In the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, the looting and ransacking of the Iraq Museum was viewed as a very avoidable tragedy indicative of the inability of the occupying forces to protect the country’s national treasures. But “ten months after its looting, the Iraq Museum has recovered nearly half of the artifacts stolen. Many of those treasures, like the museum itself, are in need of extensive restoration. And a more ambitious goal has emerged, as well: of returning the museum to a role it has not played in a generation, as a center of scholarship and as a place to display Iraq’s priceless archaeological heritage.”