At a ceremony this week, Greece’s culture minister officially accepted the artifact, which was likely stolen from a museum in Olympia in the 1930s
February 26, 2025 1:31 p.m.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning a seventh-century B.C.E. bronze head of a griffin to Greece after new research revealed that it had been stolen in the 1930s.
The artifact was discovered in 1914, when the curator of the Archaeological Museum of Olympia stumbled upon it in the bed of the Kladeos River in Olympia. It was housed at the museum before its disappearance.
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In the years that followed, the griffin head’s fate remained a mystery—until recent investigations linked it to the Met. The artifact entered the museum’s collections in 1972 as a gift from a former trustee, who had purchased it from a New York dealer several decades earlier.
“The Met and the Greek ministry agreed to the return of the griffin after careful review of records and letters determining that it could not have legitimately left the Archaeological Museum of Olympia,” says the museum in a statement, per the New York Times’ Graham Bowley. “This research revealed that the theft of the object occurred under the watch of the head of the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, for which he was referred for criminal prosecution over 80 years ago.”
Lina Mendoni, Greece’s culture minister, traveled to the United States this week for the official handover, according to Artnet’s Jo Lawson-Tancred. During the ceremony, she praised the Met for investigating the artifact’s provenance.
“Greece is among the countries where cultural treasures have long suffered theft and illicit trafficking,” said Mendoni, as reported by the National Herald. “On behalf of the Greek government and the people of Greece, I extend my gratitude to the museum’s administration and curatorial staff. This gesture carries profound symbolic and practical significance.”
More than two millennia ago, cast-bronze griffin heads were commonly used to adorn large ceremonial cauldrons that served as votive gifts in Greek sanctuaries. Today’s archaeologists have unearthed hundreds of such objects. But according to the Met, this particular bronze griffin head is one of the “finest” examples known to exist.
The handover marked the first repatriation under the Met’s expanded provenance research unit, which reviews the origins of objects in the museum’s collections. Last year, the museum hired more provenance researchers and created a new position to lead these efforts.
“The Met is honored to collaborate with the Hellenic Republic on the return of this extraordinary object,” Max Hollein, the museum’s director and chief executive, tells the Times. “We are grateful for our longstanding partnership with the Greek government and look forward to continued engagement and opportunities for cultural exchange.”
The griffin head wasn’t the only artifact that Mendoni received during her trip. During an event at the Greek embassy, she was also given a lekythos, an ancient Greek flask, that had been housed in the Glencairn Museum in Pennsylvania, according to the Greek broadcaster ERT Sports. Experts think it was stolen from Greece between 1936 and 1972.
