A 2,800-year-old stone tablet is now on display in Iraq after being returned by Italy following nearly four decades.
It was thought the artefact inscribed with complete cuneiform text, a system of writing on clay in an ancient Babylonian alphabet, could have been found during archaeological excavations of the Mosul dam four decades ago.
The tablet bears the insignia of Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian king who ruled the region of Nimrod, in present-day northern Iraq, from 858 to 823 BC.
Italian authorities handed it over to Iraq's President Abdul Latif Rashid in the city of Bologna last week.
It is not clear how the tablet was found, or how it made its way to Italy where it was seized by police in the 1980s.
Iraqi Culture Minister Ahmed Badrani said that it might have been found during archaeological excavations of the Mosul Dam, which was built around that time.'
Read this story by the BBC and the Evening Standard.
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