Literal loot, as in looted from post-invasion Iraq. Thankfully it was spotted and pulled a few minutes before the auction closed.

A German archaeologist had spotted the tablet bearing wedge-shaped cuneiform script on the online auctioneer’s Swiss Web site, www.eBay.ch, a government official said.

The archaeologist alerted German authorities, who passed the tip onto their Swiss counterparts, said Yves Fischer, who directs the Swiss Federal Office of Culture’s department on commerce in cultural objects.

EBay Inc. stopped the auction on Dec. 12 “a few minutes before the end” of its bidding deadline, Fischer said. Zurich police then confiscated the small tablet – about the size of a business card – from a storage facility.

I bet that Swiss storage facility is like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.