Iraq 's second largest museum in Sulaimaniya is recovering stolen artifacts by paying smugglers to return the treasures . Located in the semi-autonomous northern region of Kurdistan , the Slemani Museum has taken drastic measures to refill display cabinets following looting . `` The position of not just UNESCO but the international museum community is that we do n't buy back looted objects because it encourages looting . Simple . Full stop , '' says Stuart Gibson , director of the UNESCO Sulaimaniya Museum Project . `` The Kurdish authorities took a very difficult and I must admit a very courageous position and they said we are going to buy these objects , '' he added . Iraq has struggled with looters , most notably in 2003 when thieves sacked the National Museum in Baghdad stealing treasures dating thousands of years to the beginnings of civilization in Mesopotamia . Original estimates said 170,000 pieces had been looted from the museum . However , authorities say it was closer to around 15,000 artifacts , of which 6,000 had been recovered by the time the museum reopened in 2009 . While paying smugglers for the return of lost treasures is a controversial move on the part of the museum , it seems to have worked in this instance . One of the recently-recovered artifacts is an ancient democratic text that smugglers asked just $ 600 for . `` It 's a full Sumerian text written during the old Babylonian period , around 1,800-900 B.C. , '' says Dr. Farouk Al-Rawi , a professor in the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London . `` It is the first document to tell us about democracy . It concerns the establishment of two assemblies , '' he added . The return of this tablet to the museum is ironic considering that thousands of years later , Iraq is still trying to establish a semblance of a democracy . Despite the Slemani Museum 's unorthodox move , smuggling has decreased in the region in part due to the growing awareness of the problem and a joint effort by authorities . But organizations say more help is needed to stop thieves . The museum 's director Hashim Abdulla says that in the region of Kurdistan there are still thousands of undiscovered sites yet to be excavated . He points out a recent site in a small village 20 minutes outside of Sulaimaniya . Artifacts at this location have dated back to the Assyrian period , almost 3,000 years ago . Under Kurdistan regional governmental laws the site should become a protected area but in reality in many cases those laws are too difficult to implement .
Selmani Museum in Kurdistan is charging smugglers to return looted artifacts . Controversial move as international museum collections do n't usually buy back artifacts . UNESCO says paying for stolen objects can allow looting to continue .