BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug 31 (NNN-NINA) – Iraqi Minister of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, Abdul Amir al-Hamdani, said that, his country will recover from Britain more than 150 ancient tablets, belonging to different eras of the civilisation of Mesopotamia, said a statement issued by the ministry on Friday.
The statement said that, al-Hamdani met, on Thursday, with Rosie Taber, the political adviser at the British embassy in Baghdad, and the two discussed ways to expand cultural cooperation between the two countries.
Al-Hamdani said, “Iraq will recover from Britain 154 artefacts belonging to different eras of the Mesopotamian civilisation,” the statement said, without giving further details.
Earlier in the day, media reports said, British Museum has completed its biggest ever handover of historical artefacts looted in Iraq. The reports, however, put the number of the ancient collection at 156 inscribed tablets, looted following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The items mostly dated from 2,100 B.C. to 1,800 B.C., originating from the Third Dynasty of Ur Old Babylonian dynasty. They were impounded by customs officials at a freight company, near London Heathrow Airport in 2011.
The tablets are mostly economic documents but also include letters, legal and school texts and a mathematical document, they added.
According to official statistics, about 15,000 archaeological pieces of Iraqi treasure-trove from the Stone Age through the Babylonian, Assyrian and Islamic periods, were stolen or destroyed by looters, mainly in the Iraqi national museum in Baghdad, after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled by U.S.-led troops in 2003.
Official statistics also showed that over 10,000 sites in Iraq are officially recognised as archaeological sites, but most of these sites are not safeguarded and many are still being looted on an unprecedented scale.– NNN-NINA
