BAGHDAD, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Iraq has recovered an ancient seal dating to the Akkadian civilization around 2250 B.C. that was stolen from the Duhok Museum in 1991, the Iraqi News Agency reported Wednesday.
The Iraqi Embassy in London received the artifact during a handover ceremony on Tuesday, marking a new step in Baghdad's campaign to track down and reclaim cultural items smuggled out of the country.
The recovery was coordinated with the Metropolitan Police Service's Art and Antiques Unit and the Art Loss Register, after the seal was formally listed as stolen.
At the ceremony, Iraq's charge d'affaires, Haider al-Husseini, thanked the agencies involved and urged anyone holding Iraqi antiquities to return them "to help preserve Iraq's cultural and civilizational heritage."
The Akkadian civilization ruled Mesopotamia around 4,300 years ago and is widely considered the world's first empire, uniting Sumerian and Akkadian speakers and stretching from the Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
