The Iraq Museum was built by Faisal I in 1923, shortly after the monarchy was established in Iraq (1921) after the fall of the Ottoman Empire that followed World War I. The museum’s actual promoter was British scholar Gertrude Bell, technical adviser to the British protectorate, who was a personal friend of the king. In 1927 the museum had its first stable premises in Baghdad, where its 19th century collections were preserved. Archaeological research in Mesopotamia increased at that time, also favoured by the possibility of portioning out “duplicate or analogous” material found in the new excavations, as allowed by the law on antiquities of 1924, which remained in effect until 1967 (inalienability, however, was established by law in 1974).
Thus, a true archaeological boom that lasted until the end of the 1930s took place. British, American, German and French institutions began new excavations (Nineveh, Ur, Tell Ubaid, Kish, Jemdet Nasr, Khorsabad, Tepe Gawra, Nuzi, Uruk, Tello, Seleucia, Ctesiphon) that laid the groundwork for gaining knowledge on the Mesopotamian civilization, and made it possible to enlarge the collections of western museums. Italy, with a very brief Florentine mission, was present in Kakzu. As a result, the Iraq Museum also benefited, so much that in 1932 it was decided to enlarge it and the construction of its new (current) premises, designed by German architect Werner March, began in 1940. In the meantime, in 1937 the Museum of Arab Antiquities, which was absorbed by the new museum that finally opened in 1966, was established in a historical building of Baghdad. World War II did not disrupt the activities on the ground, thanks to the first Iraqi excavations: ‘Aqar Quf, Eridu, followed in the post-war period by the new excavations in Nippur, Nimrud and Uruk; a series of conservative excavations for the creation of water basins were also inaugurated in Tharthar, Demberke-Khan and Dokan.
The 1960s also saw missions from Russia, Japan and Turin take part in the excavations in Mesopotamia. From the 1970s, fourteen new provincial museums with educational functions and representing the entire panorama of Mesopotamian civilization were established, and new international conservative excavations for the creation of more dams (Hamrin, Haditha, Eski Mosul) were also inaugurated.