Syria returns stolen marble artifact to Iraq
Syria has returned a marble artifact to Iraq that was stolen from one of the country’s archaeological sites.
The marble block roughly 4 feet tall and 1 1/2 feet wide contains an engraving of a bearded man kneeling in prayer and several lines of cuneiform writing.
Iraq’s minister of tourism and archaeology, Mohammed Abbas al-Auraibi, told a news conference Thursday that the piece was stolen from an archaeological site in Nimrud near the northern city of Mosul.
Nimrud, some 15 miles south of Mosul, became the capital of the Assyrian empire in 883 B.C., a role it retained for more than 150 years.