Cultural Restitution
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Updated January 2025
Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made by the United States of America, together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly.
January 2025
Two black-figure Greek vases, illegally removed from Italy and sold to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts by Robert Hecht, will return to Italy under a long-term loan agreement
December 2024
Jimmy Carter, President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, is remembered for returning the 11th century crown of St Stephen to Hungary - an early example of US restitution of cultural property
November 2024
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has returned 1,440 antiquities, including some items sold by art traffickers Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Weiner, to Indian authorities
October 2024
US Supreme Court decides not to hear a petition from the Restitution Study Group which is lobbying for Benin Bronzes in the Smithsonian collection to remain in the USA
September 2024
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has agreed to return a gold and carnelian necklace likely looted in 1976 from a tomb in the Bintepeler region in Turkey
August 2024
Following an 8-year investigation, the FBI has returned sacred human relics to the national museum of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu
August 2024
Two Benin artefacts have been returned to the Oba of Benin by the Stanley Museum of the University of Iowa, with an apology for using the artefacts as teaching materials
July 2024
The Fowler Museum at the University of California has repatriated 20 secular and sacred objects to the Warumungu community of Australia's Northern Territory
July 2024
Nashville's Parthenon Museum is returning 248 Pre-Columbian artefacts to Mexico City's National Institute of Anthropology and History
July 2024
Progress by the American Museum of Natural History on returning the human remains of nearly 2,200 Native Americans includes the successful repatriation of 124 individuals and 90 tribal funerary objects
July 2024
The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art has returned two Benin Bronzes to the Oba of Benin at a ceremony at the Benin Palace in Nigeria
July 2024
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is arranging the return of 14 sculptures deaccessioned in December 2023 to Cambodia as part of the Met's Cultural Property Initiative
June 2024
The Art Institute of Chicago will return a 12th cent door-frame column fragment from the Phanom Rung temple to the Kingdom of Thailand
May 2024
The Cleveland Museum of Art will return to the State of Libya an Egyptian black basalt statue from the Ptolemaic period donated to the CMA in 1991
May 2024
More than 600 stolen antiquities, recovered from US auction houses, art galleries and private collectors and worth an estimated €60m, have been returned to Italian officials
May 2024
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office and Homeland Security Investigations have returned antiquities worth $14m to Pakistan, including those from antiquity smugglers Subhash Kapoor and Richard Beale
May 2024
Manhattan District Attorney returns ten antiquities to Egyptian officials as part of an investigation into the Dib-Simonian trafficking network
May 2024
The European Court of Human Rights upholds Italy's right to seize the Greek bronze statue known as 'Victorious Youth' in the Getty Museum
April 2024
Director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art signs a cultural property 'memorandum of understanding' with the government of Thailand and returns two 11th cent metal sculptures
April 2024
An Egyptian clay coffin missing from the Gustavianum, Uppsala University Museum has been returned to Sweden by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
April 2024
Thirty-eight Chinese artefacts recovered by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office were returned to Chinese authorities at a ceremony at China's consulate in New York
April 2024
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has returned a Sumerian sculpture dating from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the Republic of Iraq following provenance research
March 2024
A Colorado auction house is selling antiquities that Mexico's leaders say were illegally removed
March 2024
A new agreement, signed by a small group of nations led by the USA, seeks to clarify ambiguities in the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art
