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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 nobu_the_bard on Friday July 07 2017, @01:44PM (2 children)
I was kind of hoping to find out the artifacts had been sold in the store alongside random terrible wicker picture frames and "Man Cave" signs.
I have shopped in a Hobby Lobby before but it is severely lacking; way too much kitschy junk. It's just the only place around here that sells decent sewing supplies since Wal-Mart and the internet put the local specialty stores out of business.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday July 07 2017, @11:11PM (1 child)
I shopped there once before learning much about their agenda. Fortunately there's a Michael's a few blocks away.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 07 2017, @11:35PM
Properly written as Michaels.
Have you considered an employee-owned operation?
Hobby shops [google.com]
Crafts stores [google.com]
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