Sulaymaniyah Museum
Archaeological museum in Kurdistan Region, Iraq

The Sulaymaniyah Museum (Kurdish: مۆزهخانهی سلێمانی; Arabic: متحف السليمانية), or Slemani Museum, is an archeological museum located in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the second largest museum in Iraq, after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It houses artifacts dating from the prehistoric period to the late Islamic and Ottoman periods. Several halls of the museum have undergone renovation work and the museum was closed to the public for refurbishment from October 1, 2018, to October 2019.
History
Opening
The museum was opened officially on July 14, 1961. Initially, it was composed of a small building in the Shorsh District. After several years, the museum acquired a new and large building in the heart of Salim Street in the year 1980. The current building has an area of 6000 square meters and is a one-story building. The artifacts are displayed in one small hall (which was renovated by the UNESCO in 2023) and two large and long halls which are connected by a square-shaped and open lecture hall. During the Iraq-Iran war (1980–1988), the museum was closed entirely to the public.
The public source identifies “Sulaymaniyah Museum” as archaeological museum in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sulaymaniyah, Museum and Archaeological.
Why this record matters
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19414891. Authority coordinates are 35.558, 45.426. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018, 2019, 1961 and 1980.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “Sulaymaniyah Museum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.