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Iraq recovers more than 5 thousand artifacts escaped by the "Hoppe Lope" America


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Hobby Lobby Agrees to Forfeit 5,500 Artifacts Smuggled Out of Iraq

By ALAN FEUERJULY 5, 2017

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A clay cuneiform tablet, one of the artifacts the owners of Hobby Lobby illegally imported into the United States from Iraq. CreditUnited States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York

The packages that made their way from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to retail outlets owned by Hobby Lobby, the seller of arts and craft supplies, were clearly marked as tile samples.

But according to a civil complaint filed on Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, they held something far rarer and more valuable: ancient clay cuneiform tablets that had been smuggled into the United States from Iraq.

Prosecutors said in the complaint that Hobby Lobby, whose evangelical Christian owners have long maintained an interest in the biblical Middle East, began in 2009 to assemble a collection of cultural artifacts from the Fertile Crescent. The company went so far as to send its president and an antiquities consultant to the United Arab Emirates to inspect a large number of rare cuneiform tablets — traditional clay slabs with wedge-shaped writing that originated in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.

In 2010, as a deal for the tablets was being struck, an expert on cultural property law who had been hired by Hobby Lobby warned company executives that the artifacts might have been looted from historical sites in Iraq, and that failing to determine their heritage could break the law.

Despite these words of caution, the prosecutors said, Hobby Lobby bought more than 5,500 artifacts — the tablets and clay talismans and so-called cylinder seals — from an unnamed dealer for $1.6 million in December 2010.

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In addition to the complaint, the prosecutors on Wednesday filed a stipulation of settlement with Hobby Lobby that requires the company to return all of the pieces, and to forfeit to the government an additional $3 million, resolving the civil action.

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According to a court filing, Hobby Lobby bought more than 5,500 artifacts for $1.6 million from an unnamed dealer in 2010.CreditUnited States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York

The government will post a notice online giving the artifacts’ owners 60 days to submit claims. After that, the Iraqi government can submit its own claim. The Justice Department will ultimately decide where the items go.

The agreement also requires Hobby Lobby to adopt internal policies to better govern its importation of cultural items, hire qualified customs brokers and advisers and submit quarterly reports to the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn describing in detail any further purchases of antiquities over the next 18 months.

In a statement, Hobby Lobby’s president, Steve Green, said the company had cooperated fully with the federal investigation into the deal for the artifacts.

Hobby Lobby’s purchase of the artifacts in December 2010 was fraught with “red flags,” according to the prosecutors. Not only did the company get conflicting information about the origin of the pieces, its representatives never met or spoke with the dealer who supposedly owned them, according to the complaint.

Instead, on the instructions of a second dealer, Hobby Lobby wired payments to seven separate personal bank accounts, the prosecutors said. The first dealer then shipped the items marked as clay or ceramic tiles to three Hobby Lobby sites in Oklahoma. All of the packages had labels falsely identifying their country of origin as Turkey, prosecutors said.

Over the years, Hobby Lobby has undertaken numerous efforts to promote evangelical Christianity, producing films with biblical themes, operating a chain of Christian bookstores and donating to Christian charities. In 2014, the company was the defendant in a landmark Supreme Court case that found forcing family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.

Mr. Green said that Hobby Lobby’s collection of historical Bibles and artifacts like the tablets was “consistent with the company’s mission and passion for the Bible.” He added that the company had planned to display the items it bought in various museums and public institutions.

As for the smuggling allegations, Mr. Green said in the statement that Hobby Lobby was “new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process.” He added that “regrettable mistakes” were made and that he should have “exercised more oversight.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/nyregion/hobby-lobby-artifacts-smuggle-iraq.html?mcubz=0

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Hobby Lobby fined $3 million for smuggling artifacts from Iraq

Federal prosecutors say Hobby Lobby Stores has agreed to pay a $3 million federal fine and forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts smuggled from the Middle East that the government alleges we ...
Federal prosecutors say Hobby Lobby Stores has agreed to pay a $3 million federal fine and forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts smuggled from the Middle East that the government alleges were intentionally mislabled. (Sue Ogrocki/AP file)
 
 
 
By Derek Hawkins The Washington Post
July 6, 2017 - 2:26 am
  
 

Arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has agreed to pay a $3 million fine for illegally smuggling thousands of ancient clay artifacts into the United States from Iraq, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Under a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Hobby Lobby will forfeit thousands of cuneiform tablets, clay bullae and cylinder seals it falsely labeled as “samples” and shipped through the United Arab Emirates and Israel.

