NEW YORK—Iraqi authorities are petitioning to stop the sale of a pair of neo-Assyrian earrings in an ancient art and antiquities auction at Christie's next week, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The 9,000–10,000-year-old earrings are expected to bring in up to $65,000, but Iraqi officials say they may be part of the treasures of Nimrud and thus rightfully the property of Iraq.

The treasures of Nimrud were discovered by Iraqi archaeologist Muzahem Hussein after a 19th-century British excavation of Nimrud, the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire, missed the royal tombs. Eight pairs of seemingly identical gold earrings were unearthed there, along with hundreds of bowls, ceremonial objects, and other gold jewelry. The finds were placed in bank vaults and displayed only once at the Iraq Museum before Saddam Hussein was ousted.

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, U.S. investigators and Iraqi officials tracked down the treasures of Nimrud in a vault within a vault in the basement of Iraq's destroyed central bank.

Christie's listing for the pair of earrings on offer says they were acquired from their previous owner before 1969. The auction house's Web site refers potential buyers to a German archaeological text "for a similar pair from a royal tomb at Nimrud."

"I am 100 percent sure they are from the same tombs from Nimrud," said Donny George, former director of the Iraq Museum. "I witnessed the excavation."