Several hundred dollars are enough to purchase a clay tablet from 3,000 BCE via Timetable Auctions, an online auction store that sells antiques.

One such tablet from Iraq has recently found its way to Britain for just $600, as the smuggling business of Iraqi antiquities is flourishing due to a lack of protection to archaeological sites and institutional corruption.

There is currently an immeasurable number of artifacts smuggled from thousands of archaeological sites spread across the war-torn country, dealing with corruption and armed militias.

While there are no statistical data of the number of artifacts smuggled from Iraq, it includes random digging in archaeological sites, the Director of the Iraqi Antiquities and Heritage Authority said.

One man who has worked as a guard of an archaeological site in southern Iraq for 20 years, found himself in a crossfire of smugglers “who didn’t care about his presence at the place,” an Iraqi expert on the subject told anonymously to news agency AFP.

Photo: Reuters