Retrieved artifacts are displayed at a museum in Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2022.Photo:Xinhua
The Iraqi authorities on Monday retrieved from Lebanon 337 ancient artifacts which were looted after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.Among the retrieved artifacts are 331 cuneiform tablets dating back to the Akkadian Empire and other early dynasties more than 4,000 years ago, while the remaining six date from the Old Babylonian Empire more than 3000 years ago, said Laith Hussein, head of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, at a press conference.
The 337 artifacts were retrieved from the private Nabu Museum in Lebanon, he added.
Late in 2021, Iraq announced the recovery of 17,916 looted and smuggled antiquities from the United States and European countries, including tablets dating back to 4,500 years ago and bearing cuneiform inscriptions documenting the trade exchanges during the Sumerian civilization.
More antiquities will soon be retrieved from several European countries, and "we will continue to work to recover the last artifact outside Iraq," Hussein noted.
A day earlier, Lebanese Culture Ministry handed over to Iraq the 337 ancient artifacts that had been on display in a Lebanese museum for years after confirming they belong to Iraq, according to the Iraqi official.
According to the official statistics, about 15,000 pieces of cultural relics from the Stone Age, the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Islamic periods were stolen or destroyed by looters after Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled by U.S.-led troops in 2003.
The Mosul Museum and the ancient cities of Hatra and Nimrud were destroyed and large numbers of antiquities smuggled after the Islamic State militants took control of large territories in northern and western Iraq in 2014.
More than 10,000 sites in Iraq are officially recognized as archaeological sites, but most of them are not safeguarded and many still being looted.
Retrieved artifacts are displayed at a museum in Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2022.Photo:Xinhua
A cuneiform tablet is displayed at a museum in Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 8, 2022.Photo:Xinhua