March 2024
The San Antonio Museum of Art must reflect on whether a gift of 300+ pre-Columbian artefacts from two local families is a boon or a headache waiting to happen
February 2024
Thirty archaeological artefacts were returned to Mexican authorities at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles at a ceremony this month
February 2024
The UCLA Fowler Museum in Los Angeles has returned seven looted Asante items that have been in its collection since 1965
February 2024
Seven Asante objects looted during the third Anglo-Asante War of 1874 have arrived back in Ghana following repatriation by the Fowler Museum at the University of California
January 2024
At least eight 'ancient' mosaics returned by New York District Attorney's Antiquities Trafficking Unit to Lebanon are found to be modern copies of well-known, authentic mosaics
December 2023
New federal rules governing Native objects and ancestral remains expected in 2024 will set a specific deadline for the repatrriation process
December 2023
41 looted antiquities formerly in major US collections were returned to Turkey at a ceremony on 5 December - but not the contested Roman statue in the Cleveland Museum of Art
December 2023
A 16th cent mask of the deity Bhairava from the Rubin Museum of Art together with three other objects from other collections have been returned to the Government of Nepal
December 2023
Manhattan District Attorney's Office held a repatriation ceremony for 30 ancient Greek works of art seized from convicted antiquities dealers Michael Ward and Robin Symes
December 2023
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art responds to pressure from the Cambodian government by returning 16 major Khmer antiquities, trafficked by Douglas Latchford, to Cambodia and Thailand
December 2023
Washington DC's Smithsonian Museum has returned the human remains of a Yawuru man from Roebuck Bay in Western Australia, held in the USA since 1897
December 2023
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has returned 44 ancient works of art to Italy, Egypt and Turkey following an investigation by Matthew Bogdanos of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office
December 2023
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has returned four antiquities to Nepal, including three items connected to Nepalese trafficking networks
November 2023
The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Atlanta, is returning five looted antiquities to Italy, three of which will remain at the Museum on a loan arrangement
October 2023
The Cleveland Museum of Art has filed a court challenge to block the return of a headless Roman statue that investigators claim was looted from Turkey in the 1960s
October 2023
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art agrees the return of an 11th cent stone Vishnu sculpture and a 13th cent carved wooden temple strut to Nepalese authorities
September 2023
At a ceremony held at the San Bernardino County Museum, California, Mexican authorities recovered 1,294 pre-Colombian ritual and everyday artefacts
Se ptember 2023
Family of Florida billionaire George Lindemann agrees to return to the Cambodian government 33 ancient statues, purchased from dealers including Douglas Latchford
September 2023
New York and federal authorities have returned 12 looted antiquities to Lebanon, including three objects removed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
ArtDaily
September 2023
A Roman bronze Portrait of a Lady has been transferred by the Worcester Art Museum to New York's District Attorney's Office, prior to repatriation possibly to Turkey
August 2023
A life-sized headless bronze sculpture of a male figure, once described as the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and seized from the Cleveland Museum of Art, may have been looted from Bubon in southwest Turkey
August 2023
Nearly 100 more pre-Columbian artefacts, stolen in 2008 from a museum and private collection in Mexico, have been returned following an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
August 2023
A US district court judge has dismissed an attempt by the Restitution Study Group to challenge the repatriation of 29 Benin artefacts from the Smithsonian Institution
July 2023
Manhattan District Attorney has recovered 71 looted antiquities over the last two years from the New York home of Met trustee Shelby White
July 2023
Chrysler Museum of Art repatriates a Bakor monolith sculpture that was made c.1600 and gifted to the Museum in 2012 at a ceremony held at the Nigerian embassy in Washington D.C.
