Police in Germany said on Wednesday they were investigating a man in possession of Middle Eastern artifacts, including an ancient cuneiform tablet that may have been stolen from a Syrian museum.
Investigators became interested in the case when they learned the man held a tablet from the ancient city of Ebla.
“Investigations revealed that the artifact had in fact probably been illegally imported into Germany… after it had been stolen from the museum in Idlib in Syria in 2015,” said LKA, the criminal investigation service in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
The man said he came into possession of the tablet from a Bavarian collection, but LKA said this proved to be false.
Police have confiscated the artifact, and an investigation continues.
Investigators also uncovered another tablet and a collection of ancient Egyptian ushabti figurines.
Artifacts from Ebla are especially popular among antiquities collectors.
Syria’s civil war has made the country’s archaeological heritage especially vulnerable, and the Islamic State group, while destroying a large number of artifacts, is believed to have also profited from trafficking in antiquities.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees arrived in Germany in 2015-16.
