Ancient Tablets Returned to Their Home

On September 7th, 2010, hundreds of clay tablets originating from Iraq were returned to the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad after a long, arduous journey. Prior to the attacks on 9/11, the tablets had been looted from southern Iraq, and were being shipped to the States; it was believed that the tablets were being distributed to a gallery suspected of dealing with stolen art and artifacts, and the tablets were seized by the Customs Service and placed in a vault underneath the World Trade Center. When the building was attacked and subsequently destroyed, the vault was waterlogged and the tablets were not retrievable until weeks later. When extracted from the debris and wreckage, the tablets were in poor shape; the boxes were once again stored until a later time. Upon taking the tablets out of storage, Dennis Piechota and his wife, Jane Drake, were given the task of restoring the tablets back to their former glory. After years of painstaking restoration, the tablets were finally completed and sent back to Iraq. The tablets provide us which an abundance of knowledge on the history and culture of Ancient Iraq; it was said that one could not put a monetary value on a find like this.

- Posted by Matt Langerveld

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/arts/design/16tablets.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss