Smuggled Iranian carving worth £30m seized at airport by UK border patrol

The ancient treasure has been restored and will go on show at the British Museum before going back home

It was carved almost 2,000 years ago and is such an important sculpture that if it appeared on the art market today it could fetch more than £30m.

But this is a previously unrecorded antiquity that can never be sold. For the large fragment of a Sasanian rock relief – which depicts an imposing male figure carved in the 3rd century AD – has been freshly gouged from a cliff in Iran with an angle grinder.

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