Iraq retrieves looted 2,800-year-old stone tablet from Italy
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The tablet displays the emblem of Shalmaneser III, an Assyrian monarch who ruled over the Nimrod region in modern-day northern Iraq from 858 to 823 BC.
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The 2,800 years old stone tablet returned by Italy to Iraq (AFP)
On Sunday, Iraq presented a 2,800-year-old stone tablet that Italy had returned, as the nation ravaged by war strives to reclaim from other countries treasures looted from its territory.
The tablet, which is inscribed in the Babylonian alphabet known as cuneiform, displays the emblem of Shalmaneser III, an Assyrian monarch who ruled over the Nimrod region in modern-day northern Iraq from 858 to 823 BC.
Although the circumstances underlying the tablet's entry into Italy are still unknown, the Italian government handed it over to Abdul Latif Rashid, the president of Iraq, on his recent trip to Bologna.
At a Baghdad presidential palace ceremony held to hand the artifact over to the country's national museum, Rashid said he would like to "thank the Italian officials for their efforts and cooperation in bringing back this piece."
According to Laith Majeed Hussein, the Head of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, the tablet landed in Italy in the 1980s, where it was taken by police.
Read: Looted, destroyed, or damaged: UNESCO visits Iraqi cultural wealth
Iraq's Minister of Culture Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani believes it was unknown how it was discovered.
"Perhaps (it was found) during archaeological excavations or during work on the Mosul dam," Iraq's biggest built in the 1980s, he said, underlining the importance of the piece, "whose cuneiform text is complete."
The Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations, to which humanity owes writing and the first cities, originated in the land of modern-day Iraq.
The plundering of the nation's antiquities has gotten worse in the commotion that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.
"We will continue to work to recover all the archaeological pieces of Iraqi history from abroad," the Iraqi President said, adding that they want "to make the National Iraq Museum one of the best museums in the world, and we will work to do so."
An alabaster bull from the ancient city of Uruk and a limestone elephant from Mesopotamia were returned to Iraq in May, according to New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
According to the prosecutor's office, the miniatures were looted during the Gulf War and smuggled into New York in the late 1990s.
The bull was a part of billionaire philanthropist and Met trustee Shelby White's private collection.
Check out: Iraq’s Museum suffered most significant looting in modern history
