Hobby Lobby, the craft store with strong opinions about birth control, is currently being investigated by the feds. Why? Well, it looks like there may have been some questionable decisions made regarding some artifacts from Iraq.
The Daily Beast reports that Hobby Lobby CEO Steve Green attempted to import a shipment of up to 200-300 small clay tablets from Iraq via his massive corporation in 2011. The tablets, which were “inscribed in cuneiform—the script of Ancient Assyria and Babylonia, present day Iraq— and were thousands of years old,” were said to be earmarked for Green’s not yet open Museum of the Bible. (It’ll be ready in late 2017, bible museum fans.)
“Is it possible that we have some illicit [artifacts]? That’s possible,” offered the billionaire for a story set to run in a forthcoming issue of The Atlantic.
Law enforcement officials have been looking at the Greens and their artifact collection for four years now to scrutinize their possible importation of cultural heritage items from Iraq. The Daily Beast spoke with a source that claims the tablets were listed as “hand-crafted clay tiles” on their FedEx label and were given an inaccurate monetary value of $300 that underplays the value of the items and their relationship with Iraqi culture.
We imagine the subject of being investigated for the alleged illegal importation of cultural artifacts will not be included in the Museum of the Bible.
[h/t Jezebel]