U.S. Returns Stolen Mesopotamian Artifacts to Iraq

[Barrett808]

U.S. Returns Stolen Mesopotamian Artifacts to Iraq
By Larry Fine

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three 4,000-year-old marble and alabaster seals looted from the Iraq National Museum and seized by U.S. Customs from an American scholar were returned on Tuesday to Iraq's U.N. ambassador.

"At a time when most news broadcast about Iraq is depressing and negative, it is with great pleasure to mark this important, positive achievement," Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie told a news conference at New York's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.


The Iraq Museum, housing more than a quarter of a million pieces, lost 15,000 artifacts to looting following the U.S.-led overthrow of the regime of former President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in 2003.

About half of those artifacts have been retrieved, Sumaidaie said, adding: "We will not rest until they are all returned to their rightful place in Iraq."

The items returned on Tuesday were Mesopotamian cylindrical seals used to authenticate tablets before the use of paper. Each is about 1 inch tall and estimated to date back to between 2340 and 2180 B.C.

They were found by a U.S. customs officer in the suitcase of Yale- and Princeton-educated scholar Joseph Braude at New York's Kennedy Airport in June 2003.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20050118/us_nm/arts_iraq_dc

[LisaM]

1. Hundreds and hundreds of those seals were lost

the CBC did a documentary about it. So three got returned - there are still, sadly, hundreds or thousands more to go.

[Mabus]

2. But will Bush give up the gun

they took from Saddam? It should be Iraqi property not a keepsake for Dumbya.

[truthpusher]

4. LOL...

...should have just left it as "But will Bush give up the gun"

[Thor_MN]

3. Oh, hey, I guess we are all even then for trashing their country, killing

their children, torturing random individuals to see if they are terraists, etc. Can we leave now?

[Dover]

5. And where did J. Braude get the cylinder seal? Did he buy it or loot it?

Curious....

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

6. mighty "white" of the U.S. to return the artifacts

We are here to spread freedom and democracy !
Never mind the fact that we'll kill and destroy the country first.

.

Next we'll make Haliburton return the oil----(?)

[MisterP]

7. generously returning a tiny bit of the loot, not including that burned,

smashed, and obliterated by Chimperial force and neglect
(and the cats and dogs and children and old ladies and husbands and wives and soil and culture and religion)