Activities of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences
and of the Centre for the Restoration of Monuments
in Baghdad
A considerable part of the activities carried out by Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino has always been dedicated to planning work, studies, restoration, testing and application of new methodologies in the field of cultural heritage, in cooperation with the authorities of the various countries in which the Centre has operated.
For this reason, the Italian-Iraqi Institute of Archaeological Sciences and the Italian-Iraqi Centre for the Restoration of Monuments have been operating in Baghdad since 1969, founded with the purpose of creating an ongoing joint cooperation between Italy and Iraq, even in especially delicate times as in the past few years.
The two Institutes’ activities in these decades concentrated on survey, restoration and study campaigns of important monuments and archaeological sites such as Ctesiphon, Babylon, ‘Aqar
Quf, Mosul and its Minaret, ‘Anah and the monuments
of Islamic Baghdad, as well as on the training of Iraqi staff, specialized in the recovery of artifacts looted from Iraq during the two Gulf Wars (B.R.I.L.A.), on the restoration and reorganization of the Archaeological Museum of Baghdad, which was seriously damaged during the latest bombings, with the support Italian
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE-DGMM, Task Force Iraq), the Ministry
of Cultural Heritage and Activities and its Central
Restoration Institute.