According to amended complaints, an antiquities dealer and a U.S. cuneiform expert shipped the tablet to the U.S. without declaring it and the antiquities dealer sold it with a false provenance letter. The tablet eventually ended up at an auction house where it was sold to Hobby Lobby. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said the forfeiture “demonstrates the Department’s continued commitment to eliminating smuggled cultural property from the U.S. art market.” The plan is to return the tablet to its country of origin. Read more about the forfeiture here, and find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.