The Oklahoma-based company brought more than 5,500 artifacts for $1.6 million in December 2010 from an unidentified dealer in an acquisition prosecutors said was “fraught with red flags.” Hobby Lobby got conflicting information about where the artifacts had been stored and never met or communicated with the dealer selling them, according to court documents. When it came time to pay, the company wired money to seven separate bank accounts.

 
Hobby Lobby Fined Millions For Smuggling
 
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Before the sale, the complaint says, an expert on cultural property law warned Hobby Lobby that artifacts such as cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals may have been looted from archaeological sites.

A United Arab Emirates-based dealer sent 10 packages to three different corporate addresses in Oklahoma City, with shipping labels reading “ceramic tiles” or “clay tiles (sample),” according to the complaint. U.S. Customs and Border Protection later intercepted five shipments, all of them falsely declaring that the artifacts came from Turkey. A final shipment containing about 1,000 clay bullae arrived at one of Hobby Lobby’s addresses from Israel in September 2011. That one also misrepresented the artifacts’ country of origin, according to the complaint.

Hobby Lobby, whose owners are evangelical Christians, said it began collecting a “variety of Bibles and other artifacts” in 2009 with the goal of preserving them for future generations. In a statement on Wednesday, the company said it “did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process” and relied on dealers who did not understand how to properly ship the items.

“We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled,” Hobby Lobby President Steve Green said in the statement.

 

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/hobby-lobby-fined-3-million-for-smuggling-artifacts-from-iraq/

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Who Gets to Own Iraq’s Religious Heritage?

An archeologist on cultural preservation in the shadow of ISIS

A technician at the British Museum casts a shadow over carved ivory artifacts from Nimrud, Iraq.
A technician at the British Museum casts a shadow over carved ivory artifacts from Nimrud, Iraq.Oli Scarff / Getty
 
 
 

The revelation that Hobby Lobby bought thousands of ancient artifacts smuggled out of Iraq provoked astonishment and anger. The craft-supply chain has agreed to pay a $3 million settlement and forfeit the cuneiform tablets and clay bullae to the U.S. government. But the story doesn’t end there. “The government will post a notice online giving the artifacts’ owners 60 days to submit claims,” The New York Times reported. “After that, the Iraqi government can submit its own claim. The Justice Department will ultimately decide where the items go.”

Beneath this sensational story lies a deeper question about ownership. Although Hobby Lobby’s purchase of the artifacts predates the rise of the Islamic State, a fascination with Iraqi antiquities has been thrown into sharp relief by the battle against ISIS, which profits off the black market in pillaged goods. And now that the Iraqi prime minister has declared Mosul recaptured, the question arises: How will the ancient heritage sites in and around the city get rebuilt—and who gets to make those decisions?

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Hobby Lobby Purchased Thousands of Ancient Artifacts Smuggled Out of Iraq

Complicating America’s involvement in the process is its record when it comes to protecting Iraqi heritage and keeping it in Iraq. Aside from the “collect to protect” mentality that drives some private collectors, there’s the fact that U.S. forces helped create the unstable conditions that led to the looting of Baghdad’s National Museum during the 2003 invasion, and failed to protect the antiquities there from plunder. Institutions in the U.S. also took troves of documents—including Ba’ath Party records, which were moved to Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and the priceless artifacts collectively known as the Iraqi Jewish Archive, which toured the U.S. on exhibit. These moves incited intense debate about where such items belong, with some arguing that the U.S. is better poised to care for them given the unsafe conditions in Iraq, and others arguing that Iraqis are the only rightful owners and decision-makers.  

Katharyn Hanson, an archeologist and fellow at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conversation Institute, works on the preservation of damaged sites in Iraq. “For issues of ownership, the movable stuff gets discussed the most,” she told me. “Theft is sexy. Museum theft is really sexy. You know, museum heist movies are a big deal, and looting usually catches the headlines. [But with] immovable sites … there’s a unique responsibility for occupying powers, or even for powers who are in an advise-and-assist role.” Our conversation about that responsibility, which follows below, has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

 

Sigal Samuel: You train Iraqis in Erbil to do preservation work, through the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage. Can you tell me a bit about the program?

