Switzerland returns Assyrian reliefs to Iraq

Yasmeen Altaji | May 26, 2024

Swiss officials on Friday returned three artifacts to Iraq in a ceremony at the culture ministry in Bern.

Switzerland’s Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneide handed over the objects to her counterpart, Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein.

The Swiss ministry said in a statement the objects are 1,700 to 2,800 years old and had been confiscated during a criminal procedure in Geneva. 

The returned artifacts include two large Assyrian reliefs, one depicting Assyrian soldiers and Babylonian gods. The second, which the ministry sai was  “deliberately mutilated to sell it”, originally depicted two diginitaries separated by a cuneiform inscription “which has yet to be read. Both reliefs were discovered at the Nimrud-Kalhu archaeological site in modern day northern Iraq. 

A royal bust rom the ancient city of Hatra was also among the objects returned.

According to the ministry, all three artifacts were excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries on official digs.