SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts retailer, was forced to give up a rare ancient artifact alleged to have been illegally imported to the U.S.
The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet is carved with a portion of the epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian poem considered one of the world’s oldest works of literature, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. It's over 3,000 years old.
Hobby Lobby purchased the tablet in 2014 from an auction house and had it displayed in the Museum of the Bible.
But before it landed in the museum, the tablet had transferred through many hands and was illegally brought into the United States at least twice, a government complaint alleges.
The DOJ said in 2003, a U.S. antiquities dealer purchased the tablet from the family member of a London coin dealer. The antiquities dealer shipped it into the U.S. by international post without declaring the contents as required, according to the complaint.
Then in 2007, "the antiquities dealer sold the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet with a false provenance letter stating that the tablet had been inside a box of miscellaneous ancient bronze fragments purchased in a 1981 auction. This false letter traveled with the tablet as it was sold several times in different countries, and a later owner provided the letter to the Auction House in London," the DOJ said.
That London auction house ultimately sold it to Hobby Lobby, and an auction house employee then carried it on a flight to the U.S., according to the DOJ.
Law enforcement had seized the 6 inch by 5 inch artifact from the museum in 2019.
“The trafficking of cultural property and art is a lucrative criminal enterprise that transnational criminal organizations exploit to make a profit, regardless of its destructive consequence to cultures around the globe,” said Special Agent in Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), New York. “HSI continues to partner in art and antiquities investigations to ensure looted pieces are no longer trafficked through commerce for an illicit profit, because the cultural value of this tablet that travelled the world under false provenance exceeds any monetary value.”
Hobby Lobby has agreed to forfeit it due to the two alleged illegal importations in 2003 and 2014, the DOJ said in a Tuesday press release.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3yc3PXU
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