June 2023
A state audit in California has found that 12 of the 21 campuses in the California State University system are not complying with federal Native American restitution regulations and have not fully reviewed their collections
June 2023
Daughter of antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford has agreed to hand over a 7th century Vietnamese statue and $12m of her father's money in a settlement with the US Attorney's Office in New York
June 2023
The remains of two ancestral Indigenous Peruvians, excavated in 1877 and held in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History since 1925, are returned to the Peruvian Government
May 2023
Manhattan's District Attorney returns two ancient stone figures to Iraq, looted from the ancient city of Uruk during the Gulf War and smuggled to New York in the 1990s
May 2023
The Denver Museum of Science & Nature is to close its 'North American Indian Cultures' exhibition on grounds the display contains harmful stereotypes and includes objects taken without consent
May 2023
Two San Diego-based collectors voluntarily returned 65 archaeological items to the Mexican government as part of Mexico's long-term effort to recover its cultural heritage
May 2023
New York's Metropolitan Museum will appoint a provenance research manager to 'engage more intensively and proactively' examining certain areas of its collection
April 2023
A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. senators is asking universities and museums with large collections of Native American remains why they are delaying repatriating them to tribes
April 2023
Report finds incomplete provenance information in major collection of Native North American objects gifted to New York's Metropolitan Museum by Charles and Valerie Dicker
April 2023
Following compilation of an inventory of North American remains that began in 2009, the Tennessee Valley Authority is now expected to return the remains of nearly 5,000 Native Americans to their tribes
April 2023
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will repatriate 15 antiquities to India, all sold at one stage by disgraced dealer Subhash Kapoor
March 2023
Further seizures from US museums include a headless bronze statue of Septimius Severus and a bronze head of Caracalla, both from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and both heading back to Turkey
March 2023
What happens when artefacts from the Wounded Knee Massacre return home? Questions are raised about the future of 150 objects returned by the Founders Museums
March 2023
Twelve looted antiquities, including three looted from archaeological sites in Perge and Bubon, have been returned by the Manhattan District Attorney's office to Turkey
March 2023
A report published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reveals New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art holds over 1,000 objects once owned by art traffickers
March 2023
After a years-long attempt to repatriate a 6,000-year-old marble idol known as 'the Stargazer', presently in the collection of billionaire Michael Steinhardt, a New York court has denied Turkey's attempt to recover ownership
March 2023
The skeleton remains of more than 313 Native American individuals await repatriation from museums throughout Massachusetts
February 2023
The Smithsonian Institute has agreed a shared stewardship arrangement to display 77 looted artefacts, seized from a New York dealer, before returning them to the Republic of Yemen when conditions permit
February 2023
Cambodia celebrated the return of a hoard of 77 gold relics from the collection of art trafficker Douglas Latchford at a ceremony in Phnom Penh this month
February 2023
The lid of an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus known as the "green sarcophagus", looted from the Abusir necropolis in 2008 and trafficked illegally into the US, has been repatriated to Egypt
February 2023
Almost 50 years after the remains of Native Americans were removed from land where the Pawnee Nation lived, the ancestral remains are returning to Oklahoma
February 2023
Manhattan District Attorney's office has returned 14 looted antiquities to Italy following multiple criminal investigations
January 2023
A Guatemalan heritage group is demanding the return of an ancient Maya throne, on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of a collaboration with the Guatemalan government
January 2023
Acting on evidence the artefacts were looted, sixty antiquities recovered by US officials over the past 14 months were returned to Italy at a ceremony in Rome
January 2023
The Repatriation Project, a new database by ProPublica, has identified US institutions that have failed to repatriate the remains of more than 110,000 Native Americans
January 2023
Concerns are expressed about changes to the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which abandon precedent and encourage ad hoc decisions without public accountability
January 2023
The role of Emma Bunker in the smuggling of Cambodian artefacts has been exposed, including her manipulation of records and creation of false provenances
January 2023
United States officials return a 2,700 year-old "cosmetic spoon" to representatives of the Palestinian Authority, understood to be the first repatriation made by the US to a Palestinian government
December 2022
The bipartisan legislation, Safeguard Tribal Objects of Patrimony (STOP) Act, has been passed into US law after a unanimous vote in the Senate on 29 November 2022
December 2022
