Iraq's National Museum held approximately 170,000 objects, many of which curators moved to basement storerooms and vaults in March 2003 out of fear of Coalition bombing damage.
Notes on verification
Multiple independent sources corroborate both the collection size (~170,000 objects) and the pre-war relocation of items to secure storage due to fears of bombing damage. [tier=silver indep_score=0.88 clusters=5 claim_tier=notable | framework convergence=partial (upstreams: Iraq Museum's own registration/inventory records, Colonel Matthew Bogdanos investigation (2003)) — publishers independent, evidence may not be | kind=empirical eligibility=high]
Sources
- Saving Iraq's Treasures (seed:law_and_crime)
- https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2003/05/01/international-outrage-as-iraqs-national-museum-is-sacked-by-civilians (corroboration)
- https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/oimp28.pdf (corroboration)
- https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1364/the-iraq-museum--three-wars-three-steps-from-hell/ (corroboration)
- https://ajaonline.org/online-museum-review/364/ (corroboration)
- https://www.foxnews.com/story/looters-plunder-iraq-national-museum-smashing-and-stealing-artifacts (corroboration)