Does that go for Bill Gertz also?
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The sacred Vase of Warka — one of the most valuable artifacts of the Iraqi National Museum collection, feared lost forever — was returned unceremoniously Thursday in the trunk of a car.
The 5,000-year-old white limestone vase, the world's oldest carved-stone ritual vessel, was handed over with other looted items, U.S.-led coalition forces said in a statement. Three men gave the pieces to security staff at the central Baghdad museum, a gesture that could reassure archaeologists worried about Iraq's ancient treasures.
"This is one of the most important pieces from the Baghdad museum and I am delighted it has been returned. It is reason for people all around the world to celebrate," said Pietro Cordone, senior adviser on culture for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the formal name of the occupation forces.
Cordone, a former Italian diplomat, was at the museum when the men arrived unexpectedly and thanked them personally. The authority did not identify them.
The vase, still pictured on the Interpol Web site of missing artworks, is a major Mesopotamian artifact widely studied in art history and archaeology. It depicts Sumerians offering gifts to the goddess Innin as well as scenes of daily life in the ancient city of Uruk. It was carved about the time the city's Sumerians were inventing writing.
A team of German archaeologists discovered the vase in 1940 near the city of Samawa in southern Iraq.
The coalition's statement said the vase was returned "safely" but did not give details on its condition.
Once the home of rare Islamic texts and priceless, millennia-old collections from the Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations, the Iraqi National Museum was plundered in the lawlessness and chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad on April 9.
The looting and destruction triggered an international uproar, with many curators and archaeologists from around the world blaming the United States for failing to protect the institution. Some compared it to the 13th-century sacking of Baghdad by the Mongol hordes.
U.S. military commanders have rejected the charges, saying the museum was not on the list of sites their troops were ordered to secure upon entering the city.
Some looted items have been recovered under a no-questions-asked amnesty program, while others were found in raids or in secret government vaults.
The Vase of Warka is one of 47 main exhibition items that coalition officials said last week was still missing. They did not identify the other 46.
"We will continue to do everything we can to secure the safe return of other missing objects," said Cordone.
Last week, coalition authorities announced the recovery of the treasures of Nimrud, missing since the fall of Baghdad and found in good condition in the country's Central Bank, in a secret vault submerged in sewage water.
The treasures — gold earrings, finger and toe rings, necklaces, plates, bowls and flasks, many of them elaborately engraved and set with semiprecious stones or enamel — date back to about 900 BC.
One or two of the museum's galleries are expected to reopen next month.