US returns 77 stolen antiquities to Yemen
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An inscribed bronze bowl and an ancient funerary stela were some of the 77 looted artifacts formally returned to Yemen by US officials on Feb 21.
PHOTOS: NYTIMES
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WASHINGTON - The United States has returned 77 looted antiquities to Yemen, the US authorities said on Tuesday, adding that the objects would be housed “temporarily” in a Washington museum as agreed upon with the war-torn country’s government.
The pieces are “64 relief-carved stone heads, 11 Quran manuscript pages, an inscribed bronze bowl, and a funerary stele” from Minaean tribal cultures in north-west Yemen’s highlands dating back to the first century BC, Mr Breon Peace, the district attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
The announcement was made jointly by the prosecutor’s office, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the Smithsonian Institution, which includes 21 museums, according to its website.
New York state’s justice department has been carrying out for several years a vast campaign to restore antiquities looted around the world that have ended up in museums and galleries in New York city.
Between 2020 and 2021, at least 700 pieces were returned to 14 countries, including Cambodia, Egypt, Greece, India, Iraq, Italy and Pakistan.
The 64 carved-stone heads had been confiscated in the US as part of a 2012 plea bargain from an antiquities smuggler named Mousa Khouli, also known as “Morris” Khouli, the statement said.
The antiquities were imported into the US from Dubai using false documentation.
Yemen’s Ambassador to the US Mohammed Al-Hadhrami expressed his “deep gratitude” to New York, according to the statement.
“I also affirm my substantial appreciation to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art for agreeing to temporarily hold these antiquities until they are fully repatriated to Yemen in the future,” Mr Al-Hadhrami said.
The Yemeni government and the museum have signed an agreement to preserve the objects for two years, with the option of renewing it at Yemen’s request.
Yemen has been devastated by an eight-year civil war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and plunged the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula into one of the world’s worst humanitarian tragedies. AFP
A page from a Quran believed to date from the 8th century A.D.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
