Iraq says U.S. to return 17,000 ancient artifacts looted after invasion

Artifacts seized by the U.S. government and returned to Iraq are displayed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq August 3, 2021. REUTERS/Saba Kareem

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States is returning more than 17,000 ancient artifacts looted and smuggled out of Iraq after the U.S. invasion in 2003, including a 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Iraq said on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of antiquities disappeared from Iraq after the 2003 invasion that toppled leader Saddam Hussein. Many more were smuggled or destroyed by the iconoclastic Islamic State group, which held a third of Iraq between 2014 and 2017 before it was defeated by Iraqi and international forces.