A New York federal court court has ordered Hobby Lobby to hand over an ancient Gilgamesh artifact that was bought at an auction for $1.6 million in 2014.
Officials said the artefact was looted from Iraq after the first Gulf War and illegally imported to the United States, after being sold In London to a US dealer in 2003.
The 3,500 year-old clay tablet with a sequence from the epic of Gilgamesh, which once sat in Washington's Museum of the Bible, was seized by the US Justice Department in 2019.
The 3,500 year-old clay tablet (pictured) with a sequence from the epic of Gilgamesh, which once sat in Washington's Museum of the Bible was seized by the US Justice Department
The rare fragment, which recounts a dream sequence from the epic in Akkadian cuneiform script, is one of many ancient artifacts from the Middle East collected by David Green, the billionaire owner of the Hobby Lobby chain of arts and crafts stores.
Green chairs and funds the the museum, which has been plagued by controversies involving its collection.
It was seized by the US Justice Department in 2019, two years after Green opened the museum dedicated to ancient Christian history in downtown Washington.
The tablet was just one of thousands of Iraqi-origin artifacts, mostly 3,000- to 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets and seals, that have been seized from Hobby Lobby and the Bible Museum for repatriation to Iraq.
The Justice Department said they were plundered in Iraq, and traded illegally by dealers in Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
According to the Justice Department, Hobby Lobby bought the six-by-five-inch (15.2 by 12.7 centimetre) tablet from a prominent auction house in 2014 for $1.67 million.
The tablet is one of many ancient artifacts from the Middle East collected by David Green, the billionaire owner of the Hobby Lobby (pictured, file photo) chain of arts and crafts stores
It had originally been brought illegally to the United States in 2003 by a dealer, who purchased it in London from a well-known Jordanian trader of ancient Middle Eastern antiquities.
It was then traded several times with false letters of provenance to assure buyers that it was