The US campaign group, Restitution Study Group, is suing the Smithsonian Institution in Washington over its decision to return 29 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
November 2022
Harvard University admits to owning 700 hair samples of Native American students and has initiated the process of returning them to families and tribes
November 2022
A cache of 150 native American objects, some connected to the Wounded Knee Massacre, has been returned by the Founders Museum, Massachusetts to the Lakota and Sioux tribes
November 2022
A group of African Americans has filed a lawsuit to stop the return of a number of Benin Bronzes from the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC to Nigeria
November 2022
A standing statue of Vishnu, stolen nearly thirty years ago from a 7th century temple and smuggled into the USA by antiquities trafficker Doris Wiener, has been returned to Cambodia
October 2022
The Nigerian government reclaimed 31 looted Benin Bronzes from three US collections: the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum
October 2022
The University of Kansas will restart repatriation efforts after Native American ancestors were found in its museum collections
September 2022
Dutch Restitutions Committee reverses decision and agrees to return a Kandinsky painting to the heirs of a Jewish collector who owned it before WWII
September 2022
The FBI have announced the return to Italy of a Roman mosaic of Medusa, kept in a Los Angeles storage facility since the 1980s and which came to their attention in late 2020
September 2022
Manhattan District Attorney's Art Trafficking Unit has seized a total of 27 objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including Greek, Roman and Hindu material
September 2022
An agreement has been reached to return a collection of 161 Greek antiquities, reportedly belonging to billionaire Leonard N. Stern, to Greece
September 2022
A US federal court has ruled against the heirs of Jewish art dealers seeking to sue Germany in the US in bid to recover the Guelph Treasure
August 2022
Plans by the Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to re-bury the skulls of 13 Black Philadelphians is being challenged with the probate court
August 2022
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has returned two sculptures to Nepal after identification by activist members of Lost Arts of Nepal and internal investigations
August 2022
US Attorney's Office in New York announced the imminent repatriation of dozens of looted artefacts to Cambodia, many of which had passed through the hands of disgraced dealer Douglas Latchford
August 2022
Cambodian government alleges that ancient Khmer sculptures airbrushed out of photos of San Francisco home of Sloan Lindemann Barnett were looted
August 2022
The US National Park Service has awarded 20 American museums $2m in grants to further their repatriation efforts and increase enforcement of NAGPRA
August 2022
Getty Museum agrees the return of an illegally excavated sculptural group of a Seated Poet and two Sirens, together with other trafficked Roman items.
August 2022
US investigators are pursuing Georges Lotfi, formerly an adviser to US enforcement agencies, on charges of trafficking and criminal possession of looted antiquities
July 2022
At a ceremony in New York, Manhattan investigators return 142 stolen Italian antiquities to the new Museum of Rescued Art in Rome
June 2022
Seven sacred Warlpiri objects arrive in central Australia from the USA for the last stage of their journey home
June 2022
The Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents has voted to deaccession 29 Benin Bronzes under the Institution's newly adopted restitutions policy
June 2022
Harvard University holds the human remains of at least 19 likely enslaved individuals and almost 7,000 Native Americans according to a leaked draft report
June 2022
NY District Attorney's Office seizes five Egyptian antiquities from the Metropolitan Museum of Art allegedly looted
May 2022
Survey of the 56 US museums holding Benin artefacts suggests 16 are engaged in the repatriation process and a further 5 are willing if requested
May 2022
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History has returned thousands of items, including human remains and funerary objects, to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians
May 2022
Josef and Anni Albers Foundation to exhibit repatriated African objects in proposed new museum in the Senegambia region of Senegal
May 2022
A 3rd/4th century marble head that may represent the emperor Maximianus Herculius, looted during WWII, is being repatriated by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to Italy
May 2022
First century Roman marble statue head looted during WWII is to be repatriated to Bavaria
April 2022
Yale University Art Gallery will repatriate 13 artefacts looted from India and Burma after a warrant was served from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office
April 2022
For decades, the Barre Museum in Barre Massachusetts has been accused of hoarding objects stripped from Lakota people killed in the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre
March 2022
Italian court rules that the Minneapolis Museum of Art must return an ancient marble statue of The Doryphoros excavated illegally in the 1970s
March 2022
Antiquities researcher Dr Christos Tsirogiannis has called on the J. Paul Getty Museum to return a fresco fragment linked to US antiquities dealer Robert E. Hecht Jr.
