Iraq: Recovery of Approximately 185 Artifacts from Britain

SadaNews - The Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities announced that it will recover 185 Iraqi artifacts that were smuggled to Britain, following their discovery and seizure by the British police and government.

Iraqi Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Fakkak Al-Badri stated that the Iraqi government and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities are continuing their efforts to retrieve the Iraqi artifacts and tablets that were smuggled over the past times, confirming coordination with the UK government and the Iraqi embassy in London for this purpose.

He explained that the Ministry of Culture and Antiquities was able in the recent period to recover 6,000 artifacts from Britain and 13 boxes from the United States, in addition to recovering hundreds of artifacts and tablets from European and Arab countries and other nations.

Official statistics are lacking in tracking the smuggled artifacts outside the country, as Iraqi antiquities were plundered during the American occupation in 2003, with Baghdad and Mosul (in the north) being among the most affected cities by the looting of artifacts.

The official figures do not reflect the extent of the loss of smuggled Iraqi artifacts, especially amid the state of security chaos and the continued operations of gangs involved in illegal excavations for antiquities.

Iraq has lost more than 15,000 artifacts from the Baghdad Museum alone, representing various civilizations, starting from the Sumerian civilization over 4,000 years ago, through the Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations, up to the Islamic civilization.

Among the lost artifacts that the United States agreed to return is a clay tablet inscribed in cuneiform with a portion of the "Epic of Gilgamesh," a Sumerian work considered one of the oldest literary works of humanity.

Source: Al Jazeera + Agencies