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Big-box arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby will surrender some 5,500 artifacts it purchased illegally and pay $3 million after federal prosecutors filed a civil complaint in New York yesterday, reports Dan Whitcomb at Reuters.
The objects are believed to come from Iraq, where they were smuggled into other Middle Eastern countries. In 2010, they were sent to the United States falsely labeled as clay tiles.
[...] The items include 144 cylinder seals, used to roll decorative images onto clay, as well as clay bullae, which were used to create wax tokens to authenticate documents. The majority of the items are cuneiform tablets. Cuneiform is a type of writing developed about 6,000 years ago in what is now southern Iraq, Smithsonian.com's Anne Trubek reports. Over time, the writing, which looks like a series of lines and triangles impressed into palm-size pieces of wet clay, was used for over a dozen ancient languages, much like the Roman alphabet for most European and Romance languages.
So, why was a craft chain buying ancient Iraqi artifacts in the first place? Whitcomb reports that company president Steve Green is the founder of the Museum of the Bible, now under construction in Washington, D.C. He began acquiring artifacts for the museum, including the forfeited items, in 2009.
Also at NYT. DoJ and Hobby Lobby statements.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:26PM
Are these historical bibles and artifacts on display at the retail stores, or is this some "other level" of Hobby Lobby that their customers aren't able to access?
Sounds to me like somebody is using the corporation as a shield for their expensive and legally questionable acts.
Also explains a bit of why Hobby Lobby prices seem more aligned with Neimann Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue than they do Target and Wal-Mart, even while the stores and wares more resemble the latter.
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