Iraq recovers archaeological tablet with part of the "Epic of Gilgamesh"

UNESCO announced yesterday that Iraq will recover on Thursday a 3,500-year-old cuneiform tablet containing a part of the "Epic of Gilgamesh", after it was found by US authorities that it had been stolen from an Iraqi museum in 1991 and then smuggled many years later to the United States.

The archaeological tablet made of clay and inscribed with cuneiform is part of the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” which is considered one of the oldest literary works of mankind and narrates the adventures of a powerful Mesopotamian king in his quest for immortality.

According to the American authorities, this archaeological treasure was stolen from an Iraqi museum in 1991 during the first Gulf War, and then bought in 2003 by an American art dealer from a Jordanian family residing in London and shipped to the United States without declaring to American customs about the nature of the shipment.