Switzerland Hands Over Artifacts to Iraq

BERN, SWITZERLAND—Hürriyet Daily News reports that Switzerland handed over three Mesopotamian artifacts to Fuad Hussein, Iraq’s Foreign Minister, in a ceremony in Bern. The objects, including two Neo-Assyrian reliefs dated to the eighth century B.C. from the site of Nimrud, and a partial royal bust from the ancient city of Hatra dated to the second or third century A.D., were confiscated in Geneva last year during a criminal investigation. These three objects were uncovered in Iraq during excavations conducted in the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is not known when they were removed from the country. More than 40 ancient objects were recovered during the operation and are currently on display in Switzerland. To read about lions in Neo-Assyrian reliefs, go to "When Lions Were King: Kings."