Restoration of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad — looted in the immediate aftermath of the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003 — will be spearheaded by the executive director of the Aurora History Museum, a longtime adviser in the Middle East.
Gordon Davis will direct the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project, backed by a $13 million grant from the U.S. State Department, Aurora officials said.
The object is to restore the museum — which contained priceless pieces of world heritage — as well as train museum staff in conservation and historic preservation.
Davis is in Iraq and plans to return to the Aurora History Museum in about a year, according to Aurora officials.
He is one of very few people in the United States “who could come close to doing this,” said Alice Lee Main, cultural services manager for the city of Aurora.
“The interesting thing about Gordon is that usually people in his field are either a museum person or a historic preservation person. But Gordon does both. He does just about everything,” she said.
The project will include rehabilitation of the museum infrastructure, design and development of new collection storage facilities and improvements to the museum gallery space.
The looting of the museum was one of the major scandals during the downfall of the Hussein regime, with officials saying that thousands of items were stolen.
The museum’s collection is called one of the most important in the world because it contained items from ancient Mesopotamia, often called the “cradle of civilization.”
Gordon started at the Aurora History Museum in August 2000 and has extensive experience in overseas projects.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