Katharyn Hanson: The Iraqi Institute has been around since 2009. Through its various programs, international and American, 500 cultural heritage practitioners have come through. They’ve done everything from stone conservation to how to package artifacts to how to repair manuscripts. Almost all of our classes have a diversity that reflects the diverse population of Iraq. … We have men and women, Christians, Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, and Arabs all working together to help recover the sites.

Samuel: Why is it important to train local Iraqis to preserve artifacts there, rather than shipping artifacts to the U.S.?

Hanson: It is very unlikely that anything will be shipped out of Iraq for treatment. … Iraqi museum conservators and archaeologists are the first line of defense for these artifacts. They know the context the best, and they are the caretakers and stewards of these remains. … We have a saying at the Iraqi Institute—it’s about doing work to international standards but making sure that the equipment and techniques are locally available.

Samuel: What are people working on preserving right now?

Hanson: Back in January, Smithsonian met with Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. They asked us to work on Nimrud, about 25 kilometers south of Mosul, liberated [from ISIS] in November. We’ve been working pretty closely with a team of archeologists from Nineveh province, archeologists employed by the government there. We’ve been giving them equipment and skill-sets, and teaching a lot about how to take care of the site.

 

Samuel: At some sites, the destruction looks pretty total. How much is left to preserve?

Hanson: For an archeologist, even damaged things, even the fragments of the fragments, are still important artifacts. And that’s really crucial when you think about Nimrud and most of the Neo-Assyrian sites. A lot of the sculptures are made out of Mosul marble, which is water soluble. The big goal before this next winter is to get the sculpture fragments left onsite under some sort of roofing so they don’t melt. And there’s still the vast majority of the site which is underground and hasn’t been excavated yet.

Samuel: What’s going to happen to the destroyed mosques, churches, and shrines?

Hanson: Religious sites are still considered sacred even if the visible structure has been demolished. The videos and photos I’ve seen suggest that there’s a foundation left for a lot of these shrines. But even for the shrines where there’s literally nothing physical left, that negative space is still important, it’s still speaking to what was in a landscape. We’ve seen this repeatedly, that ISIS has destroyed a shrine and the community still reveres that specific location. It’s part of the resilience of religious identity there. I don’t think they’re going to pave it into a parking lot and put a falafel truck there.

Samuel: What role should Americans play when it comes to rebuilding Iraqi sites?

Hanson: Because of the invasion, America has a very unique relationship with Iraq. An easy fix where you come in from on high and say “This is how it’s going to be rebuilt and fixed”—that can’t happen.

 

Should any work be taking place on archeological sites, it has to be permitted and approved by Iraq’s governmental authorities. Officially, all ancient cultural sites are owned by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, and all religious sites are owned by the Religious Ministry.

I think it’s important for American organizations that are coming in to be very deliberate about offering the local government assistance, not telling them what should be done on these sites.

Samuel: Has that been an issue so far?

Hanson: That’s becoming increasingly an issue with American or other international NGOs coming in wanting to work with religious or historic cultural sites, and not getting the buy-in of the entire community as well. Most cultural sites have a lot of different communities that claim them as part of their context. So, the Christian community in Nineveh plain will have a relationship to the synagogue, but so will the Jewish Iraqi population that now lives elsewhere.

Samuel: Do you think it’s important to get buy-in even from a population that’s no longer there, like the Iraqi Jews?

Hanson: Yes. Stakeholder communities that are able to be represented in the minority religious divisions within the Religious Ministry should be. I know that for the Kurdistan Regional Government, for example, there is an Iraqi Jewish representative for that. I do think it’s really important that all the communities that have a relationship with these sites are not only consulted, but allowed to basically control the direction in which these projects are going. … Competing community claims are going to have to be resolved by those stakeholders.

 

Samuel: Is there already tension around that?

Hanson: Not yet. But it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I think—I hope—there will be a lot of interest in rebuilding, a sudden upswing in sending money to help rebuild cultural sites now that Mosul’s liberated. So I really hope this is a problem we’ll have.

After 2003, there was a big “Oops, that was a huge mistake!”

