The Metropolitan Museum of Art, working with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, handed over three ancient artefacts that have been in its collection for decades so they could be transferred to the Iraqi government. The objects, collectively valued at $500,000, were linked to various investigations into criminal looting networks, including one involving the notorious British antiquities dealer Robin Symes, a suspected smuggler who died in 2023. To date, the DA’s criminal inquiry into Symes has facilitated the seizure of $58m worth of artefacts.
The object that Symes sold to the Met in 1972 is a votive terracotta head of a male figure dating from between 2000BC and 1600BC. It was looted from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Isin in the 1960s before being smuggled out of Iraq and into Symes’s hands in 1971. A second head from the same era and region, depicting a female figure, was gifted to the Met in 1989 along with the third artefact, an alabaster vessel supported by two ram figures used to store ointment or perfume, which dates from between 2600BC and 2500BC.
According to the DA’s office, the vessel was initially offered to the Met in 1956 by the Swiss-based trafficker Nicolas Koutoulakis, who told administrators that the object had been sourced from a site outside of Ur, the ancient capital of Mesopotamia. The artefact cycled through several owners, including Symes, before entering the Met’s permanent collection in 1989.
“Through the Museum’s cooperation with the Manhattan DA’s office, and as a result of its investigation into Robin Symes, the museum recently received new information that made it clear that the works should be repatriated, resulting in a constructive resolution,” a Met spokesperson told The New York Times. Max Hollein, the museum’s director, added in a statement that the museum remains “committed to the responsible collecting of art”.
Since 2017, the Manhattan DA’s office has seized at least 130 allegedly looted artefacts from the Metropolitan Museum, 22 of which have been on loan. This increased legal scrutiny on collecting practices of the past inspired the institution to create a new position last May, the head of provenance research, currently occupied by Lucian Simmons, in addition to expanding its team of analyst from six to 11 employees.
“We continue to recover and return antiquities that were trafficked by Robin Symes,” District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “That is a testament to the hard work of attorneys, analysts and investigators who are committed to undoing the significant damage traffickers have caused to our worldwide cultural heritage.”