February 2022
Two ancient terracotta figures stolen in the 1980s are being returned by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to Mali
January 2022
A final decision on the implementation of an historic restitution policy submitted by museum employees at the Smithsonian will be announced in March
January 2022
University of California, Berkeley will repatriate human remains recovered from the Indian Island Massacre of 1860 to the Wiyot tribe, following six years of legal proceedings
January 2022
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York will return two looted ancient wood carvings from Nepal following a call for action from the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign
January 2022
A cuneiform prism and a cuneiform stone tablet have been repatriated to Iraq by the US Department of Homeland Security
December 2021
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts faces dilemma whether and how to return 32 Benin Bronzes as the museum owns only five of them outright
December 2021
Described as a "watershed" repatriation, the US has returned 200 Greek, Etruscan and Roman looted artefacts to Italy
December 2021
Twenty-five years after fundraising to buy back their own artefacts, the Nez Perce Tribe have been reimbursed with $608,000 by the Ohio History Connection
December 2021
Billionaire US antiquities collector forced to surrender 180 looted antiquities valued at about $70m and receives first-ever lifetime ban on collecting
December 2021
A Benin Bronze cockerel is to be returned to Nigeria from the collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
November 2021
Denver Art Museum considers the future of eleven Benin Bronzes in the Museum's collection that are no longer on display
November 2021
A total of 921 stolen ancient artefacts, first identified when they arrived in the Port of Houston in 2009, have been returned to the Republic of Mali by US Customs officials
November 2021
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art returns two 16th cent Benin Bronze plaques and one 14th cent Ife Head to Nigeria
November 2021
The Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African Art has begun a process likely to lead to returning its Benin Bronzes by removing them from display
October 2021
Manhattan's district attorney's office returns 248 antiquities to India, recovered from the "prolific art smuggler" Subhash Kapoor
October 2021
Following disclosures in the 'Pandora papers' regarding illicit trafficking by Douglas Latchford, Denver Art Museum is preparing to return four artefacts to Cambodia
October 2021
New York federal judge rules the Guennol Stargazer, an Anatolian marble statuette, will not be repatriated to Turkey
October 2021
A 10th century sculpture depicting the Hindu deity Lord Shiva, likely stolen from a temple shrine in the Kathmandu valley, will be returned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Nepal
September 2021
Two Nepalese architectural carvings in the collection of New York's Rubin Museum of Art have been identified as stolen by groups dedicated to tracing looted Nepalese culture
August 2021
Ownership of Greek bust of Alexander the Great remains unresolved after New York dealer Safani Gallery loses lawsuit to have returned bust seized by New York police in 2018
July 2021
'Gilgamesh Dream Tablet' is one of 17,000 stolen artefacts due to be returned to Iraq
July 2021
Verification that the seizure by US authorities in 2019 of the 'Gilgamesh Dream Tablet' from Washington's Museum of the Bible means the way is clear to return the tablet to Iraq
July 2021
A 10th cent statue of the Hindu war deity 'Skanda on a Peacock', looted from the Prasat Krachap temple c.1997 and trafficked through the British-Thai antiquities dealer, Douglas Latchford, is returning to Cambodia
July 2021
The Brooklyn Museum has repatriated 1,300 Pre-Columbian artefacts from the collection of Minor Keith to Costa Rica after initiating conversations with the National Museum of Costa Rica
June 2021
The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and the Peruvian government have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to return a pre-Inca gold ornament known as the 'Echenique Disc' to Peru
June 2021
New York and US federal authorities have returned 27 stolen relics to Cambodia, seized following an investigation of Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Wiener, two New York antiquity dealers
June 2021
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is to return two 16th cent Benin Bronzes, acquired in 1991, and a 14th cent Ife Head recently offered to the Museum for purchase, to Nigeria
May 2021
Ancient lintels, understood to have been looted from a temple in Thailand during the Vietnam War, are returned by the San Francisco Asian Art Museum to Bangkok
May 2021
Native American lawyer demands the return of Ponca Chief Standing Bear's single-handed tomahawk from Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
April 2021
