With New Seizures, Value of the Met’s Looted Artifacts Tops $95 Million

Key Points:

• Investigators seized dozens of ancient artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in June as part of ongoing efforts to return looted antiquities to countries like Italy, Turkey, and Egypt.
• Since 2017, over 120 artifacts valued between $20,000 and $26 million, plus hundreds of smaller items, have been confiscated from the Met, totaling more than $95 million in seized objects.
• The recovered items include a 3,700-year-old Greek terra-cotta jug, a marble head, a 2,000-year-old Turkish bronze statuette of Hermes, and an ancient Egyptian golden headpiece, with individual values ranging from $80,000 to $500,000.
• Investigators have enhanced their efforts by tracking international trafficking rings responsible for supplying antiquities to U.S. museums and collectors post-World War II.
• The Met described the returns as a collaborative process, highlighting its expanded team of provenance experts and increased commitment to researching the origins of objects in its collection.