3,500-year-old Gilgamesh Dream Tablet goes on display in Iraq

Finally, the 3,500-year-old Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, which was handed over to the Iraqi embassy by US authorities in September, has been put up on display.   

At a ceremony in Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, said, "This day, represent a victory in the face of the desperate attempts of those why try to steal our great history and our ancient civilisation."  

As per Hussein, it is one of 17,926 artefacts, which has been recovered by Iraq from the UK, Japan, Italy, the US and the Netherlands in the past year.   

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The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet was of "great importance" as it is "one of the oldest literary texts of Iraq's history", Culture and Antiquities Minister Hassan Nazim told AFP news agency.   

The Gilgamesh Tablet, which is made of clay, is priceless. It features inscriptions in Sumerian, a civilisation of ancient Mesopotamia. After the start of the Gulf War in August 1990, the treasure was taken from a museum in Iraq. 

In 2007, it was introduced fraudulently into the US art market. In 2014, the artefact was acquired by the craft retail chain, Hobby Lobby, for display at the Museum of the Bible, in Washington DC, which is funded by the family of Hobby Lobby’s owner, as per news reports.    

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In July, the US Department of Justice announced that it was ordering the official handing over of the tablet, as it had entered the US “contrary to federal law”, noting that federal agents had seized the tablet from the museum, in September 2019.     

At a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, it was formally returned to Iraq.  

(With inputs from agencies)