Great; so the diaper heads can destroy it

US seizes $1.6 million ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ tablet from Hobby Lobby and will return it to Iraq.

A 3,500-year-old clay tablet that bears the text of one of the world’s oldest works of literature and was purchased by Hobby Lobby in 2014 for $1.6 million has been forfeited to the United States, the feds announced.

The tablet, which contains a portion of the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” came from the area of modern-day Iraq and was illegally shipped to the US in 2003, the Department of Justice alleged.

The tablet, known as the “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet” because it contains a portion of the poem in which the protagonist describes his dreams to his mother, was sold several times with a “false letter of provenance,” according to the DOJ, before Hobby Lobby purchased it at auction for $1.6 million.

Hobby Lobby purchased the tablet to be displayed at the Washington, DC-based Museum of the Bible, which is funded by the family of the arts and crafts chain’s founder, David Green.

In a complaint filed in May 2020, prosecutors said the 5-by-6-inch tablet is the property of the Iraqi government and should be returned. Hobby Lobby cooperated with the investigation, the DOJ said.

In April 2003, an unnamed antiquities dealer purchased the rare cuneiform tablet along with a number of other items from another dealer in London, prosecutors said.

In 2007, that dealer sold the tablet for $50,000 to another buyer, and allegedly provided a fake provenance letter, falsely claiming it had been legitimately obtained at an auction in 1981 before laws were passed restricting the importation of Iraqi artifacts.

The tablet was later sold by an unnamed international auction house to Hobby Lobby in 2014 for an eye-popping $1,674,000 to be displayed at the Museum of the Bible.

Three years later, a museum curator contacted the auction to clear up some contradictory information about the item’s origins.

Despite inquiries from the museum and Hobby Lobby, the auction house failed to disclose details about how it had obtained the artifact and withheld the false provenance letter, which it knew would not hold up to “scrutiny in a public auction,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.

You’ve got the Garden of Eden in Gilgamesh, plus the Great Flood, ark and all, and lots of other good stuff. While it’s possible the Muslim fanatics soon to reclaim the territory will respect it as part of Islamic heritage, they don’t have a good track record for honoring other religions; I’m guessing the tablet’s remaining lifespan will be no longer than our own Jefferson Memorial.

aluh akbar, baby!