Iraq recovers 3 artifacts from New York

Iraqi News

21-05-2025

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) – The Iraqi Embassy in Washington, DC, has successfully retrieved three rare items from New York that had been confiscated by Manhattan's district attorney's antiquities trafficking unit.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed on Monday that it is returning three artifacts to Iraq. The three pieces are a Sumerian vessel made of gypsum alabaster and two Babylonian ceramic sculptures depicting the heads of a male and a female.
The artifacts date from the third to the second millennium BCE.
The return of the objects comes after the Metropolitan Museum of Art launched its Cultural Property Initiative, which includes a thorough evaluation of its collection.
In 2024, the museum began the repatriation of a third-millennium BCE Sumerian sculpture to Iraq after an origin study by museum academics determined that the art perfectly belongs to Iraq.
The vessel and the head of a female were gifted to the museum in 1989 by the Norbert Schimmel Trust, a prominent collector of ancient art and antiquities, and the head of a male was purchased by the museum in 1972.
The sculptures of a male and a female are likely to be from the archeological site of Isin in Iraq, while the vessel is not known to be related to a specific location in Iraq; it initially showed up on the Baghdad art market in 1956 and was purchased by a Swiss dealer.
Following the museum's collaboration with the Manhattan District Attorney's office and as a consequence of its investigation into Robin Symes, the museum recently obtained fresh information indicating that the pieces should be repatriated, resulting in a positive settlement.