ground on expert analysis conducted by a specialized team , the British Museum announced it has distinguish eight 5,000 - year - sometime artifacts believed to have been looted from a temple during the 2003 Iraq War , reportsThe Associated Press .
British police seize the items – admit stamp stamp , mud cones , and a marble bull - shape pennant – in 2003 from a London art dealer who did not have proper documentation , did not attempt to reclaim them later , and has since gone out of business . After expend the last decade - and - a - one-half in police force storage , officials brought them to the museum earlier this year .
By happenstance , archaeologist Sebastian Rey has been working under the museum ’s umbrella in direct a response squad to restore damage to cultural situation in the aftermath of conflict . TheIraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Scheme – or Iraq Scheme – has been act on revival and rescue archeology in the very temple the artifacts were slip from , reportsThe Guardian .
Archaeologists were able-bodied to decide where the ancientness came from by take engravedcuneiform inscriptions , one of the earliest systems of writing . The inscriptions key the Sumerian king who had ordered the commission of the artifacts , the god they were dedicate to , and the temple they belong to to in Southern Iraq ’s ancient city , Tello .
Modern - day Iraq has been called the “ place of origin of civilization ” because it was once an epicentre of the increase of major urban center . Museums across the country once held collection from the Assyrian , Sumerian , and Babylonian civilization go out back thousands of years . With conflict at their doorsteps , many have shut down orbeen lootedin the day during and after the war . Anongoing listhighlights the many ancient sites that have subsequently been destroy during the Islamic State occupation of a portion of the country a decade later across the Middle East , including everything fromBuddhist tabernacle in Afghanistanto integral ancient cities inLebanon .
In a statement , Iraki Ambassador thanked the museum for their work in identifying and returning the looted artifacts , read it is a step in the right direction for collaborative preservation in the face of conflict .
“ Such quislingism between Iraq and the United Kingdom is vital for the preservation and the protective covering of the Iraqi inheritance , ” the AP cover Iraqi Ambassador Salih Husain Ali say .
Officials say they will repay the items to the Iraq Embassy this hebdomad . Afterward , they will make their elbow room back to Baghdad , end the case file once and for all .
A banded white calcedony stamp seal with a prostrate oval human face inscribe with the conception of a reclining sphinx look mightily , dating to the Achaemenid menstruum . British Museum
A ruddy marble square seal cachet and amulet pendant representing a brace of drilled stylised quadrupeds , facing in opposite directions , each with a disjoined drilled hole in front and an incised crescentic line behind , date to the Jemdet Nasr period ( c. 3000 BC ) . British Museum