Samuel: How much would you say Iraqis trust or distrust the U.S.?

Hanson: I think Iraqis deeply understand the idea that a people are not always their government, and vice versa. So when it comes to people acting out a place of research interest or preservation interest, our colleagues in Iraq understand that we are not the embodiment of past situations.

But anyone doing work in the Middle East is faced with [the fact that] there’s a neocolonial American legacy there. And there’s a colonial legacy there. That’s inescapable. It’s something that you have to be aware of in the work that you’re doing. It doesn’t just impact your perception of how things are going or should go, it impacts your colleagues’ perception … of your goals.

Samuel: Have you noticed any change in the perception over time?

Hanson: It’s been an interesting transition, because when I started doing this in 2004, it was in the aftermath of the looting of the Baghdad museum. It’s weird to say it, but there were a couple of silver linings out of that looting. One of them was that we got a lot of traction with the Department of Defense. The looting and the way the museum was treated was so, so bad, and such an embarrassment. After 2003, there was a big “Oops, that was a huge mistake!” There was a sense that they did not want that sort of headline to ever happen again.

 

Since then, the U.S. has become a member to the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. There’s now an international treaty obligation that the U.S. has to take into account cultural sites during an armed conflict. In this conflict against ISIS, they’ve been taking into account protecting these sites. They have reached out to experts. They’ve deliberately used [weapons] that would not create extensive destruction.

I’ve watched the conversation shift from “Oh yeah there’s this handful of sites, whatever, whatever” to “We’ve got to make sure we’re not doing something that impacts these sites, even by accident. We have to be proactive.”

Samuel: Did the Hobby Lobby story impact Iraqis’ trust in Americans?

Hanson: Not that I’ve heard. I think most Iraqis were already aware that this stuff was stolen. And we all know this stuff gets stolen because there’s a market. No one is going into the desert in 100-degree heat with a shovel to excavate this for no profit. The U.S. definitely has an art-consuming market that doesn’t care where it came from, and that’s a problem.

Something that really worries me is that, with the Hobby Lobby case [we’re dealing] with cuneiform documents—they have writing on them which usually identifies them as Iraqi and roughly identifies their date. But there’s probably been a lot of [ISIS] theft from religious sites, and for religious objects that don’t have identifying information, they could be purchased and nobody would know. So if collectors aren’t keeping an eye out, who knows what’s going to happen to that material.

The remains of al-Hadba minaret at the al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul (Erik De Castro / Reuters)

Samuel: How should we balance the competing impulses to, on the one hand, try to keep Iraqi heritage in Iraq, and on the other hand, ensure these items will be in a safe place?

 

Hanson: We don’t think about our major museums taking on risk, but it’s important to realize that no museum is perfect—there’s always risk and uncertainty. During World War II, the Smithsonian had to move a bunch of its stuff off the Eastern Seaboard. In California, the Getty sits on a pretty major earthquake line. It’s different from ISIS, obviously—ISIS is unique and distinct, particularly when it comes to intentional damage—but there are layers of risk.

Certain people are very much fans of this “collect to protect” mentality, which in my opinion is pretty neocolonial. It’s definitely this approach that’s like “Oh, well, we know better.” It’s refusing to acknowledge that there are different risks where you are. If you think you can take better care of something, it may be because you’re not acknowledging the risks that are at your own place.

Samuel: Can technology play a useful role by making artifacts accessible to everyone without actually moving them offsite?  

Hanson: There’s been a whole lot of conversations about how great it would be if everything were 3D-scanned and so forth. But working in Iraq right now, I’m really hesitant to say that we should just throw technology at it and that’s the solution. … They did this big 3D print of one of [Syria’s] Palmyra arches, in London, and it’s toured, and it’s sort of creepily colonial. Because it’s like “Oh yeah, we did these plaster casts back in the 1800s, and now we’re just going to do 3D prints!” It was awareness-raising but simultaneously there was this feeling of “Well, if you’re putting the money toward that, just send the money to the archeologists at Palmyra!” It’s a very interesting question that I don’t have easy answers for—it’s just awkward.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/who-gets-to-own-iraqs-religious-heritage/533598/

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  • yota691 changed the title to Iraqis are waiting for the return of the traces of their smuggled country to the United States

Iraqis are waiting for the return of the traces of their smuggled country to the United States

06/08/2017

 

After the discovery of the order to smuggle hundreds of Iraqi artifacts to the United States on July 8, 2017 coordinated between the company "Hubei Lope" American to sell art and handmade retail, and a trader resident in the United Arab Emirates to ship packages containing artifacts to three different addresses For the company in Oklahoma City, Iraq is preparing to take legal and diplomatic measures to recover these effects, coinciding with the follow-up of the US judiciary case.

