Gilgamesh Dream Tablet: Iraq puts looted artefact on display

The 3,500-year-old Gilgamesh Dream Tablet has gone on display in Iraq for the first time in three decades.

The clay artefact bears part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world's oldest surviving works of literature.

It was looted from an Iraqi museum during the 1991 Gulf War and smuggled through many countries before ending up at Washington DC's Museum of the Bible.

US authorities seized the tablet in 2019 and handed it over to the Iraqi embassy in September.

It is one of 17,926 artefacts recovered by Iraq from the US, UK, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands over the past year, according to Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.

"This day represent a victory in the face of the desperate attempts of those why try to steal our great history and our ancient civilisation," Mr Hussein said at a ceremony in Baghdad.