Story highlights At Mosul Museum, ISIS uses vandalism to make a statement

But ISIS may not have destroyed quite as much as it thinks

(CNN) To get inside Mosul's museum, you no longer enter through the main entrance, flanked by the capitals of ancient columns. Instead, you scramble over a pile of rubble and duck through a jagged hole in the wall.

You also might want to wear a flak jacket and a helmet, because the museum is just a few blocks from the front line in west Mosul.

Once you enter, you're confronted with mounds of rubble. They're all that remains of an lammasu, a stone-winged bull dating back to the seventh century B.C., an iconic symbol of the once-mighty Assyrian Empire.

A soldier sits in the hole in the wall that is now the entrance to Mosul's museum.

In February 2015, ISIS posted a video online showing men with sledgehammers and jackhammers destroying one of the museum's lamassu, and other relics, while others can be seen toppling statue after statue. In typical ISIS fashion, this madness has been edited to include pious songs about idol-smashing in the name of God.

The clip includes a bearded, unnamed man in a black skullcap, who says, "O Muslims, these statues behind me are idols of people from previous centuries who worshiped them instead of God almighty.

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