The US Department of Justice announced Tuesday that the United States will return to Iraq a 3,500-year-old cuneiform tablet after it was found that it was "stolen cultural property" that was fraudulently introduced to the US art market.

The archaeological tablet made of clay and inscribed with cuneiform is part of the "Epic of Gilgamesh," which is considered one of the oldest literary works of mankind and narrates the adventures of a powerful Mesopotamian king in his quest for immortality.

An American art dealer bought this artifact in 2003 from a Jordanian family residing in London and shipped it to the United States without telling the US customs about the nature of this shipment. After the tablet arrived in the United States, the dealer sold it in 2007 to other dealers for $50,000, with a forged certificate of origin.

In 2014, the painting was bought at a price of $ 1.67 million by the Green family, which owns the Hobby Lobby chain of stores, known for its Christian activism, with the intention of displaying it at the Museum of the Bible in Washington.

But in 2017, a museum curator expressed concern about the tablet's provenance after finding that the documents presented during its purchase were incomplete.

In September 2019, police confiscated the artifact and on Monday, a federal judge confirmed its confiscation.

A Justice Department statement quoted Attorney General Jacqueline Casoulis, who is in charge of this case, as saying that Monday's decision "represents an important step towards the return of this world's literary masterpiece to its original homeland."

In July 2017, the American judiciary ordered Hobby Lobby to return to Iraq thousands of artifacts dating back to the Mesopotamian era that had been illegally exported to the United States, in archaeological treasures, including other cuneiform tablets and ancient seals.