Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal

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One of the ancient clay tablets showing Cuneiform script which Hobby Lobby bought United States versus Approximately 450 Ancient Cuneiform Tablets - smuggled artifact 1.jpg
One of the ancient clay tablets showing Cuneiform script which Hobby Lobby bought

The Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal started in 2009 when representatives of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores received a large number of clay bullae and tablets originating in the ancient Near East. The artifacts were intended for the Museum of the Bible, funded by the Evangelical Christian Green family, which owns the Oklahoma-based chain. [1] Internal staff had warned superiors that the items had dubious provenance and were potentially looted from Iraq.

Contents

Several shipments of the artifacts were seized by US customs agents in 2011, triggering a struggle between Hobby Lobby and the federal government that culminated in a 2017 civil forfeiture case United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand Ancient Clay Bullae. As a result of the case, Hobby Lobby agreed to return the artifacts and pay a fine of $3 million. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned 3,800 items seized from Hobby Lobby to Iraq in May 2018. [2] In March 2020 , Hobby Lobby president Steve Green agreed to return 11,500 items to Egypt and Iraq. [3] [4]

Purchase and provenance

United States versus Approximately 450 Ancient Cuneiform Tablets, a court filing from July 2017 United States versus Approximately 450 Ancient Cuneiform Tablets, 2017 (page 1 crop).jpg
United States versus Approximately 450 Ancient Cuneiform Tablets, a court filing from July 2017

In December 2010, Hobby Lobby purchased $1.6 million worth of Iraqi artifacts from dealers in the United Arab Emirates. The artifacts were largely cuneiform tablets, clay bullae, and cylinder seals, with some likely originating from the ancient city of Irisaĝrig on the Tigris. [5] Many of the artifacts lacked any supporting evidence of their history or ownership, raising the possibility that the artifacts had been possibly looted or sold on the black market. [6] The U.S. government investigated the company for these actions. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Archaeologists say some items may have come from the National Museum of Iraq, which had been looted after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Hobby Lobby made mass purchases with few pieces of vague documentation and scant descriptions, [12] and "having commissioned inexperienced scholars to analyze ancient texts" according to scholars Candida Moss and Joel Baden in the book Bible Nation. [13] [14] The Museum's chief curator in 2017 summarized "We can't even tell sometimes which particular item belonged to which acquisition, because it just wasn't documented either at the acquisition point or at the delivery point. ... So we have no way of knowing where these came from." [12]

Through the 2000s, the entire antiquities market—especially Hobby Lobby staff—had been widely and publicly warned of the proliferation of fakes, all manufactured with the same cheap flaws that are obvious to expert analysts. [13] [15] Further, the scholar community disparaged the Museum's entire mission, including this statement from Jodi Magness, president of the Archaeological Institute of America: "[If] archaeology is being used as a means of proving the historicity and accuracy of the biblical text, that is extremely problematic". She generally warned, "Many [unprovenanced] antiquities surely come from illegal excavations or looting of archaeological sites". [16]

Importation, seizure, and litigation

When the cuneiform tablets were shipped to the United States, they were misrepresented on declarations as being ceramic and clay tile samples, and contained false designations of origin stating that the objects were from Turkey and Israel. [17] US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement seized the shipments. [17]

In early July 2017, US federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint in the Eastern District of New York under the case name United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand Ancient Clay Bullae. [18] The Justice Department wrote that:

In October 2010, an expert on cultural property law retained by Hobby Lobby warned the company that the acquisition of cultural property likely from Iraq, including cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals, carries a risk that such objects may have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq. The expert also advised Hobby Lobby to review its collection of antiquities for any objects of Iraqi origin and to verify that their country of origin was properly declared at the time of importation into the United States. The expert warned Hobby Lobby that an improper declaration of country of origin for cultural property could lead to seizure and forfeiture of the artifacts by CBP. [7]

On July 5, 2017, Hobby Lobby consented to a settlement requiring forfeiture of the artifacts and payment of a fine of $3 million and the return of more than 5500 artifacts. [19] [10] [20]

In the early hours of July 30, 2017, Israeli authorities raided several private residences and storefronts in Jerusalem belonging to five antiquities dealers of Palestinian origin and confiscated several historical artifacts, including a papyrus fragment from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and a Pompeiian fresco, and more than US$200,000 in cash. [21] [10] The Israeli Antiquities Authority had been contacted in 2016 by the United States Department of Homeland Security, and provided Israeli authorities with evidence of money transfers between Green and Israeli-licensed antiquities dealers. In all, five individuals were arrested for tax evasion. [22] Candida Moss and Joel Baden in the book Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby report that the Green family's philanthropic activities—including antiquities donations to its own museum—have always followed a set ratio of 3:1, of the appraised value to the purchase price. [14] : 24  This is reportedly with the goal of a large profit margin by way of tax write-off, wherein "the government is effectively paying the Greens to amass a collection of dubious antiquities". [13]

