These 10 Stolen Artifacts Are Still Waiting to Be Returned Home

At first, amateur German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann didn’t tell anyone about the cache of gold and silver he discovered at the legendary site of Troy in 1873. It was only after “Priam’s Treasure,” so named for the Trojan king described in Homer’s Iliad, was put on display in Berlin that Turkish authorities realized he’d smuggled it out of the country. But while they quickly initiated a legal case against Schliemann for the artifacts’ return and barred him from working at any other ancient Turkish site, the majority of the objects remained in German hands—for a while, at least.

When the Russian Soviet army invaded Berlin in 1945, a German professor surrendered Priam’s Treasure to the Soviet Art Commission to prevent its plunder and destruction. Although the diadems, jewels, vases, and weapons were believed to have been saved, no one knew where they’d gone until Moscow’s Pushkin Museum admitted they had them in their possession in 1994. Turkish authorities have worked to get the objects back ever since; they even opened a state-of-the-art museum at Troy to display them in 2018. However, according to a Russian law passed in 1998, any art looted from Germany during World War II belongs to Russia as compensation for the costs the country suffered in the conflict. Despite the fact that Priam’s Treasure never actually belonged to Germany in the first place, Russia has so far refused to acknowledge Turkey as its rightful owner.

The “Rosetta Stone” isn’t just one of the most important archaeological finds ever made, it is one of the world’s most notorious stolen artifacts. French troops recognized the potential significance of the three-foot-tall stone fragment when it was discovered during Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1799. Carved into its face was a decree issued by an Egyptian king in 196 BCE in three scripts: Ancient Greek, Demotic Egyptian, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Although scholars could read the first two, hieroglyphs were still a mystery—and the Rosetta Stone held the key to cracking its code.

But soon after it was found, French troops in Egypt surrendered to British ones, and the Rosetta Stone was taken to England in 1802. It’s been on exhibition at the British Museum ever since—the institution’s single most visited object—and Egyptian authorities have called for its repatriation for over 20 years, describing it as an “icon” of Egyptian identity. The British Museum disagrees, claiming that the Rosetta Stone is an essential part of humanity’s universal heritage and, if it were returned to Egypt, it would be less accessible to the public. Plus, say authorities, in an Egyptian museum, the Rosetta Stone would be left vulnerable to damage, an accusation frequently lobbied against museums in the developing world that are considered inferior to those in Europe and the U.S. Neither side is likely to back down anytime soon.

Since it was acquired by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, in 1977, the ancient bronze “Victorious Youth” has been at the center of a repatriation battle. The Getty purchased the life-sized statue from a German art dealer for $4 million, knowing full well, according to Italian authorities, that it had been hauled out of the Adriatic Sea by Italian fishermen in 1964 and illegally sold. But even though Italy’s highest court ordered the museum to return Victorious Youth to Italy in 2018, the Getty refuses to comply, claiming that the bronze—which is attributed to Greek sculptor Lysippos—was neither created by an Italian artist nor found within Italian territory, so its repatriation to Italy would be unethical and inconsistent with American and international law. The legal battle marches on.

Despite the certainty of Greek authorities that the Parthenon Marbles (previously called the Elgin Marbles after the diplomat who shipped them to England in 1812) were taken from Athens illegally, London’s British Museum is unimpressed by the claim. While they are willing to consider loaning some of the marbles back to Athens, the museum’s trustees have publicly stated that their primary objective is to keep them accessible to world audiences. It’s a perspective rooted in colonialism, one that suggests that Athens is an inferior global tourist destination to London. But the British Museum is firm in its convictions. Since the marbles can’t be returned to the Parthenon itself—any sculptures there today are replicas while the originals are housed in the Acropolis Museum—they believe that the ideal place for them is the one in which they can best be understood for their universal value to all humanity, not just to the descendants of those who carved them.

Not long after it was first displayed in Germany in 1923, Egypt has been calling for the return of the bust of Queen Nefertiti, a life-sized masterpiece of painted limestone now held at Berlin’s Neues Museum. German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt committed fraud to remove the statue from Egypt, but Adolf Hitler, who was apparently “in love with Nefertiti,” vetoed Egypt’s request for repatriation in the 1930s. That interference by Hitler redefined the bust as looted Nazi art, according to Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna, some of which has already been returned to its rightful owners.

