The United States announced on Tuesday that it had returned 77 looted artifacts to Yemeni authorities for safekeeping, noting that the archaeological treasures would be stored “temporarily” at a museum in Washington in an agreement with the Yemeni government, New York U.S. Attorney Brion said. Pace said in a statement that the artifacts “are 64 carved stone heads, 11 pages of a manuscript from the Qur’an, an inscribed bronze bowl, and a funerary stele from the Main or Mainite tribal cultures in the highlands of northwestern Yemen.” dating back to the first century BC.
The attorney general issued the statement jointly with the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, as well as the Smithsonian Institution, which includes nearly 20 US museums. In recent years, the New York State judiciary has launched a massive campaign to recover antiquities looted from around the world and displayed in the city’s museums and galleries.
In 2020 and 2021, the United States returned at least 700 artifacts to 14 countries, including Egypt, Iraq, Greece, Italy, Cambodia, India, and Pakistan.
The 64 carved stone heads were confiscated in the United States as part of a 2012 plea agreement with the US judiciary by an antiquities smuggler named Musa Houli, also known as “Maurice” Houli, according to a prosecutor’s statement. quotes Yemeni Ambassador to the United States Muhammad al-Khadrami as expressing “deep gratitude” to the American authorities.
Al-Hadrami added: “I also express my deepest gratitude to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art for agreeing to temporarily preserve these antiquities until they are fully returned to Yemen in the future.”
The Yemeni government and the museum, located in Washington, have signed an agreement that the latter will store these exhibits for two years “with the possibility of extension upon request” of Yemen.
