With $5 Million Grant, British Museum Will Train Iraqi Conservators to Rebuild ISIS-Destroyed Sites

posted on: Oct 30, 2015

Thanks to a five-million-dollar government grant, the British Museum will create a pilot program in Iraq to teach heritage conservation techniques to museum curators, conservators, and archaeologists, reports The Guardian’s Maev Kennedy. Since the war in 2003, the museum has already been inviting Iraqi museum professionals to Bloomsbury to work on preservation. Direct intervention is currently impossible at locations still occupied by ISIS, the museum noted, but the program will help prepare museum workers for future restoration projects.

John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, said “Civilizations tell their stories through their art, which is why people who are hellbent on destruction, target it. Removing places and things that have helped to give people a shared sense of history and identity helps to undermine social cohesion and makes reconciliation less likely.”

Source: artforum.com