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'Dark age' over as museum reopens

Updated on 23 February 2009

By Lindsey Hilsum

Fewer than half of the wings of Iraq's national museum open their doors today after a dispute between government departments.

Most of its antiquities, some dating back to the dawn of civilisation, were looted after the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Now six years later the Baghdad museum has partially re-opened, with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki describing the previous wreckage as his country's "dark age".

A looted museum and a satellite phone

Read Lindsey's account of the day she found a Baghdad Museum director in tears on the World News Blog: A looted museum and a satellite phone

Dr Youkhanna

Jon Snow interviews Dr Donny George Youkhanna, the former director of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, who is currently visiting anthropology professor at Stony Brook University in New York.

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