Iraq puts up 3,500-year-old artefact Gilgamesh Tablet on display after recovery from US

A small cuneiform clay tablet dating back to 3,500 years has been put on display in Iraq museum for the first time in three decades. The artefact, bearing a part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, is one of the world's oldest surviving works of literature, and it has now been restored after it was formally returned to Iraq by the United States.

The piece of artefact is one of the 17,926 unique pieces of history recovered by Iraq from the US, UK, Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands over the past few years, BBC reported, quoting Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.

Priced at $1.7 million and known as the Gilgamesh Clay Tablet, the artefact was found in 1853 as a part of the 12-tablet collection in the heap of rubble from Assyrian King Assur Banipal library. It was looted from the Iraq Museum during the Gulf War in 1991 and later smuggled to US via many countries.

For 28 years the historical piece of literary art was missing from Iraq until it reached the Washington DC Museum of the Bible after US authorities seized the tablet in 2019. The artwork was then handed over to the Iraq embassy in the US in September.

"This day represents a victory in the face of the desperate attempts of those why try to steal our great history and our ancient civilisation," Hussein said at a ceremony in Baghdad, as per BBC.

Taking to Twitter, the Minister of Culture in the Republic of Iraq, Hassan Nadhem, saluted the efforts of the Ministry of External Affairs for establishing and continuing efforts towards "recovery diplomacy" between Iraq and the US.

As reported by BBC, the tablet was off the radar between 1991 to 2003 after it was bought by an antiques dealer in London. It was later shipped to the US illegally. It was sold several times at auction in different countries before it was bought by Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts firm, in 2014.

The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet

The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet contains a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh written in the Akkadian language. It has been logged in cuneiform script, a system used in ancient Mesopotamia, BBC said. The Dream tablet was discovered in 1853 in northern Iraq.

The events described in the tablet recount a part of the Epic in which King Gilgamesh explained his dreams to his mother. He narrated the arrival of a friend who was to become a companion in his life. The Epic is of Gilgamesh in its entirety is a mythological story based on a real king who ruled sometime between 2,800 and 2,500 BC.

(Image: @HassanNadhem/Twitter)