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10.03.2026 22:20
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Upon compiling its NAGPRA-mandated inventory of funerary remains in its collection, the Peabody Museum announced a connection between the items and one of the four federally recognized tribes in Maine, thus paving the way for their repatriation to their tribal communities.
The grave goods, made up of red ochre, a plummet, spearheads, and gouges, entered the collection in 1926, having been excavated from Wabanaki Nations cemeteries by archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead around 1913.
The remains are from an individual from the Wabanaki Nations and were removed from a shell mound on Deer Isle, Maine by a local resident in the early 1950s (see above), and later donated to the museum.
New Case, contributed by Michela Herbert: Wabanaki Ancestral Remains
In 2024, the Yale Peabody Museum returned human remains and 8 grave goods to the Wabanaki Nations in compliance with NAGPRA.
How the jaguar head came to be in the garage remains a mystery, and no arrests were made. However,the police believed that site’s proximity to New York’s John F. Kennedy airport suggestd that the garage was being used by a criminal gang as a drop-off spot for trafficked goods from Latin America.
The Mayan carving dates from around 150 BCE based on its stylistic similarity to other Late Pre-Classic sculptures from the Guatemalan highlands. The head was returned to Guatemala in 2002.
New Case: Mayan Jaguar Head, contributed by Lisa Duffy-Zeballos
In 1999, on a tip, New York City police raided a Brooklyn garage where they made a surprising discovery. Inside a wooden crate packed with newspaper was a four-foot-long 500-lb stone sculpture of a jaguar head with a man in its jaws.
An investigation by the Guardian found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
This FOl enquiry for the Guardian has taken up a great deal of my life for the past 2 years. (1/3)
Wrote this on human remains in British museums this time last year and stand by it: it’s a slow process that many collections have been trying to deal with for a while and—above all else—one that needs time and resourcing: theconversation.com/new-report-c...
In a sign of growing international cooperation in the restitution of looted artifacts, Portugal has returned three pre-Columbian objects to Mexico. This will be the first time Portugal has repatriated unlawfully acquired antiquities to that country.
www.artnews.com/art-news/new...
Iraq’s Embassy in London recovered an ancient seal dating back to the Akkadian civilisation (2250 BC) that had been recorded as a stolen artefact from the Duhok Museum in 1991.
mofa.gov.iq/london/en/20...
Becchina actually obtained the vase through the Medici trafficking ring, and incriminating Polaroids seized from his and Medici’s archives showed it with fresh dirt. The resulting HSI investigation and civil forfeiture case led the Toledo Museum repatriate the kalpis to Itay in 2013.
The Toledo Museum purchased it from Gianfranco Becchina, who falsely claimed that he acquired it in 1980 from "Mr. K Haug," whose father allegedly acquired it in 1935 (conveniently pre-dating Italy’s 1939 patrimony law).
The vessel, dating from the 6th century BCE, depicts pirates being transformed into dolphins by Dionysos, and is attributed to the Micali painter.
New Case: Etruscan Black-figure Kalpis, contributed by Alex Breitfelder & Damien Huffer
This Etruscan black-figure kalpis (water jug), was acquired by the Toledo Museum of Art in 1982 and held there until 2013, when it was seized by investigators to be returned to Italy.
The story continues, the erotic scene mosaic, taken by a Wehrmacht officer in World War II is actually from a villa in the located in Rocca di Morro, a hamlet in the municipality of Folignano, (Ascoli Piceno) in Le Marche.
www.finestresullarte.info/en/news/true...
Mexico has denounced the planned sale on eBay of 195 archaeological pieces and demanded that the auction by an eBay user in Orlando, Florida, identified as “Coins Artifacts,” return the objects to Mexico.
mexiconewsdaily.com/news/culture...
CBP officers seized 36 copper-alloy short swords and 50 copper-alloy arrowheads on Feb. 18 that were unlawfully imported to the United States from UAE destined for Jacksonville, Fla. Likely looted in Talish Mountains region of Iran.
www.cbp.gov/newsroom/nat...
The UK estate of antiquities trafficker Douglas Latchford has returned an additional 74 objects to Cambodia under an agreement signed after his death in 2020
www.barrons.com/news/cambodi...
Who is trying to erase the antiquities trafficker’s Wikipedia page?
Nominated for ‘speedy deletion’
Then given a ‘notability’ warning?
One sees this a lot.
#erasure #crimenews #pr
@wikipedia.org @wikimediafoundation.org
These items joined several others looted from Bubon that have been returned in recent years and now reside in the archaeological museum of Antalya.
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Investigations by Türkiye and the Manhattan District Attorney's office in 2023 connected the bronze and another item held by MFA to the looting of Bubon, Türkiye, between 1952 and 1966. MFA's own research confirmed this, and agreed to return the bronze to Türkiye.
Eisenberg's Royal-Athena Galleries sold it to an anonymous private collector, where it remained until 2003, when it was donated to the Boston MFA.
New Case: Idealized Greek King from Bubon. Contributed by Jason Felch.
This bronze face of a Greek king, likely dating to the 2nd century CE, surfaced in 1966, when dealer Jerome Eisenberg showed it and other bronzes to Cornelius Vermeule, then-curator of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
It didn't work: Soon after, Italy indicted then-curator Marion True for her role in sourcing looted items for the Getty.
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