Looted artefacts to be returned

Ancient artefacts looted from Iraq and Afghanistan after recent conflicts and illegally exported to the UK will be returned to their country of origin.

The British Museum is working with the UK Border Force and other government law enforcement agencies to help to return the seized items, which were brought there for analysis, conservation and cataloguing.

Among the items due to be returned are Gandharan sculptures which had been illegally exported from Afghanistan and entered Heathrow Airport from Peshawar on September 5, 2002.

They are typical of the tradition of Hadda, near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, and the remainder of Buddhist sites in the Kabul region of central Afghanistan and will have adorned the walls of Buddhist monasteries.

The objects will be returned to the National Museum of Afghanistan through the British Museum after they go on temporary display in London, with the permission of the Afghan museum.

Due to be returned to Iraq is an important collection of tablets bearing cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing. A haul of 154 Mesopotamian texts written on clay in cuneiform script was seized on entry to the UK in 2011.