New York authorities return 33 antiquities to the Afghan ambassador, part of a larger hoard of 2,500 objects seized from disgraced Manhattan art dealer, Subhash Kapoor
April 2021
A report to the University of Pennsylvania Museum recommends the repatriation and reburial of human remains collected from around the world
April 2021
The University of California's Fowler Museum is planning to hold talks with Nigeria's Legacy
Restoration Trust about the future of 18 items in its collection, looted from Benin City
April 2021
Mississippi Department of Archives and History has finalised the repatriation of 403 sets of human remains and 83 lots of funerary items to the Chickasaw Nation, dating from 750 to 1,800 years old
March 2021
U.S. Homeland Security returns 277 smuggled pre-Columbian artefacts to Mexico, where they will be displayed at the National Institute of Anthropology and History
March 2021
A 10th/11th cent sacred stele of Lakshmi-Narayana, stolen from a temple in the Nepalese city of Patan in 1984 and loaned by a collector to the Dallas Museum of Art, is returned to Nepal
January 2021
Washington DC's Museum of the Bible returns to the Coptic Museum in Cairo over 5,000 items believed to have been illegally excavated and smuggled out of Egypt
November 2020
Washington DC's Museum of the Bible is returning a hand-lettered gospel, dated to the end of the 10th/beginning of 11th century, to the monastery where it was stolen from in northeastern Greece
November 2020
US authorities have returned to Egypt an Egyptian Late Period stele seized at JFK airport last year while on its way to the TEFAF fair in New York. The stele originally came from Simon Simonian, the former art dealer in Cairo who claimed the work had been exported legally in the 1970s
November 2020
Graduate students at the University of Minnesota demand the return of ancient funerary objects from the Mimbres region in the American Southwest, excavated between 1928 and 1931 and transferred to the Wiseman Art Museum in Minneapolis in 1992
September 2020
Cincinnati-based auction house Cowan's, in collaboration with the Authentic Tribal Art Dealer Association, returns a hand-carved wooden statue of the Zuni war god Ahayu:da, removed from a holy shrine, to the Zuni Pueblo of New Mexico
September 2020
Two New York-based dealers in antiquities arrested for swindling buyers using fake provenance records
August 2020
US Department of Homeland Security returns ten looted antiquities to India, all recovered from dealers and auction houses in March 2016 during New York's Asia Week
July 2020
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will return four Buddhist paintings, looted by Americans during the Korean War in the early 1950s, to South Korea
July 2020
A California man is charged for illegally importing a 3rd/4th cent mosaic depicting the Roman god Hercules, seized from a home in north California 2016 but said to have been looted from war-torn Syria
July 2020
The Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania is removing a cranial collection from display, including many skulls of enslaved Black people
July 2020
Agreement has been reached to transfer Yale Union, a non-profit contemporary arts centre in Portland, Oregon, to the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in an historic act of repatriation
June 2020
US Court of Appeal overturns attempt by Sotheby's to sue the Greek government over halted sale in May 2018 of an 8th cent BC Geometric Period bronze horse, purchased by current owners from disgraced dealer Robin Symes
May 2020
United States Attorney files civil action for the forfeiture of a rare cuneiform tablet, alleging serious fraud and wrongdoing by the Museum of the Bible, dealers experts and prominent auctioneers
March 2020
Experts from Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts are working with US authorities to return artefacts lost at Koh Keh, Angkor Wat and other ancient temples
February 2020
The return of 479 stolen cultural and historical artefacts recovered by the FBI marks the first repatriation of cultural property by the United States to Haiti
February 2020
US authorities recently returned a 'priceless' collection of ancient Cypriot coins dating from the Roman Empire, discovered in 2009 in an air cargo shipment by Baltimore Customs and Border Protection Officers
February 2020
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York State Department of Financial Services return a 16th century Silver Stem Cup made in Munich to the heirs of the Eugen Gutmann Estate
February 2020
Eleven bangles and bracelets from Djenne, dated to between 200-1000 AD, are returned by the Brooklyn Museum to the Musee National du Mali in Bamako
January 2020
A 12th cent Laxmi-Narayan statue, stolen from a temple in Kathmandu in 1984, has resurfaced in the Dallas Museum of Art
January 2020
Antiquities dealer faces federal charges over decades-long scheme involving the smuggling and illicit sale of looted artefacts out of Cambodia, leading to deeper scrutiny of Cambodian art in the US
December 2019
