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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 TheGratefulNet on Saturday July 08 2017, @02:08AM
the 'conservative' mind is too entangled with religion; and while they brainwash them at such a young age (making it very hard to untangle their illogic), they will not willingly let go of their sky daddy myth.
various countries have tried, over time, to remove/reduce the influence of religion. it never works. the human mind, for MOST of the population, is too easy to manipulate. we are controlled by fear, and fear is how religion gets its bite on you. it lies about 'comfort' in an afterlife, when there is 0.0% evidence of that being a reality. and yet, people fall for that scam and show no signs of smartening up. some of us have done this, but its a tiny percentage, too small to be any kind of major influence in policy.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."