Met Returns Ancient Sumerian Statue to Iraq

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has repatriated to Iraq a Sumerian copper alloy statue dating to the third millennium BCE. Museum officials returned it to Iraqi authorities in a ceremony in Washington, DC, with Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in attendance. The ancient artifact, measuring over fourteen inches high and depicting a nude male figure with a box, possibly an offering, atop its head, had been held in the museum’s collection since 1955, the year it was purchased.

Prior to its return, the statue had been displayed several times and loaned to other institutions, most recently to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York for a 2016 exhibition centering copper sculptures from ancient Mesopotamia. The Met did not explain how the artifact got out of Iraq, or what had led it to repatriate it. Though it has exited the museum, its digital collection entry will remainaccessibleto the public.

“The Met is committed to the responsible collecting of antiquities and to the shared stewardship of the world’s cultural heritage,” said Met director and CEO Max Hollein in a statement. “We are honored to collaborate with the Republic of Iraq on the return of this sculpture, and we value the important relationships we have fostered with our colleagues there. We look forward to continuing the ongoing and open dialogue between us.”

The return comes just weeks after the Met appointed Lucian Simmons its first-ever head of provenance research and revealed that it had beefed up its staff in that area. The museum, which like many around the world has faced calls to return objects that have been obtained under questionable circumstances, has said it is committed to performing due diligence regarding the ownership histories of the roughly 1.5 million objects in its collection. Late last year, it repatriated sixteen Khmer-era antiquities to Cambodia and Thailand.