ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage announced on Tuesday the recovery of 27,000 looted relics from within Iraq and abroad, confirming their return to the National Museum of Iraq.
“The issue of recovering looted and smuggled antiquities is receiving direct attention from Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani and the Minister of Culture, with efforts being coordinated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Iraqi embassies worldwide,” head of the authority, Ali Obeid, told the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA).
“In recent months, we have managed to recover more than 7,000 historically significant antiquities from ancient civilizations, which hold great artistic and cultural value. These items have been returned to their original homeland at the National Museum of Iraq,” Obeid added.
The head of the antiquities and heritage authority also emphasized that efforts extend beyond recovering artifacts from abroad. Security operations, coordinated with local security forces, the Iraqi intelligence agency and interior ministry, have led to the confiscation of over 20,000 antiquities within Iraq, he added. Legal measures have been implemented, and these items are now safeguarded at the National Museum of Iraq.
Iraqi artifacts have been subjected to looting and vandalism since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and even further in 2014 after the Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of large swathes of the country’s north and west.
In recent years, Baghdad has made significant efforts to recover and repatriate these lost antiquities. In March 2022, Iraq’s national museum was re-inaugurated, showcasing Iraqi artifacts recovered from Italy, Japan, Lebanon, and the Netherlands.
Notably, in December 2021, the US returned a prized 3,500-year-old clay tablet featuring part of the Epic of Gilgamesh to Iraq. The tablet had been stolen from an Iraqi museum and trafficked illegally to the US.
