Iran Says It Has traced Two Ancient Sculptures Stolen Decades Ago

Radiofarda – Tehran has claimed that it has traced two more Achaemenid bas-relief sculptures stolen from Iran nearly ninety years ago.

“We have exactly located the stolen pieces and already started negotiation to take them back,” the chief of Iran Cultural Heritage Organization, Ali Asghar Mounesan maintained in a radio show.

The traced objects are similar to a bas-relief head sculpture of an Achaemenid Imperial Guard that was returned to Iran in September 2018. The returned object, was seized from the stand of Rupert Wace Ancient Art at TEFAF New York in October 2017.

The District Attorney of New York filed a claim on May 24, 2018, with the state’s Supreme Court calling for the return of the bas-relief to Iran, on the grounds that it was looted from the country in the 1930s.

After attending the United Nations General Assembly, President Hassan Rouhani personally took back the stolen object to Iran, on September 27, 2018.

Months after its return, the ancient Persian bas-relief was unveiled at the Great Museum of Khorasan, on January 14, 2019, in the city of Mashhad, northeast Iran.

The bas-relief object is scheduled to be displayed in other museums across the country.

The relief, dating from around 500BC and the Achaemenid Empire, had earlier been on display in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 1951-2011.