From family memories to museum: Iraqi preserves ancestral heritage

 In a small museum in northern Iraq’s Hamdaniya, Ghada Fasih guided visitors through pieces she has collected since childhood and carefully preserved through decades.

Opened in 2020, the Al-Aslaf (Arabic for ancestors) private museum houses Fasih’s collection of items from Iraq’s cultural heritage, including Christian artefacts.

Hamdaniya is considered one of Iraq's most important Christian towns.

Iraq's diverse Christian community was decimated first by al Qaeda's rise in the early 2000s and later by the Islamic State, which persecuted Christians and other minority faiths and sects from 2014 to 2017.

The 60-year-old Christian's passion for antiquities began at the age of 14, Fasih said, when she was growing up surrounded by family keepsakes and traditional household objects.

"I consider these pieces a treasure," Fasih said. "If we preserve these pieces, generations that come after us will preserve them, and the heritage will remain alive," she added.

Since militants were driven out in 2017, families have returned to Hamdaniya and rebuilt houses that were left in ruins by Islamic State and the fighting that ousted them.

Fasih recalled how she was living in Baghdad at the time, and how some pieces of her collection were lost during that period.

After returning to Hamdaniya in 2019, she brought together the remaining items and later opened the museum.

Production: Khalid Al-Mousily, Maher Nazeh, Abir Al Ahmar/Reuters