Retrospective

The 2019 book Tablets From the Irisaĝrig Archive mentions the scandal in its analysis of more than one thousand cuneiform tablets, possibly stolen from Irisaĝrig, a 4,000-year-old lost city in Iraq. [23] The tablets, purchased by Hobby Lobby, were studied over a four-year period while in the company's Oklahoma storerooms. "The new find shows that the company Hobby Lobby — whose co-owner, Steve Green, helped found the Museum of the Bible in November 2017 in Washington, D.C. — had far more cuneiform tablets obtained (possibly illegally) from this city, and other sites in Iraq, than previously believed." Up to 1,400 artifacts to be returned to Iraq appear to be missing from the Hobby Lobby collection. [24]

Collections management controversy

Counterfeit items

In October 2018, the Museum of the Bible revealed that five of its sixteen Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are counterfeit; [25] and in March 2020, independent art fraud investigators hired by the museum revealed that all sixteen fragments are counterfeit, made from ancient leather and modern inks. [26]

The museum removed the display of another disputed artifact, a miniature bible which a NASA astronaut had purportedly carried to the moon. [27] [28]

Stolen items

The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet Gilgamesh Dream Tablet.jpg
The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet
The Gilgamesh Dream tablet. From Iraq. Middle Babylonian Period, First Sealand Dynasty, 1732-1460 BCE. On display at the Iraq Museum, Baghdad; after being recovered from the Museum of the Bible of Hobby Lobby, Washington DC, USA The Gilgamesh Dream tablet. From Iraq. Middle Babylonian Period, First Sealand Dynasty, 1732-1460 BCE. Iraq Museum, Baghdad.jpg
The Gilgamesh Dream tablet. From Iraq. Middle Babylonian Period, First Sealand Dynasty, 1732-1460 BCE. On display at the Iraq Museum, Baghdad; after being recovered from the Museum of the Bible of Hobby Lobby, Washington DC, USA

In October 2019, officials from the British Egypt Exploration Society, a nonprofit organization that manages the Papyri Project, alleged that Oxford academic Dirk Obbink engaged in the theft and sale of "at least 11 ancient Bible fragments to the Green family, the Hobby Lobby owners who operate a Bible museum and charitable organization in Washington". The museum said it will return the fragments to the Egypt Exploration Society and Oxford University. [29] [30]

In March 2020, National Geographic reported that the museum was "reevaluating the provenance of all the material in its collection" with the intent of returning stolen objects. [31] Steve Green, the museum's board chairman and the president of Hobby Lobby, announced the museum will be returning 11,500 artifacts to Egypt and Iraq, including thousands of papyrus scraps and ancient clay pieces. Green admitted, "I knew little about the world of collecting ... The criticism of the museum resulting from my mistakes was justified." Manchester University papyrologist Roberta Mazza stated that the Green family "poured millions on the legal and illegal antiquities market without having a clue about the history, the material features, cultural value, fragilities, and problems of the objects". [32]

This return includes the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, containing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, discovered in Iraq in 1853, sold by the Jordanian Antiquities Association to an antiquities dealer in 2003, [33] and sold again by Christie's auction house to Hobby Lobby in 2014 for $1.6 million. The auction house lied about how the artifact had entered the market, claiming it had been on the market in the United States for decades. In September 2019, federal authorities seized the tablet, and in May 2020, a civil complaint was filed to forfeit it. [34] [35] [36]

In January 2021, 8,000 clay objects were transferred to the Iraq Museum, and Steve Green announced, "we transferred control of the fine art storage facility that housed the 5,000 Egyptian items to the U.S. government as part of a voluntary administrative process. We understand the U.S. government has now delivered the papyri to Egyptian officials." [37]

In July 2021, the United States Department of Justice announced it had seized the Gilgamesh tablet from Hobby Lobby for repatriation to Iraq. [38] Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn M. Kasulis for the Eastern District of New York stated, “This office is committed to combating the black-market sale of cultural property and the smuggling of looted artifacts.” Hobby Lobby failed to follow expert advice on antiquities collecting which has resulted in multiple seizures and fines. [39] [40]

In August 2021, Iraq reclaimed 17,000 looted artifacts previously held by the Museum of the Bible. [41]

