Under the title "Treasures from the Heart of the Desert of Iraq... for Sale on the Internet!", the Al-Arabiya website reported on the antiquities in Iraq. The article noted the shocking reality that with a handful of dollars, one can easily purchase an ancient artifact from Iraq, which is thousands of years old. This is not a figment of imagination; it is a real situation, as a Sumerian clay tablet dating back to 3000 BC was purchased on the "Live Auctioneers" website for hundreds of dollars, making its way to Britain and arriving at collectors' homes quite easily.
The flourishing trade and smuggling of Iraqi antiquities, exacerbated by insufficient protection for archaeological sites and corruption, has become rampant online. In this context, a director at "Timetable Auctions" confirmed, according to a report by the French News Agency, that the piece was offered at an auction starting from approximately $600 and was described as "the property of a man from West Sussex in the UK." It was stated to be "part of a collection of other cuneiform tablets owned by another gentleman from London prior to 1992." He further added that his institution "recognizes that the issue of smuggled pieces is a reality and thus spends a lot of money and effort to exclude those possibilities." However, this is a difficult task, as countless pieces have been smuggled from thousands of inadequately protected archaeological sites in a country that has suffered for decades from sanctions, wars, and faces challenges from corruption and armed group domination.
There are "no statistics on the number of smuggled antiquities" from Iraq, according to Laith Majid, the director of the Iraqi Antiquities and Heritage Authority. The reason for this is that "smuggling includes not only pieces stolen from museums but also from the random digging of archaeological sites." In this context, a guard at an archaeological site in southern Iraq, where the Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations thrived, who has worked in this profession for twenty years, recounted how he found himself more than once in the crosshairs of smugglers who disregarded his presence.
An Iraqi expert following the issue, who preferred to remain anonymous like most sources contacted by the French News Agency due to the sensitivity of the matter, stated, "They are undoubtedly part of large, organized networks for smuggling antiquities in Iraq." The expert, who has repeatedly inspected archaeological sites to find evidence of recent digging, remarked, "As we speak now, I am sure that smugglers or those working with them are digging in some archaeological mound and stealing its contents." Additionally, a Western security expert closely monitoring the antiquities smuggling issue confirmed that "workers from foreign missions have also encountered countless times" smugglers who came to dig at the sites where they work.
Regarding how smuggling occurs and where it happens, several sources have clarified that digging operations are concentrated in Kut, Samawah, and Nasiriyah in southern Iraq, where numerous sites lack sufficient protection. From there, the pieces are sent to Amarah, westward—"a center for antiquities smuggling," according to the Iraqi expert—or to areas located south of Amarah in the marshlands. Some of these sites lost in the desert are known but neglected, such as the site of Tell al-Obeid in Dhi Qar, which experts say is the site of the first human settlement in southern Iraq, dating back 8,000 years, paving the way for the emergence of the first Sumerian cities, alongside many unexcavated sites that are difficult to count but have been the main source of smuggling for decades, according to the Western expert.
In commenting on this issue, the director of the Nasiriyah Civil Museum in southern Iraq, Sajad Abdul Hassan, stated, "We suffer in Dhi Qar, which contains thousands of unexcavated sites, from a lack of guards... and low wages," creating opportunities for stealing artifacts in a country where security has been a priority for years. Moreover, smuggling in the vast and sprawling borders of Iraq with Iran, Syria, and Turkey feeds organized crime networks, according to a source close to the government who preferred to remain anonymous, in a country troubled by loose weapons and the dominance of armed groups, to the extent that "antiquities theft has become part of the corruption system in the country," according to the Iraqi expert.
The Western expert confirmed that "smuggling antiquities is one of the most profitable ways to finance organized crime." However, Bedouins and local residents in remote areas who know their territories by heart also participate in random digging, as clarified by the two experts.
According to the Iraqi expert, another prominent smuggling route passes through the vast desert to the border with Jordan, in addition to routes with Turkey and Syria, albeit to a lesser degree. "Thus, our artifacts end up on sites like eBay, in web auctions, at museums, with collectors of artifacts, wealthy individuals, or in universities and research institutes."
It is worth noting that remote archaeological sites contain small pieces, but potentially also valuable treasures like the "Dream of Gilgamesh" tablet, which will soon return to Iraq. This "dream" was a victim of random digging in the 1980s, as explained by the director of the Antiquities Authority, but it was "smuggled out of Iraq after 2003," following the American invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. It may have ended up with a herd of camels or drug shipments as "the same gangs that deal in drug and camel smuggling are involved in smuggling antiquities," according to the Iraqi expert. ISIS also destroyed sites of great importance in the northern part of the country, such as the ruins of Nimrud, "but they also organized smuggling to collect resources, although that affected the Syrian side more," according to the Western expert.
The revenues collected by the organization from "antiquities trade or taxing smugglers in areas under its control were estimated at twenty million dollars out of a total estimated revenue of 2.3 to 2.68 billion in 2015," according to a report by the "Global Initiative Against Organized Crime" in 2020. Meanwhile, Iraq is working to recover its artifacts scattered around the world, as in the case of the 17,000 pieces returned from the United States recently; however, that effort is deemed insufficient, as confirmed by the source close to the government.
