Hobby Lobby's $1.6M Gilgamesh Tablet Forfeited To US Government

A 3,500-year-old clay tablet bearing a portion of the “Epic of Gilgamesh” that was purchased by the Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. retail chain for $1.6 million has been forfeited to the U.S. government.

Gilgamesh’s Dreams: “Epic of Gilgamesh” is a poem dating back to the 18th century BCE, and it's among the earliest surviving literature. A 12-tablet Babylonian version of the epic, written in Akkadian, was discovered in 1853 in the ruins of the library of the Assyrian King Assur Banipal in Nineveh, located in modern-day northern Iraq.

The forfeited tablet measures approximately 6-inches by 5-inches and is written in the Akkadian language. The tablet includes a portion of the “Epic of Gilgamesh” where the eponymous hero describes his dreams to his mother, who interprets them as a forecast pointing to the arrival Enkidu, an enemy who becomes an ally of Gilgamesh.

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Gilgamesh Goes To America: The tablet was acquired by an unidentified antiquities dealer in 2003 from a source in London, who sold it at auction in 2007 with a fraudulent provenance letter claiming it was acquired as part of a box of bronze fragments in 1981. Hobby Lobby acquired it from Christie’s auction house in London in 2014, which repeated the incorrect ownership history of the item.

Hobby Lobby displayed the tablet at its Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. In September 2019, agents from the Department of Homeland Security took possession of the tablet when its true history came to light. Both the museum and Hobby Lobby cooperated in the investigation of the tablet’s origins and consulted with the Iraqi government on the tablet’s provenance; Hobby Lobby filed a lawsuit against Christie’s for selling a looted item.

U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly entered an order forfeiting the tablet, and the government is planning to return it to Iraq.

“This forfeiture represents an important milestone on the path to returning this rare and ancient masterpiece of world literature to its country of origin,” said Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “This office is committed to combating the black-market sale of cultural property and the smuggling of looted artifacts.”

Photo: Gilgamesh and Enkidu slaying the Bull of Heaven.

Photo: Lucas / Flickr Creative Commons.