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UK returning 4,000-year-old artifact to Iraq discovered in online auction

The Sumerian relic is thought to be among thousands of artifacts stolen from Iraq in the last century.
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The United Kingdom will repatriate an ancient Sumerian relic after experts determined it had been stolen from Iraq, the British Museum said on Monday.

The London-based institution discovered the 4,000-year-old limestone sculpture being sold in May 2019 by an online auctioneer, who had listed it as a “western Asiatic Akkadian tablet” from a private collection. The museum experts informed Metropolitan police that the item was actually an ancient plaque looted from a Sumerian temple dating back to around 2400 B.C.

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