The Met Will Hold Artifacts Recently Returned to Yemen as Part of Ongoing Loan Agreement

Officials of the Republic of Yemen have placed a group of artifacts recently repatriated from a private collection on a long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Researchers believe that the group of 14 loaned sculptures, estimated to have been created between the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE, were used for funerary purposes, among them an incense burner carved out of limestone and a votive made from yellow alabaster. A private collection in New Zealand recently returned the stone and bronze objects to Yemeni government officials. Those overseeing the return then reached an agreement with the Met to house the artifacts at the museum temporarily due to the ongoing civil war in the country..

Officials have said that the conflict in Yemen means that the country isn’t a secure enough environment to hold the works at this time. Yemen reached a partnership deal with the New York institution in 2023, a type of loan arrangement that allows the Met to formalize a deal to work with a foreign country to hold and display displaced artifacts, similar to an agreement made with Nigeria in 2021.

Mohammed Abdullah Al-Hadhrami, the current ambassador of Yemen to the United States, expressed gratitude to the New Zealand Hague family for voluntarily returning the objects in a statement, calling the Met’s deal with them “essential” in safeguarding Yemen’s cultural roots.

Al-Hadhrami alluded to the status of Yemen’s dire issues, such as widespread food scarcity and the decade-long civil war beginning, as reasons why official returning the works to a collection in Yemen was infeasible for the time being. The conflict has left an estimated 4.5 million people displaced, according to United Nation report published in May.

The objects, which Yemen retains legal title over despite them being housed and displayed in New York, are thought to derive from the western part of the country in Yemen’s Bayhan District.

The ongoing custody agreement began in September 2023, when the Met agreed to house two stone works in its collection for Yemeni officials indefinitely. This was after Yemen made an ownership claim for the objects, a mortar and a figurine, and the museum’s researchers found that they derived from Yemen.