The Deir ez-Zor Museum (Arabic: متحف دير الزور) is a museum devoted to the archaeology and history of northeastern Syria, an area more commonly known as the Jezirah, or Upper Mesopotamia. The museum is located in Deir ez-Zor, the capital of Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria. It was founded in 1974 and housed in a gallery of a shopping mall. Between 1983 and 1996, it was located in an old law court built in 1930. In 1996, the museum moved to its current location in a building that had been especially designed for the museum. The exhibition halls cover an area of 1,600 square metres (17,000 sq ft) and are arranged around a courtyard. The construction of the new museum was a joint Syrian–German operation.[2]