The Palmyran Relief, crafted in the ancient city of Palmyra in the late second century CE.Courtesy Manhattan District Attorney's Office

New York Investigators Return 36 Artifacts to Syria, Including Relief Looted from Palmyra

by · ARTnews

Thirty-six antiquities, collectively valued at more than $5 million, including a stone relief looted from the ancient site of Palmyra, have been retuned to Syria, New York investigators announced on Wednesday.

Among the group are 14 “extraordinary” mosaics stolen from a Roman-era villa in Syria linked to antiquities dealer Georges Lotfi, a former source for the Manhattan district attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit who was, in a dramatic turn of events, charged in 2022 with criminal possession of stolen artifacts from Syria and Lebanon. (He is currently wanted by New York authorities and Interpol.)

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Wednesday’s restitution included a monumental section of flooring dating to the 3rd century BCE and depicting the wedding of the god Telete and Eros in the company of Aphrodite and the Three Graces. It had been seized in 2021 from a storage unit owned by Lofti. The Palmyra relief—a soaring limestone sculpture depicting a reclining man attended by women and children—was created for a burial chamber in the late 2nd century CE. Weighing more than 1,000 pounds, it was likely hacked from the wall by looters, Manhattan investigators believe, with the figures left intact. The relief was then smuggled out of Syria and ultimately into Dubai, before Palmyra was destroyed by ISIS between 2015 and 2017.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., also announced that his office seized 13 pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday, bringing the total number of antiquities seized from the museum since 2017 to more than 402. According to the office, the antiquities are collectively valued at more than $98.7 million.

In July, the Met described the seizures as part of a collaborative effort by the museum and the D.A.’s office to purge its collection of items that had been looted.

“The Met doesn’t want any stolen art in our collection,” Lucian Simmons, head of the Met’s team of 12 provenance experts, said in a statement at the time. “[The D.A.’s office] has been an invaluable partner to us in this work—particularly their ability to unlock information that would otherwise be inaccessible.”