NEW YORK - U.S. craft store Hobby Lobby was ordered this week to forfeit a rare, ancient artifact it purchased from an international auction house for $1.6 million in 2014 after it was discovered that the sale had occurred under "a false provenance," the Department of Justice announced.
The artifact, known as the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, was illegally transported to the U.S. in 2003 and 2014, authorities said.
The tablet originated in the area of modern-day Iraq and is around 3,600 years old. It depicts a portion of the Sumerian poem Gilgamesh, which is considered one of the world’s oldest works of literature.The tablet was sold to Hobby Lobby by the international auction house to be displayed at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.,.