It is 3500 years old.. a cuneiform clay tablet contains one of the oldest literary works that returns to its homeland

The archaeological tablet is made of clay and written on it with “Cuneiform” is part of the “Epic of Gilgamesh”, which is considered one of the oldest literary works of mankind and narrates the adventures of one of the powerful kings of Mesopotamia in his quest for immortality.

According to the American authorities, this archaeological treasure was stolen from an Iraqi museum in 1991 during the Gulf War, and then bought in 2003 by an American art dealer from a Jordanian family residing in London and shipped to the United States without declaring the American customs about the nature of the shipment..

After the tablet arrived in the United States, the dealer sold it in 2007 to other dealers for $50,000 with a forged certificate of origin..

In 2014, this tablet was bought at a price of $ 1.67 million by the Green family, who owns the Hobby Lobby chain of stores known for its Christian activity, with the intention of displaying it at the Museum of the Bible in Washington.

But in 2017, a museum curator expressed concern about the tablet’s provenance after finding that the documents presented during its purchase were incomplete..

In September 2019, the US authorities confiscated this artifact until a federal judge approved it at the end of July to return it to Iraq..

Despite its small size, the value of this antique tablet is enormous.

And on Monday, the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, who will attend in Washington the ceremony of handing over this artifact by the US authorities to their Iraqi counterparts, said that returning this cultural treasure to its owners represents a “great victory over those who distort the heritage.”“.

She added that recovering this artifact would allow “the Iraqi people to reconnect with a page of their history.”“.

In July, the United States returned to Iraq 17,000 artifacts, the majority of which date back to four thousand years, especially to the Sumerian civilization, one of the oldest civilizations in Mesopotamia..

The Iraqi archaeological treasures suffered from neglect, destruction and looting during the wars that ravaged the country in the past decades, especially in the period that followed the American invasion in 2003..

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source https://pledgetimes.com/it-is-3500-years-old-a-cuneiform-clay-tablet-contains-one-of-the-oldest-literary-works-that-returns-to-its-homeland/