Indeed, it was found at the end of World War II as part of a Nazi hoard hidden in a salt mine in Wiesbaden. Although many in Germany agree that keeping the statue is a neocolonial choice that fails to acknowledge Nefertiti’s importance to Egyptian heritage, the Neues Museum continues to resist Egyptian attempts to have their queen returned to her homeland.

Earlier this year, Colombia’s Minister of Culture renewed the country’s call for the return of the Quimbaya Treasure from Spain. Part of the collection—122 exquisite gold headpieces, jewelry, storage vessels, and musical instruments gifted by then Colombian president to Queen Maria Cristina in 1893 as thanks for mediating a border dispute with Venezuela—is held at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid. Its return home, according to Colombia, would be a significant recognition of the country’s cultural sovereignty and rights. Spain, which claims that, as a diplomatic gift, the treasure is rightfully theirs, has not yet honored the request but has discussed a project to “decolonize” the country’s national museums.

Recently London’s British Museum has been deflecting the renewed interest of Chileans in the repatriation of two moai statues taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by British surveyors in 1868. Although it was annexed over 100 years ago by Chile, Rapa Nui is located 2,300 miles to the west and has a distinct Polynesian identity and heritage of which the moai, giant basalt statues carved to carry the islanders’ ancestral spirits, are an essential part. As a symbol of peace used to mediate an annual competition for island governance, the statue called Hoa Hakananai’a, “the Stolen Friend,” is especially important. Although Rapa Nui began asking for the moai’s return in 2018, the British Museum has so far resisted the request.

For a century, Romania has been trying to retrieve its national treasure from Moscow, where it was sent for safekeeping in World War I. But while some have been returned over the years as a gesture of goodwill, the most valuable artifacts, 93.4 tons of gold in the form of coins, ingots, jewelry, and vessels, are still in Russian hands. Just this year, the European Parliament signed a resolution to demand Romania’s treasure back unconditionally, but Russia has long claimed that they consider the treasure a partial repayment of the $300 million debt incurred by Romania in World War II. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev even went so far as to say that Romania is not a nation and therefore has no claim to the treasure. The intensity of the response suggests that it’s unlikely Romania’s gold will be returned in the near future, if at all.

In 2022, the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., returned to Nigeria 29 of almost 50 Benin bronzes held by the Smithsonian. The objects, examples of the Kingdom of Benin’s exceptional royal artistry between the late 15th and late 19th centuries, were just a small part of the 3,000 works stolen in a British raid on Benin’s royal palace in 1897 and sold at auction to private collectors around the world. But while the Smithsonian did determine that at least some of their Benin bronzes had been stolen and deserved to be repatriated, other institutions don’t agree, with some claiming that modern corruption and the kingdom’s historical participation in the slave trade and human sacrifice, disqualifies them from restitution—a deeply hypocritical position considering the horrors in which the U.S. and Europe participated during the colonial period. The British Museum, which holds more than 900 objects taken in the sacking of Benin’s royal palace, has acknowledged Nigeria’s request for their repatriation but has not yet addressed it.

Publicly, Pope Francis supports the repatriation of Indigenous items to the Algonquin, Nipissing, Mohawk, and other Canadian First Nations. The Vatican even went so far as to send a 200-year-old Wampum Belt made in 1831 to Montreal in 2023 but required that it be returned to its vaults early, after only 51 days away. No other First Nations objects have left Rome and, although authorities know there are more than 80,000 works of Indigenous Canadian art in the Vatican’s collection, no one is sure exactly what they have.

First Nations representatives, however, stress that for youth struggling with intergenerational trauma, the return of the objects made by their ancestors may help to heal the wounds of colonialism. The Vatican has returned some of the items in their museums to other countries in the last few years but whether the Wampum Belt and other works of art including carved face masks, embroidered Cree leather gloves, and a rare Inuvialuit kayak will ever make it home is anyone’s guess.