History Reclaimed: The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet

On September 23, the United States returned to the Republic of Iraq a rare cuneiform tablet bearing a portion of the epic of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian poem considered one of the world’s oldest works of literature. The repatriation ceremony of the purported $1.7 million artifact took place at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.; also included was a 3,000 BC Sumerian Ram sculpture used in religious ceremonies.

The tablet, called the “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet,” originated in what is now modern-day Iraq and entered the United States contrary to federal law. An international auction house later sold the tablet to Hobby Lobby Stores, an arts-and-crafts retailer based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for display at their “Museum of the Bible.” Following public outcry, law enforcement agents seized the tablet from the Museum in September of 2019.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Acting Executive Associate Director Steve K. Francis and Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States Fareed Yasseen signed a ceremonial certificate transferring ownership of the artifact from the United States to Iraq. Many other officials from various organizations including the United Nations, U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Department of State also participated in the repatriation ceremony.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS) worked with HSI to forfeit the tablet in July 2021.

As alleged in the government’s amended complaint, in 2003, a U.S. antiquities dealer purchased the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, illegible and encrusted with dirt, from a family member of a coin dealer in London. The antiquities dealer and a U.S. cuneiform expert shipped the tablet to the United States by international post without declaring formal entry.

After the tablet was cleaned, experts in cuneiform recognized it as bearing a portion of the Gilgamesh epic in which the protagonist describes his dreams to his mother. The protagonist’s mother interprets the dreams as foretelling the arrival of a new friend. She tells her son, “You will see him, and your heart will laugh.”

The names of the hero, Gilgamesh, and the character who becomes his friend, Enkidu, are replaced in this tablet with the names of deities Sin and Ea. The tablet measures approximately 6 inches by 5 inches and is written in the Akkadian language, which was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The tablet was first discovered in 1853, when a 12-tablet Babylonian version of the epic of Gilgamesh was found in the ruins of the library of the Assyrian King Assur Banipal in Nineveh.

In 2007, the antiquities dealer sold the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet with a false provenance letter that stated the tablet had been among miscellaneous ancient bronze fragments purchased in an auction in 1981. This false letter traveled with the tablet as it was sold several times in different countries; a later owner provided the letter to an auction house in London.

In 2014, the auction house sold the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet to Hobby Lobby in a private sale. An employee of the auction house carried it on a flight from London to the United States, transferring it to New York. Hobby Lobby consented to the tablet’s forfeiture based on the tablet’s illegal importation into the United States.

The government’s case was handled by Assistant United States Attorney Sylvia Shweder and Senior Trial Attorney Ann Brickley of MLARS.

Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) is a directorate of ICE and the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They are responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move.

HSI’s workforce of over 10,400 employees consists of more than 7,100 special agents assigned to 220 cities throughout the United States, and 80 overseas locations in 53 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.

“Today, Iraq is reclaiming a piece of its cultural history,” stated HSI New York Special Agent in Charge, Peter C. Fitzhugh. “We are honored to have played a role in the repatriation of this rare tablet that was pillaged from Iraq, only to be sold without a valid provenance or any regard for its cultural value.”

Steve K. Francis, Acting Executive Associate Director of the HIS, made these remarks at the repatriation ceremony: “On behalf of Homeland Security Investigations, it gives me great pleasure to be a part of this ceremony, celebrating the return of the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet and the Sumerian Sheep to the Iraqi people.”

Francis went on to say, “This is my first cultural repatriation ceremony, and the safe return of these priceless artifacts is both humbling and important to me personally, as I am a Chaldean American from Iraq whose entire family immigrated to Detroit in the 1970s.”