Next month, visitors to museums in Iraq will be in awe. Eighteen years after its looting in the city, a clay tablet bearing the inscription of the epic of Gilgamesh, considered one of the oldest literary works in the world, is about to be returned to its birthplace.
Iraq on Tuesday recovered more than 17,000 ancient objects looted and smuggled out of the country after the US invasion in 2003, The New York Times reported.
Approximately 12,000 returned artefacts are held at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC and 5,381 artefacts are held by Cornell University. In the past, these two institutions were arrested by US authorities for holding artefacts that had not been purchased by appropriate means.
Iraq's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Culture revealed to the NYT that US authorities have reached an agreement with Iraq to return confiscated items to merchants and museums in the United States. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa alKadhimi returned the items on his plane, after making an official visit to the United States last week.
After 1991, when the Iraqi government lost control of parts of southern Iraq after the First Gulf War, looting took place on a large scale at historic sites. The looting continued after the US-led invasion in 2003 - the year that also saw the end of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Many artefacts were also smuggled or destroyed by fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) between 2014 and 2017 when it controlled parts of Iraq.