[MSN] A stolen incantation bowl, which the Metropolitan Police recovered, was returned to the Iraqi Ambassador yesterday.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

September 15, 2006 


Looted artefacts returned
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
 
 
  
A stolen incantation bowl, which the Metropolitan Police recovered, was
returned to the Iraqi Ambassador yesterday. 

PHOTOGRAPH: ANDRE CAMARA;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2358476,00.html
  
COMMANDER Sue Wilkinson of Scotland Yard returned two stolen artefacts
yesterday to Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, and Salah
al-Shaikhly, the Iraqi Ambassador to Britain. 
The items were part of a haul of looted antiquities that were smuggled out
of the country and put up for sale on the international art market. 

An incantation bowl, one of two stolen artefacts in the haul, is engraved in
Aramaic and is believed to have been looted from an archaeological site in
southern Iraq. 

 
 
It was returned yesterday, with an 11th-century manuscript, was returned at
a ceremony in the Iraqi Embassy “I am delighted to receive this. We will
keep it in a safe place and return it to the people of Iraq,” Mr Zebari
said. 

The book, valued at £250,000, is a medical journal written by the Arab
physician Abu Bakr Muhammad Zakariya al-Razi and published in Baghdad in
1013. It was one of hundreds of books stolen from the Islamic library in
Mosul. 

Detective Sergeant Vernon Rapley, who heads the Arts and Antiques Unit at
Scotland Yard, said that the items were handed in by an auction house and an
art dealer in London.