The US Public Prosecution reported that the company had received a warning that the cost of these effects to Iraq, and that they may be looted from archaeological sites there, and that it must be verified. Meanwhile, US officials announced that the company had agreed to make copies of thousands of stolen artifacts for a Bible museum headed by its director.

Iraq, for its part, initiated measures to approach the American side to explore the best mechanisms for the return of the stolen monuments, according to a member of the parliamentary foreign relations committee MP Mithal Al-Alusi in his speech to the "Monitor." He pointed out that "the Iraqi side is waiting for the public statement from the American side, The owners of antiquities have the opportunity to demand the recovery of the effects, and that coordination between the Iraqi embassy and legal destinations in the United States of America, has begun official and judicial formal claim for those pieces after proving their return to Iraq.

He added: "The Iraqi Embassy in London to proceed with a legal team in addressing the US Department of Justice, which has the final decision to resolve the division and the return of the return to the parties concerned."

What supports the success of the Iraqi effort is that the United States of America had pledged on 22 August 2016 to "protect the effects of Iraq and its determination to recover the looted from it," said US State Department Senior Advisor for Cultural Heritage John Russell. He confirmed that the "Monitor" a source at the US Embassy in Baghdad, who asked not to be named, said: "The instructions at the embassy in dealing with cases of smuggling is very strict."

Before the Hubei Lobe case was exposed, government sources revealed that the Iraqi embassy in Washington was following up the US prosecution's seizure of more than 5,000 antiquities from Iraq after 2003.

A member of the Committee on Culture and Information MP Mason Damluji that "the course of things are in favor of the restoration of Iraq's archaeological pieces, and that the matter is a matter of time needed by the administrative and legal procedures in the United States of America."

But Damluji stressed "the sense of great hope in positive responses from the United States, the existence of a law proposed by former US President George Bush to prevent trading in the effects of Iraq, unlike the Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, where the involvement of one of them in the smuggling, because it is not from Among the States acceding to the Convention of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "UNESCO" which considers the smuggling of antiquities a crime. Security Council resolution 2199 of February 2015 obligates States to return contraband and looted effects to countries of origin.

Al-Damluji revealed that "the Iraqi contacts with the American side, made clear that the smuggled effects are in the safe hands of the US Homeland Security, and that the order to dispose of them has become exclusively in the hands of the American judiciary, while the Iraqi Embassy is in contact with the State Department to restore these pieces."

On July 10, 2017, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture for Tourism and Antiquities, Qais Hussein Rashid, assured the media that the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, June 6, 2017, would discuss the mechanism for retrieving the effects.

In the history of Iraq's success in recovering its effects, it succeeded in recovering 4,300 archaeological items smuggled out of the country after the militants of the organization "Daash" in large areas in the north, east and west of the country since June 2014. The Iraqi Embassy in Cairo, Asfar, arrived in Egypt after being smuggled from the monasteries of the city of Mosul and its churches (north).

Iraq also succeeded in 2016 in retrieving the head of the statue of King Sinatraq (140 - 180 m), one of the important monuments and records in the archives of the Iraqi Museum of Antiquities, and stolen in 2003.

 

In a move to expedite the return of the antiquities to its homeland, the Rapporteur of the Committee on Parliamentary Effects MP Iyad Shammari said that "the General Authority for Antiquities in Iraq contacted the organization" UNESCO "to urge the United States to hand over stolen antiquities, and addressed the Permanent Representative of Iraq to UNESCO "Representative of the United States of America in the Organization to demand the return of Iraqi monuments," expressing "great hope in resolving the file soon."

Al-Shammari revealed that "Iraq has been busy for years in the files retrieving the treasures of the Iraqi archaeological that settled in the outside of the country," noting "difficulties in retrieving these effects, which stabilized non-governmental bodies to be doomed to be missing because trading on the black market, Making it difficult to detect. "

Al-Shammari recalled the appearance of antiquities in 2016 on the Internet, which were looted from Iraq and Syria, through gangs trading in antiquities, and other pieces appeared on the popular auction site eBay.

Al-Shammari confirmed that "the Iraqi Ministry of Culture addressed the US Embassy in Baghdad to start the official mechanisms to restore the effects," but the ministry refused to comment on the subject, but Shammari reveals that "the Iraqi parliament will open the Iraqi competent authorities to open an investigation into names involved in the The smuggling, especially the Iraqi ones. "

Therefore, Iraq must take advantage of the current opportunity to recover its effects and not to be missed, to stand in front of any attempt to prolong the file and gradually forgotten later.

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  • yota691 changed the title to Iraq recovers more than 5 thousand artifacts escaped by the "Hoppe Lope" America

Iraq recovers more than 5 thousand artifacts escaped by the "Hoppe Lope" America

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Iraq recovers more than 5 thousand artifacts escaped by the "Hoppe Lope" America

 

13-08-2017 05:34 PM

 

The Euphrates -

 

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Sunday that it had recovered more than 5,000 artifacts that had been smuggled by the American company Hubei Lope. 

Undersecretary of State Qais Hussein Rashid said today that the US Department of State / Department of Iraq has responded to the legitimate demands of the government in Baghdad to recover some 5,548 artifacts that had been smuggled by the American company Hoppe Lopey. 

After an order was issued to the New York State Attorney General on the restoration of the antiquities, the federal judge issued a court order to seize the artifacts until the 60-day deadline, and the extradition proceedings began at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington.

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  • 8 months later...

An American company buys 450 plate somria stolen from Iraq

15:49-01/05/2018
 
  
%D8%A7%D8%AB%D8%A7%D8%B1-696x417.jpg

Information/translation.

Live magazine in a report that American Saenz about 450 cuneiform Tablet somria stolen American lobby HOBI was purchased earlier and seized by us customs dating back to the Sumerian relics date city missing from called "Aires saghark."

According to the report, which compiled agency information that the stolen panels back into hiding for thousands of looted artifacts acquired by the American company and seized by us Government arguing back to Iraq. "

He added that "450 cuneiform Tablet confiscated many of them back to the city of Buenos Aires ' old saghark that existed somewhere in southern Iraq between 2200 BC until 1600 BC and did not specify the exact location by archaeologists.

"The panels contain legal and administrative texts meaning they contain records such as contracts and stocks of goods which make it easier for citizens and government administration while containing little planks on magic spells".

A scientist at the National Council for Science Spanish Manuel Molina and specialist in Sumerian studies that "Aires Sumerian city Thumper prospecting is not by located remains unknown."

"I was discussing the exact location of this site between scientists and perhaps a number of panels of the lost city have appeared in the market of Antiquities in recent years or perhaps recently been looting."

The report pointed out that maybe doesn't agree archaeologists on the necessity to return these materials stolen from Iraq immediately before translating it and examine their content for archaeologists and graduate students "finished/25 z

http://www.almaalomah.com/2018/05/01/305676/

 

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US company buys 450 stolen Sumerian tablets from Iraq

 

US company buys 450 stolen Sumerian tablets from Iraq

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01/05/2018

Baghdad

WASHINGTON - About 450 stolen Sumerian fleets were bought by the US firm Hubei-Lopey and seized by the US Customs Department, returning to a city missing from the Sumerian history of the city, the company said.

The stolen sheets belonged to the cache of thousands of looted antiquities bought by the US firm that the US government seized on the pretext of returning them to Iraq, LifeScience said in a  report.

He said 450 of the confiscated skeletons had been confiscated, many of them from the ancient city of Ayers Sagrek, which was located somewhere in southern Iraq between 2200 BC and 1600 BC and was not specifically identified by archaeologists.

He added that the panels contain legal and administrative texts in the sense that they contain records such as contracts and stocks of goods, which facilitate the citizens and the government to manage their affairs, while a few panels contain magic mascots 

The researcher at the National Council for Science, Manuel Molina, a specialist in Sumerian studies, said that Iris Sagres, a city of Sumeria, has not been excavated before and its location remains unknown.