Related Research Articles

<i>Epic of Gilgamesh</i> Epic poem from Mesopotamia

The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, some of which may date back to the Third Dynasty of Ur. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates back to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī. Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later Standard Babylonian version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates to somewhere between the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru. Approximately two-thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Umma</span> Ancient Sumerian city in modern-day Iraq

Umma (Sumerian: 𒄑𒆵𒆠ummaKI; in modern Dhi Qar Province in Iraq, was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some scholarly debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Traditionally, Umma was identified with Tell Jokha. More recently it has been suggested that it was located at Umm al-Aqarib, less than 7 km to its northwest or was even the name of both cities. One or both were the leading city of the Early Dynastic kingdom of Gišša, with the most recent excavators putting forth that Umm al-Aqarib was prominent in EDIII but Jokha rose to preeminence later. The town of KI.AN was also nearby. KI.AN, which was destroyed by Rimush, a ruler of the Akkadian Empire. There are known to have been six gods of KI.AN including Gula KI.AN and Sara KI.AN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adab (city)</span> Ancient Sumerian city between Girsu and Nippur

Adab or Udab was an ancient Sumerian city between Girsu and Nippur. It was located at the site of modern Bismaya or Bismya in the Wasit Province of Iraq. The city-god of Adab was Parag'ellilegarra (Panigingarra) "The Sovereign Appointed by Ellil".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hobby Lobby</span> American arts-and-crafts store chain based in Oklahoma

Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., formerly Hobby Lobby Creative Centers, is an American retail company. It owns a chain of arts and crafts stores with a volume of over $5 billion in 2018. The chain has 1,001 stores in 48 U.S. states. The Green family founded Hobby Lobby to express their Christian beliefs and the chain incorporates American conservative values and Christian media.

In rem jurisdiction is a legal term describing the power a court may exercise over property or a "status" against a person over whom the court does not have in personam jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in rem assumes the property or status is the primary object of the action, rather than personal liabilities not necessarily associated with the property.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. A. Wallis Budge</span> British academic (1857–1934)

Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips to Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on behalf of the British Museum to buy antiquities, and helped it build its collection of cuneiform tablets, manuscripts, and papyri. He published many books on Egyptology, helping to bring the findings to larger audiences. In 1920, he was knighted for his service to Egyptology and the British Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library of Ashurbanipal</span> 7th-century-BC archaeological collection of clay tablets in Iraq

The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, named after Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Assyrian Empire, is a collection of more than 30,000 clay tablets and fragments containing texts of all kinds from the 7th century BCE, including texts in various languages. Among its holdings was the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archaeological looting in Iraq</span> Archaeological looting occurring in Iraq

Archaeological looting in Iraq took place since at least the late 19th century. The chaos following war provided the opportunity to pillage everything that was not nailed down. There were also attempts to protect the sites such as the period between April 9, 2003, when the staff vacated the Iraq Museum and April 15, 2003, when US forces arrived in sufficient numbers to "restore some semblance of order." Some 15,000 cultural artifacts disappeared in that time. Over the years approximately 14,800 were recovered from within and outside Iraq and taken under the protection of the Iraqi government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulla (seal)</span> Device to seal or authenticate documents

A bulla is an inscribed clay or soft metal or bitumen or wax token used in commercial and legal documentation as a form of authentication and for tamper-proofing whatever is attached to it.

David Green is an American billionaire businessman and the founder of Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts and crafts stores. He is a major financial supporter of Evangelical organizations in the United States and funded the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schøyen Collection</span> Private manuscript collections located in Oslo and London

The Schøyen Collection is one of the largest private manuscript collections in the world, mostly located in Oslo and London. Formed in the 20th century by the father of current owner Martin Schøyen, it comprises manuscripts of global provenance, spanning 5,000 years of history. It contains more than 13,000 manuscript items; the oldest is about 5,300 years old. There are manuscripts from 134 different countries and territories, representing 120 languages and 185 scripts.

The Green Collection, later known as the Museum Collection, is one of the world's largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts, made up of more than 40,000 biblical antiquities assembled by the Green family, founders of the American retail chain Hobby Lobby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of the Bible</span> History museum in Washington DC, United States

The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington D.C., owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the Green family. The museum documents the narrative, history, and impact of the Bible. It opened on November 17, 2017, and has 1,150 items in its permanent collection and 2,000 items on loan from other institutions and collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sulaymaniyah Museum</span> Archaeological museum in Kurdistan Region, Iraq

The Sulaymaniyah Museum, or Slemani Museum, is an archeological museum located in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the second largest museum in Iraq, after the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. It houses artifacts dating from the prehistoric period to the late Islamic and Ottoman periods. Several halls of the museum have undergone renovation work and the museum was closed to the public for refurbishment from October 1, 2018, to October 2019.

