US authorities return antiquities linked with notorious smuggling ring to Egypt
The Egyptian items repatriated by the Manhattan District Attorney's office this week, collectively valued at $1.4m, include a wood coffin face and a royal alabaster vase
Among the artefacts restituted to Egypt: a face from a gilded wood coffin dating to around 332BCE-275BCE (left) and an alabaster royal vase from around 3100BCE-2670BCE (right) Courtesy the Manhattan District Attorney's Office
Eight of the objects were recovered as part of the Manhattan DA's investigation into the Dib-Simonian trafficking network, a nine-person team that allegedly included former Musée du Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez and facilitated the sale and purchase of looted cultural artefacts to institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Louvre Abu Dhabi. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, supervised the investigation. The head of the ring, Serop Simonian, an art dealer in his 80s, was arrested last year in Germany and transferred to France.
Since 2022, the Manhattan DA's office has returned 27 items to the government of Egypt, valued at more than $6.5m in total.
"Egypt has an incredibly rich cultural history that we will not allow to be diminished by selfish looters and traffickers. I am proud that my Office has successfully returned more than 25 antiquities to Egypt in just over two years, and we look forward to continued work with our partners at HSI to protect cultural heritage all around the globe," District Attorney Bragg said in a statement.
Howaida Essam, Egypt's consul general in New York, examines artefacts recovered by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Courtesy the Manhattan District Attorney's Office
The recovered pieces include a gilded wooden coffin face dating from around 332BC-275BC that was looted from the Nag el-Hissaya necropolis, a site near the famed Temple of Horus that served as a burial ground for priests and other religious officials. The face was severed from a larger coffin headdress before coming into Simonian's possession in 2001; a member of the trafficking network consigned it for auction at Christie's but it failed to sell; it subsequently changed hands several times in private sales over the next two decades. Bragg's office seized the object from Manhattan's Merrin Gallery in 2023.
Another notable item in the group is an alabaster royal vase from between 3100BC and 2670BC, which was excavated by the British Egyptologist Cecil M. Firth from the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara between 1924 and 1935. The vase was stolen from a warehouse in Egypt and smuggled out of the country, resurfacing in the holdings of the disgraced British dealer and notorious trafficker Robin Symes, who sold it to private collectors. It was also seized from Merrin Gallery in 2023.
The objects were handed over in a ceremony with the Consul General of Egypt in New York, Howaida Essam.
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