September 19, 2010Iraqi Artifacts Are Found in Storeroom
BAGHDAD — More than 600 ancient artifacts looted and smuggled out of Iraq, found and returned by the United States, and then lost again for nearly two years were rediscovered in a storeroom of the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on Sunday, an Iraqi official said.
The artifacts — including bronze figurines, glass and clay vessels, and beaded necklaces from the world’s earliest civilizations — had disappeared into a bureaucratic fog after an American military aircraft returned them in 2008.
Their disappearance came to light on Sept. 6 when Iraq celebrated the return of another batch of relics looted from the country, prompting an embarrassing and frantic search to find them.
A spokesman for the State Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Abdulzahra al-Talqani, said the items would be turned over to Iraq’s National Museum on Monday. “Nobody knew about them in the storeroom,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/world/middleeast/20artifact.html?_r=1&ref=world
