A 2,800-year-old stone tablet has gone on display in Iraq after being returned by Italy.
It was thought the artefact inscribed with complete cuneiform text - a system of writing on clay in an ancient Babylonian alphabet - could have been found during archaeological excavations of the Mosul dam four decades ago.
The tablet bears the insignia of Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian king who ruled the region of Nimrod, in present-day northern Iraq, from 858 to 823 BC.
It was unclear how it made its way to Italy where it was seized by police in the 1980s.
Iraq, often described as the “cradle of civilisation”, is working to recover archaeological pieces from abroad.
Iraq’s president Abdul Latif Rashid praised the co-operation shown by Italy and said he would work to recover all the archaeological pieces of Iraqi history from abroad.
“We want to make the national Iraq Museum one of the best museums in the world, and we will work to do so,” said the Iraqi president.
Looting of the country’s antiquities intensified following the US-led invasion 20 years ago.
In May, New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg announced the return of two ancient sculptures to Iraq: a limestone Mesopotamian elephant and an alabaster Sumerian bull from the old city of Uruk.
The figurines, stolen during the Gulf War, were smuggled into New York in the late 1990s, according to the prosecutor’s office.
