New York to repatriate three antiquities to Yemen after seizing them from Met board member

District attorney says 'antiquities that were ripped from their countries of origin' can 'finally return home'

A soldier stands next to the 3,000-year-old Temple of the Moon in Marib, Yemen. The soon-to-be-returned antiquities were looted in 1994 during Yemen's civil war. Reuters

New York will return three antiquities worth $725,000 to the people of Yemen, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced on Friday, as part of a criminal investigation into a Manhattan-based private collector.

The antiquities — including an alabaster ram from the 5th century BC, which was looted during the Yemeni Civil War in 1994 — were seized from the Manhattan apartment of Shelby White, a board of trustees member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The investigation into Ms White by the Manhattan Antiquities Trafficking Unit “has allowed dozens of antiquities that were ripped from their countries of origin to finally return home”, Mr Bragg said.

“These are just three of nearly 1,000 antiquities we have repatriated over the past 16 months.”

The district attorney's office thanked Ms Shelby for co-operating in the investigation.

In December, the Art Newspaper, a trade publication, reported that the Manhattan district attorney's office had seized $24 million worth of antiquities from Ms White's apartment.

The Yemeni pieces will be on temporary display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington until Yemeni authorities can safely repatriate them.