Smithsonian Magazine
Federal agents have returned two stone artifacts to Iraq, reports Matthew Ormseth for the Los Angeles Times. Experts say the items—a fragment of a stone tablet inscribed with cuneiform characters and a prism used to teach children the cuneiform alphabet—are at least 4,000 years old.
Special agents with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presented the objects to Iraqi officials during a January 20 ceremony at the Iraqi consulate in Los Angeles, according to Wallace Ludel of the Art Newspaper.