Fifteen ancient Greek artifacts illegally removed from Greece, ranging from Bronze Age figurines to a Roman-era marble portrait head, were formally returned to Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni in a ceremony at the Manhattan district attorney's office, bringing the total number of antiquities repatriated through the office since 2022 to 179.
Mrs. Mendoni called the return "an act of justice toward our history," noting that some of the recovered objects will now be reunited with related finds from the same excavation site already held at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete.
She credited the Manhattan DA's Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Greece's Directorate for Documentation and Protection of Cultural Goods for what she called painstaking research and international cooperation, and said Greece is working to renew its bilateral Cultural Cooperation Memorandum with the United States to deepen the partnership.
Matthew Bogdanos, the unit's chief and a Manhattan assistant district attorney, called the repatriation "a celebration of friendship" and a reminder of the pursuit of beauty, justice and truth that originated in ancient Greece.
Among the returned objects are a Cycladic marble female figurine dating to roughly 2700-2600 B.C., a Mycenaean-era pottery jug, a gold necklace with an amphora-shaped pendant from the Hellenistic period, and a marble portrait head depicting a Julio-Claudian-era Roman figure believed to represent the emperor's guardian spirit.
Five bronze war artifacts — two helmets and three ornamented headbands dating to the late 7th century B.C. — were traced to a documented 1964 illegal excavation in Afrati, on Crete, with investigators using historical records, police telegrams and comparisons to related objects already seized and held in Heraklion to establish their origin.
The ceremony was attended by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Catherine Dillon, Greek Consul General in New York Iphigenia Kanara, and Vaso Papageorgiou, head of the Culture Ministry's cultural property protection directorate, alongside officials from the Manhattan DA's office.