Atlanta, GA
2,700-year-old stolen artifact found in Atlanta museum
Stolen artifact present in Emory Museum
FBI brokers found a 2,700-year-old artifact that had been stolen from Iraq and has been right here in Atlanta for years.
ATLANTA – FBI brokers found a 2,700-year-old artifact, which had been stolen from Iraq, has been in Atlanta for years.
FBI brokers in Boston bought a tip about an artifact that had been stolen from the Iraq Museum in the course of the fall of Baghdad. The tip led them to the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the Emory College campus.
Brokers say this artifact, fabricated from ivory, is just a bit greater than two-inches tall. It was stolen 20 years in the past. In 2003, there was widespread looting in the course of the fall of Baghdad.
“Hundreds of artifacts had been stolen and scattered throughout the globe,” mentioned Tony Thomas, FBI spokesman.
Lots of these have by no means been discovered, however the FBI Artwork Crime Workforce bought a tip that the artifact, named “Furnishings Becoming with Sphinx Trampling a Youth”, was on show in Atlanta. Brokers discovered the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory College purchased the piece from somebody in 2006. It got here with papers saying the artifact had been within the U.S. since 1969.
“Emory officers had been fooled. They took the paperwork as the actual factor. They bought the artifact, and it had been on show since 2006,” mentioned Thomas.
After speaking to FBI brokers, museum officers voluntarily handed the artifact over to them.
Emory College launched this assertion:
“Emory College’s Michael C. Carlos Museum returned a Nimrud Ivory from its collections to the Iraqi authorities, following new analysis into the piece’s provenance. The thing belongs to the collections of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. Whereas the Carlos was equipped with what seemed to be reputable provenance documentation on the time of the thing’s buy in 2006, we not view that info as legitimate.”
Throughout a ceremony on the Iraqi embassy in Washington on Wednesday, an agent from the FBI’s Artwork Crime Workforce gave the artifact to Iraqi officers.
“This is only one of seven,000 to 10,000 gadgets that had been looted and the overwhelming majority are nonetheless lacking, however one which the FBI is joyful to have been returned,” mentioned Thomas.