Iraq's Ancient Treasures Lost and Found

The infamously looted Baghdad museum has been reclaiming many of its stolen artifacts, but theft in the country's unsecured archaeological sites continues

Farah Nosh / Reportage / Getty for TIME

A gallery of Assyrian statues and friezes at the Iraqi National Museum.

Nobody at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad knows exactly how the three stolen Sumerian tablets got all the way to Lima, Peru. All authorities in Lima told Iraqi museum officials was that the three tablets, more than 2,000 years old and each small enough to hold in the palm of one's hand, were found roughly a year ago in the luggage of an American traveling in the country and seized at the airport. "I'm not involved in the other details," says Dr. Amira Edan, who heads of the museum's efforts to reclaim lost artifacts and flew...

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