PHOTOS: US returns over 17,000 ancient artifacts smuggled from Iraq since 2003
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq announced on Tuesday that it had taken possession of more than 17,000 looted antiquities, some as old as 4,500 years old, that had been smuggled from Iraq primarily to the United States since the fall of the former regime in 2003.
It is the fifth major batch of artifacts to return home to Mesopotamia and surrounding areas in what is modern-day Iraq.
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said in a joint press conference with Iraq’s Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities, that the items were received by the Iraqi embassy in Washington that had been seized in the US, as well as fewer than 10 items each from three other countries.
They were transported to Baghdad as Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi returned from his recent visit to Washington.
"The estimated ages of the pieces recovered from the Hobby Lobby company range from 3,700 years to 4,500 years," Hussein told reporters, "in addition to the restoration of an Assyrian tablet from the US Department of Homeland Security known as the Gilgamesh Tablet or the Dream Tablet."
He specified that 17,321 of the items came from the United States, nine from Japan, seven from the Netherlands, and one from Italy, expressing sincere thanks to the US and Iraqi agencies, as well as a number of international universities and museums, "for making this mission a success."
The US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that it would return a 3,500-year-old cuneiform tablet to Iraq containing part of the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" after it was found that it was "stolen cultural property," fraudulently introduced to the American art market.
Following the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, untold numbers of archaeological and historical items were looted from various locations in the country, most of which were smuggled to or through Europe.
More than 15,000 items were taken from Iraq’s National Museum in Baghdad alone, of which some 7,000 have been returned. Thousands remain unaccounted for, including those from some of the oldest major civilizations in world history.
Baghdad has recently been ramping up efforts to protect and recover artifacts with the close cooperation of UN agencies and other nations to which they've been smuggled.
In May 2018, US officials handed over nearly 4,000 Mesopotamian artifacts smuggled from Iraq and bought illegally by American arts-and-crafts company Hobby Lobby to the Iraqi Ambassador in Washington.
Read More: US returns 3,800 smuggled Mesopotamian artifacts to Iraq
The roughly 3,800 items included Sumerian cuneiform tablets, many of them from the ancient cities of Ur and Irisagrig and others that were thought to date back as far as 2,100 BC.
US Justice Department officials claimed in court proceedings that Hobby Lobby intentionally acquired the items for roughly $1.6 million through dealers in the United Arab Emirates and Israel, despite multiple clear indications that they had been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq.
Additionally, when ISIS took control of a third of Iraq in 2014, it destroyed many archaeological sites, most of them in the northern part of the country. Antiquities experts say the terrorist group destroyed most large artifacts and plundered untold numbers of small artifacts to sell.
Culture Minister Hasan Nadhim said that it was "a big event, and I hope in the near future to also work seriously with our embassies throughout the world," to recover more ancient treasures.
Editing by John J. Catherine
