A visit to a museum in Iraq reminded me of the value of the work we do as journalists

In popular fiction, the hunt for ancient treasures is largely a white man’s pursuit – a white man in khaki, to be precise

Earlier this month I spent some time walking around Iraq’s National Museum in Baghdad. Even those who have never stepped foot in the building will be familiar with the items within it. It’s a special place, made more so by the fact that everything there is entirely homegrown.

The giant winged bulls that tower over the Assyrian room were dug up less than 300 miles away, in Khorsabad, where they once stood at the Palace of Sargon II. The many clay tablets, which demonstrate the first writing system developed by humans, come from Uruk, 175 miles south of Baghdad.

These treasures tell the story of humankind, and are of interest to us all. But they are also a source of national pride for Iraq. For much of the country’s history, its people had little say over where these artefacts went, and who owned them. The legacy of colonialism and decades of looting means that many of them are still out of the reach of ordinary Iraqis.

To rectify this, the museum has an entire department dedicated to seeking out and repatriating artefacts scattered around the world. My guide for the day was the head of that department, a woman named Wafaa Hassan.

As we walked through the halls displaying the remains of the world’s first great empires, she spoke as much about the things that were missing as of what was in front of us. She also told me about the daily struggle to bring them “home”.

We rarely think of archaeological finds in terms of ownership. In popular fiction (read: Hollywood), the hunt for ancient treasures is largely a white man’s pursuit – a white man in khaki, to be precise. Historic relics are things to be fought over and rescued by westerners.

During a tussle over the Cross of Coronado, Indiana Jones once famously shouted at an antiquities dealer in a Panama hat: “That belongs in a museum!” But he didn’t say which museum, and a thorough reading of his exploits throughout the franchise suggests that the real-life Jones might find himself a target of Wafaa Hassan’s recovery department.

Meeting Hassan was yet another reminder of how the lens through which we tell a story can drastically alter its meaning. Journalism is often described as the first draft as history, but it’s just as often a corrective to Hollywood tropes.

Yours,

Richard Hall

Middle East correspondent