See a Stunning Collection of Stolen Greek Artifacts, Spanning 5,000 Years, That Were Just Returned to Greece

Fifteen ancient Greek artifacts of bronze, marble and clay—dating back almost five millennia and valued at nearly $3 million—have been returned to their home country. Among them are pieces of Archaic jewelry, a bust of a Roman emperor’s divine spirit, and helmets decorated with horses and winged men. The artifacts constitute the latest roundup and repatriation of Greek antiquities by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Greece’s minister of culture, Lina Mendoni, accepted the 15 items at a ceremonial handover in Manhattan on Monday. Matthew Bogdanos, who leads the office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, said at the ceremony that since 2011, the unit has recovered and repatriated more than 6,400 antiquities to 40 countries. Per a statement from the office, 175 of those artifacts belonged to Greece.

Bogdanos said they have a combined value of some $51.5 million. One helmet boasts detailed etchings of dogs, flowers, and a man wearing wings and grasping a twisting serpent. One of the waist guards depicts two identical horses and is inscribed with Greek letters.

According to a statement from the Greek Ministry of Culture, the armor dates to the late seventh century B.C.E. It was unearthed in Heraklion, Crete—also known as Iraklio—during a large, illegal excavation in 1964. One painted pottery vessel, a beaked jug, dates to around 1750 B.C.E.

The cache also includes a bronze bracelet dating to the seventh century B.C.E., during Greece’s Archaic period, and a Hellenistic gold necklace from the second century B.C.E. The youngest of the 15 objects is a marble bust, and it’s actually Roman. Depicting Genius Augusti, the “divine spirit” of a Roman emperor, the bust was made between about 14 C.E. and 68 C.E.—during the reign of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius or Nero.

All of these objects were “smuggled into the United States and laundered by dealers and collectors through false provenance, exhibitions and museum donations,” according to the D.A. The office seized them from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since 2017, investigators have removed more than $95 million worth of artifacts belonging to countries like Egypt, Turkey and Syria from the Met, the New York Times’ Graham Bowley and Tom Mashberg reported in June.