Stephanie Mary Dalley FSA is a British Assyriologist and scholar of the Ancient Near East. Prior to her retirement, she was a teaching Fellow at the Oriental Institute, Oxford. She is known for her publications of cuneiform texts and her investigation into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her proposal that it was situated in Nineveh, and constructed during Sennacherib's rule.

Tell al-Wilayah is an archaeological site in the Wasit Governorate of eastern Iraq. The site has now been completely destroyed by large scale looting. It is located around 20 km southwest of the modern city of Kut and 6 kilometers southwest of Tulul al-Baqarat.

The Ushi Narrative Tablet, sometimes Ushi's Narrative Tablet, is a cuneiform tablet dated to around 3200BC and the Uruk III period of ancient Sumer, containing a narrative inscription attributed to a scribe by the name of "Ushi". It was discovered at some point during the German Oriental Society's excavations of Warka (Uruk) and surrounding areas between 1931 and 1939, and was subsequently sold as part of the illegal antiquities trade out of Iraq. The tablet was held by anonymous collectors until it was rediscovered by authorities as part of the Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal.

Irisaĝrig was an ancient Near East city in Iraq whose location is not known with certainty but is currently thought to be at the site of Tell al-Wilayah, on the ancient Mama-šarrat canal off the Tigris river, near the ancient site of Kesh, Tulul al-Baqarat. The city was occupied during the Early Dynastic, Akkadian, Ur III, and early Old Babylonian periods. While cuneiform tablets from the city had appeared from time to time, the flood of artifacts entering the private market from looting which followed the 2003 war in Iraq included a large number from Irisaĝrig. This spurred interest by archaeologist in finding the site. The city became of popular interest because of the Hobby Lobby smuggling scandal. While there were a number of significant temples in the city, the titular deity is not known though the Isin-Larsa period literary composition Lament for Eridu names the goddess Aruru in that role. It has also been suggested that there were temples of Ashgi and Alla. There is known to have been a temple of Ninisina and one of Nergal of Eresh in Irisagrig in the Ur III period, at least back to the reign of Shu-Suen and Amar-Sin respectively, and continuing under the rule of Malgium.

