Middle East News
Setback for Iraq as ancient gold vial seized in Germany
Jul 21, 2009, 10:32 GMT
Berlin - In a setback for Iraqi efforts to claim a tiny ancient gold vial, the item has been sent to a valuer in line with a German court order, a lawyer said Tuesday.
Both a Munich auctioneer and the Iraqi government claim the dented little container. A German archaeology museum, which has taken Iraq's side, believes the item is 4,500 years old and comes from ancient Mesopotamia.
The attorney representing Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger, the Munich auction company, said the museum had surrendered the item after a stalemate of many weeks.
The auctioneer hopes that a Berlin valuer will decide the mystery item is not Mesopotamian, but Roman, allowing it to go back on sale. It was seized in 2005, halting an earlier auction.
Customs agents appointed by a tax court in Munich picked up the plain vial, which is 35 millimetres high, on Monday from the Roman and Germanic Museum in Mainz.
Iraq's ambassador to Berlin had hoped the museum would safeguard the vial until its provenance and value are clear.
But the museum director decided to surrender the item, 3sat television reported. Archaeologist Michael Mueller-Karpe of the Mainz museum believes the object was looted from a royal grave in Iraq.
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