Most of the Mosul Museum's collection was transferred to Baghdad's National Museum for safekeeping six months before fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took over the city of Mosul in June 2014, according to Iraqi archaeologists.

"Early last year, 1,700 out of the 2,200 artefacts that make up the museum collection, were transferred to Baghdad for safekeeping and because there was maintenance work in [the] museum building," Abdullah al-Jumaili, an archaeology professor and adviser to the Mosul Museum, told Al Jazeera. By the time ISIL fighters raided the museum, there were only 300 pieces left, he noted.

The Mosul Museum is the second largest museum in Iraq, after the National Museum in Baghdad. Last week, stunning video footage emerged that showed ISIL fighters destroying some of Iraq's priceless artefacts in the Mosul Museum and several other sites in Nineveh. The UN's representative in Iraq described the rampage as "barbaric". ...