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American officials last week returned a 2,700-year-old artifact to Iraq after it had been looted from the Iraq museum in Baghdad in 2003, the FBI announced.
The small artifact had been on display at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, authorities said. It was known as a “Furniture Fitting with Sphinx Trampling a Youth,” according to the FBI.
Officials said that the museum had been duped when it purchased the artifact in 2006 from a third party that presented false documentation claiming the object had entered the United States in 1969.
“While the Carlos was supplied with what appeared to be legitimate provenance documentation at the time of the object’s purchase in 2006,” the museum said in a statement to USA TODAY, “we no longer view that information as valid.”
Keri Farley, an FBI special agent in Atlanta, said, “While we realize there was no ill intent on behalf of Emory University, we are glad our agents could return a small part of history back to where it belongs in Iraq.”
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Investigators believe that it was looted as Baghdad fell during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. A photograph of the artifact in Iraq in 1983 helped investigators determine Emory University had been presented false documents, the FBI said.
The item dates back to the Iron age and measures 2-1/4 tall and 1-1/2 inches wide. It’s made of ivory and adorned with gold and pigment, authorities said.
It was returned last week to Iraq during a ceremony at the country’s embassy in Washington.
The FBI said it began its investigation in January 2022, and Emory University voluntarily handed over the object in December.
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