Leading expert on Khmer antiquities charged as a major player in the smuggling and trafficking over decades of looted Cambodian artefacts
October 2019
Fourth tranche of cuneiform tablets held by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago returned to the National Museum of Iran following ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court
September 2019
Ancient Egyptian gilded coffin, purchased for almost $4million by Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017, returned to Egypt
August 2019
Jailed art dealer Subhash Kapoor charged in US with 86 counts of possessing stolen artefacts worth millions of dollars
June 2019
Scientists at Mercer University, Georgia authenticate a ceremonial tsantsa (shrunken head) from Equador, collected during WW2 and return to Ecuadorian authorities
March 2019
FBI is attempting to return thousands of works of art and Native American human remains, seized in 2014 from the ethnography collection of Don Miller in Waldron, Indiana
February 2019
A small piece of the meteorite Tomanowos, also known as the Willamette Meteorite, sacred to the Clackamas people of the Willamette Valley, Oregon, is returned to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde
October 2018
United States returns 38 pre-Colombian artefacts, originally from the Colombian Caribbean and the Nariñense highlands, recovered by the FBI from the private collection of Donald Miller in Indiana
July 2018
U.S. government official returns a collection of pottery artefacts, originating from the ancient city of Germa and collected in the 1960s, to Libya
March 2018
Two valuable 11th/12th cent idols, stolen from Nepal more than 30 years ago and donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, returned to Kathmandu
December 2017
Three marble statues, originally excavated from the Temple of Eshmun in Lebanon, are recovered in New York and repatriated to their home country
October 2017
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., announced return of a collection of ancient artefacts, including a section of mosaic flooring excavated from the Ships of Nemi, to the Italian Republic
October 2017
Ancient Achaemenid Persian bas-relief, stolen from Persepolis prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, seized by Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from a dealer’s booth at TEFAF New York
September 2017
Journey and recent ownership history of a stolen ancient Lebanese sculpture of a bull's head (The Sidon Bull's Head), which disappeared into the black market in 1981, recorded in U.S. court documents
July 2017
A 2,300-year-old marble bull’s head, on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Steinhardt collection and believed stolen from Lebanon during the 1980s civil war, is seized by Manhattan District Attorney for investigation
July 2017
The Metropolitan Museum of Art surrenders an ancient Greek Bell Krater vase, believed looted from Italy in the 1970s, to Manhattan District Attorney for investigation
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ny-da-ancient-met-vase-italy-1038542
July 2017
U.S. District Attorney seizes approximately 3,450 ancient artefacts intended for the Museum of the Bible, alleged to have been exported from Iraq illegally
June 2017
J Paul Getty Museum agrees to return a 1st cent B.C. marble statuette of ‘Zeus Enthroned’, purchased by the Museum in 1992 but exported illegally from Italy
April 2017
The Cleveland Museum of Art agrees to return to Italy a portrait head of Drusus Minor they acquired in 2012, after learning it had been stolen in the 1940s from a provincial museum near Naples
March 2017
Stolen ‘Attic Red Figure Nolan Amphora’ dating to 470 B.C., identified for sale at a Midtown Manhattan gallery, to be returned to Italy
March 2016
Japanese art dealer convicted by New York prosecutor for possession of stolen 2nd cent 'Buddhapada' stone sculpture which will be returned to Pakistan
January 2016
J. Paul Getty Museum set to return to Sicily a terracotta head depicting the Greek God Hades, illegally excavated in 1978 from the Morgantina sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone
May 2015
A Peucetian stamnos of South Italian origin, offered for sale at Christie’s New York in December 2011, once in collection of convicted illicit antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina, is returned to Italy
June 2014
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston agrees to return eight Nigerian antiquities to Nigeria, part of the William E. Teel bequest and believed to have been illicitly trafficked
December 2013
A silver drinking cup in the form of a griffin, returned to Iran by the US in 2003, is branded a fake by former British Museum expert
June 2013
Two 10th century statues from the Koh Ker temple complex northeast of Angkor are returned to the Kingdom of Cambodia by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
January 2013
The Toledo Museum of Art willingly turns over an Etruscan black-figure Kalpis to Italy, after evidence it had been illegally excavated prior to 1981 and sold to the Museum with falsified documentation
