Police probe German man over ancient Mideast artifacts

BERLIN

German police said on Feb. 21 that they were investigating a man over his suspicious collection of ancient Middle Eastern artifacts, including a millennia-old cuneiform tablet likely stolen from a museum in Syria.

Investigators were first alerted to the case when they found the man was in possession of the cuneiform tablet from Ebla in Syria, the LKA criminal investigation service in Baden-Wuerttemberg said.

Cultural artifacts from ancient Ebla, such as tablets inscribed with the cuneiform writing system dating to 2,350-2,250 B.C., are very popular among collectors.

The man claimed to have acquired the tablet from an old Bavarian collection as an investment and for possible resale, but this claim turned out to be false, the LKA said.

"Investigations revealed that the artefact had in fact probably been illegally imported into Germany... after it had been stolen from the museum in Idlib in Syria in 2015," it said.

Investigators then searched the man's home in Heilbronn and found another cuneiform tablet and a collection of ushabti figurines, small sandstone statues used in ancient Egyptian funeral rituals.

Police have seized the objects and the investigation is ongoing, the LKA said.

Syria's extraordinary archaeological heritage has fallen prey to the fighting ravaging the country since civil war broke out in 2011.

In a country where corruption and trafficking of archaeological artefacts and treasures were already a chronic problem, widespread clashes and power vacuums in some areas have led to an explosion of looting and illicit excavations.

The Islamic State group is believed to have uncovered and then destroyed a stash of cuneiform tablets and statues when it captured Tal Ajaja, one of Syria's most important Assyrian-era sites.

Under the group's extreme interpretation of Islam, statues, idols and shrines amount to recognizing objects of worship other than God and must be destroyed.

But the group is also believed to have benefited from the trafficking of antiquities seized from sites under its control.

Germany saw a huge influx of Syrian refugees in 2015-16, with hundreds of thousands arriving in the country.