Struggling with the Shumen Slab

Police seized a stone tablet in Bulgaria in 2016, suspecting it was smuggled from the Middle East. The case was discussed here:

Sunday, 29 March 2015  Bulgarian Artefact Bust - ShumenSunday, 16 August 2015 Bulgarian Antiquities Bust in news Again - Not ISIL LootMonday, 13 June 2016  What is Wrong with National Geographic's 6th June "Blood antiquities: Report? Monday, 9 January 2017  Bulgarian, Turkish Man Sentenced in Shumen for Trafficking Roman Artifacts from Middle East

There is an interesting series of posts on the 'Sumerian Shakespeare' blog of Jerald Jack Starr Nashville, Tennessee  discussing the problems of identifying the nature of ungrounded (unpapered) artefacts like this on art-historical/typological grounds. After much to-ing and fro-ing, the blog's author decides that it is a fake (as PACHI said three years ago) and its relief was based on scenes copied from the Standard of Ur

June 13, 2018 Copied from the Standard of Ur June 15, 2018 A Stolen Sumerian Artefact June 23 A Copy of the Standard of Ur 

'For two weeks, I looked everywhere for a complete picture of the plaque, without success. I wrote to the New York Times and to the Shumen Museum, but they ignored me. Fortunately, a colleague sent me a copy'. They probably ignored him because he apparently could not be bothered to do his own research, the picture has been online all this time (as the link on my blog proclaims on Archaeology in Bulgaria).  The 'Sumerian Shakespeare' blog  is worth visiting though, there is some interesting stuff there.