Nawala Al-Mutawalli

Al-Mutalwalli graduated from the University of Baghdad with a degree in archaeology in 1976, and graduated from the same institution with a PhD in 1994.^[1] She has excavated at the sites of Tell Aswad, the Hamrin Dam, Ishan Mazyad, Umma,^[1] and Aqarquf.^[2] She is an expert in cuneiform and bullae and has published extensively on the archaeology of Iraq.^[1] From 1995 to 2000 she was Head of Cuneiform at the Iraq Museum.^[2] She was subsequently the museum's director from 2000 to 2003.^[3][4] In 2000 she co-convened a celebration of 5000 years of writing in Iraq.^[5] She was director of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Baghdad from 2017 to 2018.^[1]

Looting, as a result of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, took place during Al-Mutawalli's tenure as director and she estimated at the time that 12,000 objects^{[note 1]} were looted from the collection.^[7][8] Reported by The Art Newspaper to be a member of the Ba'ath Party (which was almost compulsory under Saddam Hussein's regime), after the fall of Baghdad, museum employees demanded her resignation.^[7] This was based on accusations reported in The Atlantic that Al-Mutawelli had been complicit in longer-term looting of Iraqi antiquities orchestrated by the regime.^[3] In The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield described how al-Mutawalli was issued with an AK-47, and guarded the museum alongside other colleagues and archaeologists preceding the Battle of Baghdad.^[9]

In 2021, she was appointed as an honorary member of the International Association for Assyriology, in recognition for her work.^[10] She is also Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at the University of Mosul.^[11]

• Al-Mutawalli, Nawala Ahmed, et al. Bullae from the Main Tell: Documents of Umma's Administration in the Early Old Babylonian Period. With a Contribution by Adelheid Otto. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2024.^[12]
• al-Mutawalli, Nawala Ahmed. 2010. "Administrative Cuneiform Texts from Umma in the Iraq Museum. Excavation of Shara Temple." Sumer 55: 45–86.
• Al-Mutawalli N. A New foundation cylinder from the Temple of Nabû ša ḫarê. Iraq. 1999;61:191-194.^[13]