Germany returned around 45 relics to Iraq Monday, including a stone from an Assyrian palace and head of a Sumerian battle axe.

The returned items were a few among those stolen from museums and archaeological sites in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was ousted through the help of the U.S. in 2003.

Other items such as clay tablets with cuneiform script, the bronze axe head, gold jar and metal amulet were confiscated from public auctions and turned over to Iraqi authorities.

Such operation was made possible by a German law requiring that any artifacts stolen from Iraq since 1990 must be returned.

The German government obtained rights to confiscate artifacts, said the deputy head of the German diplomatic mission in Iraq, Alexander Schonfelder.

The chaos that broke out after the U.S. invasion in 2003 began with the looting of about 15,000 artifacts from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. Thousands others are taken from archaeological sites. The general director of the museum, Amira Eidan, said the return of some of the items has reduced the missing pieces to 10,000.

Ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, is considered the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of cities and writing.

Iraqi authorities announced last September that more than 500 missing museum pieces, including the headless statue of a Sumerian king, had turned up. Two weeks after, another 600 items were discovered by the National Museum.

The head of Iraq's artifact retrieval department, Abbas al-Quraishi, said they will continue the search in Britain, U.S. and Canada.