"The precise location of this site has been discussed among scientists and perhaps a number of panels from the missing city have appeared in the antique market in recent years or have been plundered recently.

The report pointed out that archaeologists may not agree on the necessity of returning these stolen materials from Iraq immediately before translating them and studying their content for archaeologists and postgraduate students.

http://aletejahtv.com/archives/226228

 

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America plans to return thousands of artifacts to Iraq

America plans to return thousands of artifacts to Iraq

 

 

Follow - up / Tomorrow Press: The 

United States announced its intention to re - artefacts to Iraq, including panels dating back to the Sumerian cuneiform 2100 BC, after he ran away from him illegally to the stores , "Hubei lobby". 

"Iraqi Ambassador to Washington Farid Yassin and Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nizar al-Khairallah are scheduled to attend the extradition ceremony," US immigration and customs officials said in a statement.

 



Hubei Lope, an Oklahoma-based shop specializing in the sale of works of art and antiques, agreed last July to hand over the artifacts made in what is now Iraq about 4,000 years ago and paid $ 3 million to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice. 

Federal prosecutors said that "the stickers on the shipments where the effects arrived and described them as samples of a hermaphrodite." 

Hoppe Lopez said she did not intend to display the artifacts in the museum, but did not specify what she would have done with them. 

Charges included cuneiform letters, one of the oldest writing systems in the world. Many of the tablets originated in the city of Ari Sakk, dating from 2100 to 1600 BC in the periods known as the Third Ur, Or the old Babylonian era.

The remains included two clay tablets bearing royal inscriptions of the second type of lichen dating back to about 2500 BC. 

"The purchase of Hubei Lubi for $ 1.6 million worth of damage by traders in the UAE and Israel is a lot of caveats and the company has ignored warnings that the holdings may have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq," Justice Department officials said.https://www.alghadpress.com/news/Iraq-News/156226/AlghadPress

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Plead ignorance after the fact . . . They’ll believe you - NOT.

 

Should have been quite a stiffer fine than $3 Million - someone (s) should do prison time, but it appears they covered their tracks well and no doubt using multiple middle men to muddy the trail.

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2 hours ago, 10 YEARS LATER said:

Plead ignorance after the fact . . . They’ll believe you - NOT.

 

Should have been quite a stiffer fine than $3 Million - someone (s) should do prison time, but it appears they covered their tracks well and no doubt using multiple middle men to muddy the trail.

 

bet Hubei Lubi ( love that translation ) btw .... had reproductions molds ready to make way more than the 3 Million $ fine thats for sure 

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Iraq's policy reveals details of the history of Jewish captivity recovered from America

Iraq reveals details of the history of Jewish captivity recovered from America
 
 Twilight News    
 
 3 hours ago
 

 

The United States has handed over more than 3,500 stolen antiquities to Iraq, most of them talking about the history of the Jewish captivity in Babylon, the head of the recovery department at the Ministry of Culture and Antiquities Muthanna Abdul Dawood revealed. 
"An Iraqi delegation headed by Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Nizar Khairallah accompanied the Iraqi ambassador in Washington to receive more than 3,500 pieces of antiques that Hubei Lupi smuggled into the United States," Daoud told Ashfaq News. 
"These pieces are very important because they tell the history of the Jews in Babylon during the Babylonian captivity, which the Jews were subjected to by Nebuchadnezzar Nasr and Hop Lope, or those who were in charge of it. They were throwing an exhibition that tells the story of this era." 
"There is coordination between the Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs of Iraq to restore archaeological pieces to Iraq and the latter believes that it is necessary for the United States to bear all expenses of shipping and insurance for the return of pieces to Iraq."
Among the slabs returned to Iraq are Sumerian slabs dating back to 2100 BC, having been smuggled from Iraq illegally to the shops of Hubei Lupi. 
Hubei Lope, a Oklahoma City-based shop specializing in the sale of art and antiques, agreed in July to hand over artifacts made in what is now Iraq, about 4,000 years ago, and paid $ 3 million to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice. 
Many of the plaques originated in the city of Ari Sak Rak, dating back to 2100 BC and 1600 BC in the periods known as the Third Ur or the Babylonian period. 
It also included two clay tablets with royal inscriptions from early periods of the Second Dynasty of Jesh about 2500 BC.

 
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