Iraqi discoveries help shed light on British Museum treasures

Work of trainees in Iraq has enabled new understanding of objects going on show in UK

For decades they have been part of the collection of the British Museum, appreciated for their individual significance but in many cases shorn of much of their context owing to the circumstances of their discovery and retrieval during the buccaneering period of early archaeology.

Now dozens of important artefacts that were removed from Iraq in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are being brought back into focus in an exhibition drawing on groundbreaking discoveries made by Iraqi archaeologists amid the turbulence of the country's recent history.