Return of Iraqi antiques is triumph of justice

Baghdad: Gold earrings made for an Assyrian queen, a sacred 4,000-year-old statue, and 540 other looted pieces of Iraq's ancient history were formally returned to Iraq recently in what was billed as a triumph of justice and international cooperation.

"This is a very happy day — we are making progress in the very important field of returning Iraqi history to its rightful home," said Iraq's ambassador to Washington, Samir Sumaidaie, who said the objects had been found through a combination of Iraqi and American efforts.

"Iraq cannot be summarised by 30 years of problems and wars — it can stand and it can reclaim its history."

He noted, however, that a previous shipment of 632 stolen pieces recovered in the US had gone missing after being delivered to Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's office last year.

The looting of the Iraq museum was one of the most controversial moments in the early part of the war. US troops sent in to topple Saddam Hussain and secure the city had no orders to protect the museum or other cultural institutions. In the ensuing chaos, thousands of pieces of Iraq's history were looted while other cultural institutions were burned.

The return of more than 542 involved countries including Syria, Germany, and Turkey — as well as the United States, operating through a dozen different government agencies — and was hailed as a significant achievement.

"This goes back to the most sensitive nerve in the Iraqi psyche," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told the Christian Science Monitor.

"These are antiquities that have been stolen from the museum and now to get them back is a healing process — that we, your sons, the government, the embassies the ministries are able to bring them back is very, very important."

Each of the recovered pieces has a story to it. But in a twist worthy of a detective novel, Sumaidaie noted the missing shipment of the 632 recovered looted pieces sent back from the US. Because of Baghdad's precarious security, the Iraqi ambassador said he had arranged with General David Petraeus to have them returned.

"We asked the US military to move it to Iraq. When the pieces arrived in Iraq, they were delivered to the office of the prime minister and now we are trying to find them," Sumadaie told diplomats and journalists gathered at the Foreign Ministry.

Comment

The pointed comment by the non-partisan ambassador was seen as an effort to put pressure on an unresponsive prime minister's office to either produce or account for the artefacts.

The pieces signed for at the prime ministry were mostly cylinder seals — ancient carved stone cylinders used as personal signatures — and other small items, but Iraqi authorities have not been able to get an answer as to what has happened to them, he told the Monitor.

Al Maliki's office could not be reached for comment.

— Christian Science Monitor

How the antiquities were retrieved

Baghdad:  The retrieval of each one of the major pieces is one of international intrigue. The earrings were found after they offered for sale at auction at Christie's in New York last December. The catalog listed them as having been acquired by the owner before 1969, the year before a Unesco convention made it more difficult to trade in antiquities.

The earrings were recognised by Iraqi archaeologists as part of the treasures of Nimrud, excavated in 1989 when an Iraqi team discovered a royal tomb overlooked by previous British excavations.

Stolen

They were believed stolen from the Baghdad Museum before the collection was put into safekeeping in bank vaults before the 1991 war with the US over Hussain's invasion of Kuwait.

Christie's, which had put opening bids at $45,000 to $65,000 for the earrings, withdrew them after the Iraq Embassy launched a formal claim.