Iraq Regains Pieces Looted from its Museums During War

Tags: Antiquities, Middle East

The Iraqi National Museum received 45 relics today from German police who confiscated them from looters active during and in the aftermath of the War on Iraq. Leading the way for other Western nations, officials acting on behalf of Germany returned such pieces as a 6,500-year-old Sumerian gold jar and clay tablets with cuneiform script to the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad.

According to the National Museum, some 15,000 pieces have been stolen from them since 2003– 10,000 of which are still unaccounted for. Abbas al-Quraishi, the head of their artifact retrieval department, was quoted as saying:

“We are heading in coming months to retrieve Iraqi artifacts from Britain, from the United States of America, and Canada … we will follow Iraq’s antiquities wherever they are.”

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Photo courtesy of Reuters