The item, named “Furniture Fitting with Sphinx Trampling a Youth,” dates back about 2,700 years, according to archaeologists. The ivory figure, which stands only 2 1/4 inches tall and 1 1/2 inches wide.

It was exhibited at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta until special agents in the FBI’s Boston and Atlanta field offices determined the artefact was, in fact, the property of Iraq. The FBI says that it believes that the piece is the first item looted from Baghdad to have been found in an American museum.

Photo credit: FBI.