Homeland Security Investigations teams, curious about the size of the collection, looked it up and discovered the ram was not among the listed items. Investigators believe it had been stolen from an archaeological site in southern Iraq, then passed off as part of a collection that had been discovered years earlier.
The sculpture, from 3000 B.C., was used for religious vows in Sumerian temples. “It is really something.”Īuthorities are also repatriating a Sumerian Ram sculpture that was seized during a separate case. I’m a Chaldean Iraqi and leading the agency that did this work,” Francis said. “This exceptional restitution is a major victory over those who mutilate heritage and then traffic it to finance violence and terrorism.” Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. “By returning these illegally acquired objects, the authorities here in the United States and in Iraq are allowing the Iraqi people to reconnect with a page in their history,” said Audrey Azoulay, director general of the U.N. The black market for these relics is vast, as are criminal networks and smugglers dealing in stolen items and falsifying ownership data. In years past, such items probably would never have made it back. and around the world to return antiquities pilfered from their home countries. It’s part of an increasing effort by authorities in the U.S. Months later, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, began a civil forfeiture court proceeding that resulted in the repatriation, which is scheduled for Thursday afternoon at a ceremony at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian that will include officials from Iraq. Officials believe it was illegally imported into the United States in 2003, then sold to Hobby Lobby and eventually put on display in its Museum of the Bible in the nation’s capital.įederal agents with Homeland Security Investigations seized the tablet - known as the Gilgamesh Dream tablet - from the museum in September 2019. The $1.7 million cuneiform clay tablet was found in 1853 as part of a 12-tablet collection in the rubble of the library of Assyrian King Assur Banipal. WASHINGTON (AP) - A 3,500-year-old clay tablet discovered in the ruins of the library of an ancient Mesopotamian king, then looted from an Iraqi museum 30 years ago, is finally headed back to Iraq. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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