References

  1. ↑ Taylor, Kate (October 23, 2018). "The $500 million Museum of the Bible founded by Hobby Lobby's controversial president has admitted it displayed fake Dead Sea Scrolls". Business Insider. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  2. ↑ "ICE returns thousands of ancient artifacts seized from Hobby Lobby to Iraq". www.ice.gov. Retrieved May 3, 2018.
  3. ↑ Crow, Kelly (27 March 2020). "Hobby Lobby President to Return 11,500 Antiquities to Iraq and Egypt". Wall Street Journal.
  4. ↑ Biron, Bethany (21 October 2022). "16 of the biggest controversies in Hobby Lobby's 50-year history — from denying contraceptives for employees to illegally smuggling ancient tablets". Business Insider. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
  5. ↑ McGlone, Peggy (2 May 2018). "Hobby Lobby's illicit artifacts are returned to their Iraqi homeland". The Washington Post.
  6. ↑ Henry, Andrew (October 24, 2018). "A Dead Sea Scrolls Forgery Casts Doubt on the Museum of the Bible". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 14, 2020.
  7. 1 2 "United States Files Civil Action To Forfeit Thousands Of Ancient Iraqi Artifacts Imported By Hobby Lobby". U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE. July 5, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  8. ↑ Baden, Candida Moss|Joel (January 30, 2017). "Exclusive: Feds Investigate Hobby Lobby Boss for Illicit Artifacts". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 5, 2017.
  9. ↑ Pilkington, Ed (October 28, 2015). "Hobby Lobby investigated for trying to import ancient artifacts from Iraq". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved July 5, 2017.
  10. 1 2 3 Feuer, Alan (July 5, 2017). "Hobby Lobby Agrees to Forfeit 5,500 Artifacts Smuggled Out of Iraq". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 6, 2017.
  11. ↑ "Hobby Lobby: Christian firm's artefact smuggling case settled". BBC News. July 6, 2017. Retrieved July 6, 2017.
  12. 1 2 Arraf, Jane (June 23, 2020). "After 'Missteps' And Controversies, Museum Of The Bible Works To Clean Up Its Act". NPR . Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  13. 1 2 3 Press, Michael (October 24, 2018). "Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of the Bible Revealed as Forgeries". Hyperallergic. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  14. 1 2 Moss, Candida R.; Baden, Joel S. (September 22, 2017). Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby. Princeton University Press. ISBN   9781400888313 . Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  15. ↑ Cascone, Sarah (March 16, 2020). "'It's the First Domino': After the Museum of the Bible Discovered Its Dead Sea Scrolls Are Fake, the Field Braces for More Revelations". Art World. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  16. ↑ Wade, Lizzie (October 16, 2017). "Can the Museum of the Bible overcome the sins of the past?". Science. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  17. 1 2 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (2017-07-05). "Hobby Lobby settles $3 million civil suit for falsely labeling Cuneiform Tablets".
  18. ↑ Green, Emma (July 5, 2017). "Hobby Lobby Purchased Thousands of Ancient Artifacts Smuggled Out of Iraq".
  19. ↑ James, Mike (July 6, 2017). "Hobby Lobby fined $3M over 5,500 smuggled Iraqi artifacts". USA Today. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  20. ↑ Siu, Diamond Naga (5 July 2017). "Hobby Lobby agrees to $3 million fine, forfeiture of thousands of Iraqi relics". POLITICO.
  21. ↑ "NPR: Israeli authorities arrest antiquities dealers in connection with Hobby Lobby scandal". NPR. August 1, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  22. ↑ "5 Palestinians arrested in Hobby Lobby smuggling ring". The Jerusalem Post | Jpost.com. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  23. ↑ Sigrist, Marcel; Ozaki, Tohru (2019). Tablets From the Irisaĝrig Archive Part One. Cornell University studies in Assyriology and Sumerology. Vol. 40. University Park, Pennsylvania Eisenbrauns. ISBN   9781575067285. OCLC   1137101426.
  24. ↑ Jarus, Owen (January 7, 2020). "1,400 Ancient Cuneiform Tablets Identified from Lost City of Irisagrig in Iraq. Were They Stolen?". Live Science. Retrieved January 12, 2020.
  25. ↑ Sullivan, Emily (October 23, 2018). "Museum Of The Bible Says 5 Of Its Most Famed Artifacts Are Fake". NPR. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
  26. ↑ Luscombe, Richard (March 16, 2020). "'Dead Sea Scrolls fragments' at Museum of the Bible are all fakes, study says". The Guardian. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  27. ↑ Miller, Ken (October 5, 2019). "Museum of the Bible quietly replaces questioned artifact". Associated Press. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  28. ↑ Miller, Ken (October 6, 2019). "Museum of the Bible quietly replaces artifact purported to be brought to the moon by NASA". USA Today . Associated Press. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
  29. ↑ Gleiter, Dan (October 15, 2019). "Oxford professor allegedly sold ancient, stolen Bible artifacts to Hobby Lobby". Washington Post. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  30. ↑ Sabar, Ariel (June 2020). "A Biblical Mystery at Oxford". The Atlantic. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  31. ↑ Greshko, Michael (March 13, 2020). "Exclusive: 'Dead Sea Scrolls' at the Museum of the Bible are all forgeries". National Geographic. Archived from the original on March 13, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  32. ↑ Cascone, Sarah (March 30, 2020). "Amid Scrutiny, the Museum of the Bible's Founder Will Return a Staggering 11,500 Artifacts of Dubious Origin to the Middle East". ArtNet News. Retrieved April 18, 2020.
  33. ↑ Meier, Martin Gottlieb With Barry (May 1, 2003). "AFTEREFFECTS: THE PLUNDER; Of 2,000 Treasures Stolen in Gulf War of 1991, Only 12 Have Been Recovered". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  34. ↑ Stelloh, Tim (May 18, 2020). "Authorities announce forfeiture of ancient Gilgamesh tablet from Hobby Lobby's Museum of the Bible". NBC News. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  35. ↑ "Civil action filed to forfeit rare cuneiform tablet from Hobby Lobby". www.ice.gov. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  36. ↑ "United States of America vs. One Cuneiform Tablet Known as the "Gilgamesh Dream Tablet"". US Department of Justice. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  37. ↑ Goldstein, Caroline (January 29, 2021). "The Museum of the Bible Must Once Again Return Artifacts, This Time an Entire Warehouse of 5,000 Egyptian Objects". Artnet. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  38. ↑ "Rare Cuneiform Tablet Bearing Portion of Epic of Gilgamesh Forfeited to United States". U.S. Department of Justice. 27 July 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  39. ↑ "Rare Cuneiform Tablet Bearing Portion of Epic of Gilgamesh Forfeited to United States". United States Department of Justice. 27 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  40. ↑ Stieb, Matt. "DOJ Seizes Tablet of Stolen 'Epic of Gilgamesh' From Hobby Lobby". New York Magazine. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  41. ↑ "Iraq Reclaims 17,000 Looted Artifacts, Its Biggest-Ever Repatriation". The New York Times. 3 August 2021.
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