The British Museum is returning a collection of 5,000-year-old looted antiquities following the fall of Saddam Hussein in the US-led 2003 invasion.
According to reports, there are eight artefacts including a polished, yellowish river pebble, a fragmentary white gypsum mace-head, a white marble amulet pendant in the form of a reclining bull or buffalo and a red marble square stamp seal or amulet depicting two similar animals facing in opposite directions.
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The museum said the items including stamp seals, clay cones with cuneiform inscriptions and a bull-shaped marble pennant, were seized by the British police in 2003 from a London art dealer and handed them over to the museum, where experts determined they came from a temple at Tello, in southern Iraq.
The museum stated it would return the artefacts to Iraq’s ambassador to Britain at a ceremony on Friday.
In an official statement, Iraqi Ambassador Salih Husain Ali thanked the museum staff “for their exceptional efforts in the process of identifying and returning looted antiquities to Iraq.”
“Such collaboration between Iraq and the United Kingdom is vital for the preservation and the protection of the Iraqi heritage,” Ali added.