British Museum will return artefacts looted from Iraq during US invasion
The British Museum will return to Iraq a collection of 5,000-year-old looted antiquities that were seized from a London dealer shortly after the US-led invasion in 2003.
The eight objects were confiscated by police in May 2003 – after the dealer failed to produce proof of ownership – and were passed to the institution for analysis earlier this year.
Three of the items carry Sumerian inscriptions that identify their origin as the Eninnu temple in the ancient city of Girsu, now known as Tello, in southern Iraq. Their identification was made easier by the fact that Tello is one of the excavation sites where the British Museum has since 2016 been training Iraqi archaeologists.
“The other items are identical to objects known from excavations at Tello and most likely also originate from the same site,” the museum said.
The objects are believed to have been removed by a small number of people over a short period of time – the scale of the looting is limited compared with elsewhere in south Iraq.
They will be formally handed to the Iraqi embassy during a ceremony at the museum on Friday, from where they will return to Iraq. Iraq’s ambassador, Salih Husain Ali, praised the museum staff for their “exceptional efforts” in identifying the antiquities.
“Such collaboration between Iraq and the United Kingdom is vital for the preservation and the protection of the Iraqi heritage,” he said. “The protection of antiquities is an international responsibility and in Iraq we aspire to global co-operation to protect the heritage of Iraq and to restore its looted objects.”
The objects include three fired clay cones, each with an identical cuneiform inscription – seen on many other items – and references to the deity Ningirsu.
There is also a polished, yellowish river pebble and a fragmentary white gypsum mace head, both also inscribed. Another object is a white marble amulet pendant in the form of a reclining four-legged animal, dating from about 3,000 BC.
A red marble square stamp seal or amulet pendant is from the same period. The final item is a white chalcedony stamp seal with a flat oval face engraved with a reclining sphinx.