Pakistan Seizes Iranian Artefacts Worth $10m

QUETTA, Pakistan Pakistani authorities have seized some $10 million worth of artefacts believed to be from the 12th and 16th centuries, a government official said on Monday.  Mohammad Ashfaq, director of the government's Archaeology Department, told a news conference the artefacts included ancient Iranian ornaments, a 300-year-old dagger, 150-year-old statues from Central Africa, and several other items. He said some of the objects, found in the luggage of a Pakistani man at the Quetta Airport, might be from the Iranian region between the 12th and 16th centuries.

Several Iranian ornaments were also found in unaccompanied baggage on a bus to Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan Province. The seizures come about one month after authorities in Baluchistan found a 2,500-year-old mummy believed to have been a member of ancient Iran's aristocracy.