Switzerland Repatriates Cyrene Sculpture to Libya

News December 6, 2023

Libya Marble Head Sculpture
(Switzerland’s Federal Office of Culture)
SHARE:
Libya Marble Head Sculpture

BERN, SWITZERLAND—Swiss Info reports that Switzerland’s Federal Office of Culture has handed over a seven-inch sculpture of a young woman’s head to the Libyan Embassy. Dated to between the first century B.C. and the first century A.D., the marble sculpture is thought to have been looted from the site of the ancient city of Cyrene, which is located on Libya’s Mediterranean coastline. It was found by Swiss authorities during a customs inspection in Geneva in 2013, and seized in 2016 as part of a criminal investigation. For more on looted artifacts from Cyrene, go to "Arab Spring Impacts Archaeology," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2011.

  • Features November/December 2023

    Assyrian Women of Letters

    4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets illuminate the personal lives of Mesopotamian businesswomen

    Read Article
    (Attraction Art/Adobe Stock)
  • Letter from El Salvador November/December 2023

    Uneasy Allies

    Archaeologists discover a long-forgotten capital where Indigenous peoples and Spanish colonists arrived at a fraught coexistence

    Read Article
    (Courtesy Roger Atwood)
  • Artifacts November/December 2023

    Sculpture of a Fist

    Read Article
    (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Bridgeman Art Library)
  • Digs & Discoveries November/December 2023

    The Benin Bronzes’ Secret Ingredient

    Read Article