this project see following websites: Smithsonian Institution, ALIPH and World Monument Fund.