Loot returned

last updated 8 January 2015

Baghdad

The FBI this week returned to Iraqi officials several ancient stone seals that a U.S. Marine bought from a souvenir stand last year. After the unidentified Marine learned through an archaeologist that the artifacts were 5,000 years old, he voluntarily turned them over to the FBI. Last month, U.S. customs officials confiscated similar stone seals from the luggage of a scholar. Immediately after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were reports that 170,000 ancient objects had been looted. Those accounts turned out to be greatly exaggerated. But museum officials say that the true loss—some 15,000 artifacts—is still a cultural disaster.