Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Spain's interior ministry said on Tuesday police had recovered 21 Babylonian and Sumerian artefacts stolen in Iraq that had been due to go on auction in Madrid.
Spanish police impounded the missing treasures, which include terracota tableaux and a lapis lazuli necklace, and alerted Interpol. The artefacts had been set to be auctioned in November 2005.
The international police organisation, which had logged the treasures as missing, confirmed in January that they had been stolen and secreted out of southern Iraq.
The months following the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in April 2003 saw widespread looting in much of southern Iraq.
The Iraqi National Museum, a treasure trove of archaeological and historical artifacts, was similarly ransacked of thousands of relics dating back some 5,000 years.
cw/gg/gil
Spain-Iraq-art-theft
AFP 211700 GMT 02 06
COPYRIGHT 2004 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
