Iraqi Artifacts Once Bought by Hobby Lobby Will Return Home
[ad_1] Hobby Lobby, which is owned by evangelical Christians known for their interest in the biblical Middle East, originally bought the collection from an unnamed dealer for $1.6 million in December 2010. The purchase, prosecutors later said, was completed despite being “fraught with red flags,” including warnings from an expert on cultural property law hired by the company that the artifacts were possibly taken from archaeological sites in Iraq. “Stealing a nation’s cultural property and antiquities is one of the oldest forms of organized transnational crime,” said Mr. Homan, who will soon retire from the agency. He said more than 1,200 items had been returned to Iraq since 2008. The collection included cuneiform tablets, ancient clay tablets that probably served as administrative and legal documentation in ancient Mesopotamia, and clay bullae, seal impressions about the size of a coin that served as signatures and proof that an item had not been tampered with. More than a...