Hobby Lobby’s ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ tablet returned to Iraq
September 21, 2021 | In the PressFrom SGE (https://sportsgrindentertainment.com/hobby-lobbys-epic-of-gilgamesh-tablet-returned-to-iraq/)
The $1.6 million, 3,500-year-old clay tablet that bears the text of one of the world’s oldest works of literature and was purchased by Hobby Lobby in 2014 will finally be returned to Iraq on Thursday, the United Nations announced.
The tablet, which contains a portion of the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” will be formally returned to Iraq at a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the UN said.
The artifact, which came from the area of modern-day Iraq, was stolen from a museum in the country after the start of the Gulf War in August 1990, the UN said.
It was illegally shipped to the US in 2003, the US Department of Justice previously said, before arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby bought it an auction hosted by Christie’s in 2014.
In July, the US Department of Justice announced it seized the tablet because it entered the country despite the US’s 1990 ban on the import of looted Iraqi cultural and archaeological artifacts.
“By returning these illegally acquired objects, the authorities here in the United States and in Iraq are allowing the Iraqi people to reconnect with a page in their history,” said Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
“This exceptional restitution is a major victory over those who mutilate heritage and then traffic it to finance violence and terrorism.”
The tablet is known as the “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet” because it contains a portion of the poem in which the protagonist describes his dreams to his mother.
Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby bought the tablet with the purpose of displaying it at the Washington, DC-based Museum of the Bible, which is funded by the family of the arts and crafts chain’s founder, David Green.
But the company didn’t know its illegal provenance at the time it purchased it and has since sued Christie’s for allegedly hiding the artifact’s origins. In the suit, Hobby Lobby is seeking to recover the $1,674,000 it paid for the tablet.
Thursday’s ceremony to mark the official return of the tablet will bring to a close a decades-long saga in which countless still-unknown previous owners profited off the looted cultural art.
“The United States deeply values the cultural heritage of Iraq,” said Stacy White, acting principal deputy assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs at the US Department of State.
“We have worked for nearly 20 years with Iraqi counterparts and American academic and non-profit institutions to protect, preserve and honor the rich cultural heritage of Iraq.”
Hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been looted from archaeological sites throughout Iraq since the early 1990s and sold on the black market, officials said.
