ITALY RETURNS LOOTED 2,800-YEAR-OLD STONE TABLET TO IRAQ

Tue 20 June 2023:

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities in Baghdad announced yesterday that it has retrieved a 2,800-year-old stone tablet from Italy, nearly four decades after it was looted from Iraq.

The artefact is inscribed with complete cuneiform text, one of the world’s oldest writing systems developed in ancient Mesopotamia. It has been described as being notably larger than other clay tablets found in Iraq and bears the insignia of Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian king who ruled the Nimrod region, present-day northern Iraq, from 858 to 823BCE.

Although it is unclear how the historic item ended up in Italy, the government handed it over to Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, during his recent trip to Bologna.

Italy handed over to Iraq an archaeological tablet dating back to the Assyrian era, the ninth century BC Where the tablet spoke of the Assyrian Emperor Shalmaneser III rebuilding the ziggurat of Kalkhu (currently Nimrud). pic.twitter.com/iVQ6LdCYIV

— History of Mesopotamia (@GilgameshIQ) June 14, 2023

At a Baghdad presidential palace ceremony held to hand the artefact over to Iraq’s National Museum, Rashid expressed his thanks to the Italian officials for their efforts and cooperation in bringing back the piece.

According to Laith Majeed Hussein, Deputy Minister and Director of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH), Iraq’s national heritage institution, the tablet arrived in Italy in the 1980s, where it was seized by police.

“Perhaps (it was found) during archaeological excavations or during work on the Mosul Dam,” said Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani, a historian of Iraq’s modern politics and Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities. The dam was the biggest built in Iraq during the 1980s. Badrani noted the significance of the piece with its complete cuneiform text.

Following the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the turmoil unleashed an upsurge in looting, with the country’s historical artefacts becoming a prime target.

“We will continue to work to recover all the archaeological pieces of Iraqi history from abroad,” insisted President Rashid. “We want to make the Iraq National Museum one of the best museums in the world, and we will work to do so.”