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Updated August 4th, 2021 at 06:45 IST

Iraq reclaims 17,000 artefacts from 2003 US invasion in biggest repatriation mission

Museum of the Bible, a four-year-old Washington museum had stored about 12,000 Iraq's cultural items and artefacts from ancient Mesopotamia.

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
Iraq
IMAGE: AP | Image:self
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The United States has returned more than 17,000 ancient artefacts looted and smuggled out of Iraq during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.  After the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi visited Washington last week to advance bilateral cooperation under the Strategic Framework Agreement, upon his return, his aircraft was loaded with several archaeological artefacts which were returned by the prominent US museums and Ivy League universities to Iraq’s Culture Ministry under two countries largest repatriation agreement. 

In a statement on Tuesday, Iraqi culture and foreign ministries said that the US authorities agreed to return the antique cultural items and artefacts to the government in Baghdad that was apparently handed over by the US dealers and museums This included 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, thousands of clay tablets and seals — pieces from Mesopotamia, world’s earliest civilizations site in Iraq, and many other significant cultural pieces.

[Credit: AP]

“This is not just about thousands of tablets coming back to Iraq again — it is about the Iraqi people,” Hassan Nadhem, the Iraqi minister of culture, tourism, and antiquities, said in an interview with the NY Times. “It restores not just the tablets, but the confidence of the Iraqi people by enhancing and supporting the Iraqi identity in these difficult times,” he added, according to the newspaper. 

 

US Art dealer fined $3 million, artefacts repatriated

Museum of the Bible, a four-year-old Washington museum had stored about 12,000 Iraqi cultural items and artefacts from ancient Mesopotamia. Tens of thousands of artefacts were looted from Iraq after the 2003 US invasion that had overthrown the regime of Saddam Hussein. Many were demolished by the ISIL (ISIS) terror group, which was later defeated by the United States and Iraqi forces. One of the world’s finest pieces of literature, the ancient Sumerian tale is known as the Epic of Gilgamesh was auctioned to an art dealer in the US state of Oklahoma after it was plundered in Iraq. Some of the dealers were fined by the US Department of Justice such as Hobby Lobby which was fined $3 million for mishandling more than 5,000 artefacts acquired during the Iraq invasion. Most of them were packed among the repatriation objects returned to Iraq last week. 

[Credit: AP]

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Published August 4th, 2021 at 06:45 IST

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