Sulaymaniyah Museum
The Sulaymaniyah Museum, or Slemani Museum, is an archeological museum located in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the second largest museum in Iraq, after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It houses artifacts dating from the prehistoric period to the late Islamic and Ottoman periods. Several halls of the museum have undergone renovation work and the museum was closed to the public for refurbishment from October 1, 2018, to October 2019.History
Opening
The museum was opened officially on July 14, 1961. Initially, it was composed of a small building in the Shorsh District. After several years, the museum acquired a new and large building in the heart of Salim Street in the year 1980. The current building has an area of 6000 square meters and is a one-story building. The artifacts are displayed in one small hall and two large and long halls which are connected by a square-shaped and open lecture hall. During the Iraq-Iran war, the museum was closed entirely to the public. It was reopened for a very short period in 1990. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the museum was closed once again. It was re-opened officially by Jalal Talabani on August 20, 2000; Talabani was the secretary general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan at that time.Post-2003
After the US-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent looting of the National Museum in Baghdad, the Sulaymaniyah Museum helped to recover and return stolen artifacts through the controversial practice of buying looted artifacts.Since 2011, the museum has been collaborating with the UNESCO to develop and renovate the museum and expand its building.Tablets in 3D
A small selection of tablets were acquired with a high-resolution 3D-scanner following the example of the Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities. High contrast renderings were created with the GigaMesh Software Framework. The images and 3D-models are freely available within the Dataverse of the Heidelberg University.Slemani Museum Kids
On September 5, 2019, the Sulaymaniyah Museum inaugurated a hall dedicated to children and called it "Slemani Museum Kids." The hall has many teaching and demonstrative tools for children. This small museum is the first bespoke museum space for children in Iraq. The Consul General of the UK in Kurdistan, Slemani governor, and Director-General of the Directorate of Archaeology and Antiquities in Kurdistan have attended the event, as well as many other high-ranking officials in Kurdistan Region in addition to the public. Slemani Museum Kids was a co-creation of the project Archaeological Practice and Heritage Protection in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The project is led by the University of Glasgow in collaboration with the Slemani Directorate of Antiquities and Inherit and is funded by the British Council's Cultural Protection Fund, in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport.Tablet V of the Epic of Gligamesh
The newly discovered tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates back to the old Babylonian period, 2003–1595 BC is currently housed in the Museum. In 2023, a new Kurdish translation was made by the Sulaymaniyah Museum for the film Where is Gilgamesh? a Kurdish feature film based on the Epic of Gilgamesh.