December 2012
Announcing the return of a 2nd cent AD mosaic, Orpheus Taming Wild Animals, looted from a Roman building near Edessa in south-eastern Turkey, the Dallas Museum of Art also announced the establishment of a new collaboration with Turkey
September 2012
Two Canosan Volute Kraters, sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1986 and identified as looted when reappeared at Christie’s New York in 2012, are returned to Italy
September 2012
Penn Museum announces a landmark agreement with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism for an indefinite loan to the Republic of Turkey of the 'Troy Gold' - a collection of 24 gold jewellery pieces found at or near ancient Troy
December 2011
Following a long-running international custody battle, Yale University is returning to Peru thousands of ceramics, jewellery and human bones, excavated from the Inca site of Machu Picchu by Yale explorer Hiram Bingham
July 2011
Following a series of negotiations, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has agreed to return 19 ancient artefacts to Egypt
April 2011
U.S. Immigration and Customs authorities repatriate 99 pre-Columbian artefacts stolen and trafficked from Panama
November 2010
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Egyptian Government announce initiative to recognise Egypt’s title to 19 small-scale objects originally from Tutankhamun’s tomb
October 2009
A granite relief inscribed fragment, the corner of a naos shrine in Luxor, originally on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is returned to Egypt
April 2009
J. Paul Getty Museum to return to Italy a fragment of a 1st cent B.C. Roman fresco, acquired in 1996, from the same landscape scene as another fragment already returned by a private collector
November 2008
The Cleveland Museum of Art agrees to return to Italy fourteen antiquities believed looted and, in return, receives a loan of a similar number of items of equivalent quality
July 2008
Repatriation to Columbia of more than 60 pre-Colombian artefacts and grave goods recovered from Italian smuggler caught in South Florida
January 2008
After 30 years of wrangling, the Metropolitan Museum finally delivers the Euphronios Krater, along with 20 other antiquities, to the Italian Government under the terms of a 2006 accord
October 2007
Princeton University reaches an agreement to return eight antiquities to Italy, including Greek vases and an Etruscan relief, all believed looted. The University's Art Museum is allowed to keep seven other pieces
August 2007
J. Paul Getty Museum, California, agrees to return a 5th cent B.C. Cult Statue of a Goddess (known as the ‘Morgantina Venus’ or ‘Getty Aphrodite’), to the Italian government, illegally excavated from Morgantina, Sicily, in 1977-78 and sold to the Getty for $18m in 1988, along with 46 other major works exported illegally
2007
A 4th cent B.C. sculptural group of two griffins, looted from a tomb near Ascoli Satriano, in Foggia between 1976 and 1978, is returned by the J. Paul Getty Museum to Italy
September 2006
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston returns a statue of Sabina, wife of Emperor Hadrian, a marble fragment depicting Hermes and eleven painted vases all looted from Italy, to Italian cultural officials
July 2006
J. Paul Getty Museum agrees to return to Greece a 2,400-year-old black limestone tombstone, illegally excavated near Thebes, and an archaic votive relief, stolen from Thassos
February 2006
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art agrees to return antiquities to Italy believed looted, including the Euphronios Krater and 15 pieces of Hellenistic silver, in exchange for long-term loans of other artefacts
November 2005
A Paestan Red-Figure Calyx Krater, painted and signed by Asteas, an Etruscan candelabrum and stone stela are returned to Italy by the J. Paul Getty Museum
February 1999
Three artefacts, including a 5th cent BC Attic Red-Figure Kylix, signed by Onesimos as painter and Euphronios as potter, and two 2nd cent statues, stolen or illegally excavated, are returned to Italy by the J. Paul Getty Museum
September 1993
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has agreed to return the 'Lydian Hoard' to Turkey, which claims the objects were stolen from ancient tombs in the mid-1960s
December 1974
A Roman mosaic, stolen from a 4th cent A.D. governor's palace in Apamea in the 1960s, is returned by the Newark Museum, New Jersey, to Syria
December 1973
A stolen bearded statue known as the Afo-A-Kom is returned to the Kom kingdom in north-west Cameroon after its discovery in a New York art gallery
February 1973
At the request of the Italian government, the FBI investigate the source of the Euphronios krater vase in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acquired in 1972
June 1972
Brooklyn Museum returns a section of a stela stolen from the Maya city of Piedras Negras to the government of Guatemala
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