U.S. returns over 1,400 antiquities worth $10 million to India

Over 600 looted Indian antiquities worth $10 million returned, with more to come; investigations ongoing.

A sandstone sculpture looted from Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s and another in green-grey schist looted from Rajasthan in the 1960s are among the over 1,400 antiquities collectively valued at $10 million that the U.S. returned to India.

More than 600 more antiquities looted from India are scheduled to be repatriated in the coming months.

The pieces were returned at a ceremony with Manish Kulhary from the Consulate General of India here and Alexandra deArmas, Group Supervisor from the Homeland Security Investigation of New York Cultural Property, Art, and Antiquities Group, according to a statement from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg, Jr.

“At least 1,440 antiquities collectively valued at $10 million were returned to India at the event,” Mr. Bragg said in a statement.

The sandstone sculpture depicting a celestial dancer was looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in the early 1980’s. The looters had cleaved the sculpture into two halves to facilitate smuggling and illicit sale and by February 1992, the two halves were illegally imported from London into New York, professionally reassembled, and donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met).

It remained on display at the Met, until it was seized by the Antiquities Traffic Unit (ATU) in 2023.

The second sculpture, Tanesar Mother Goddess, carved from green-gray schist, was looted from a village of Tanesara-Mahadeva in Rajasthan. First documented in the late 1950s by an Indian archaeologist along with 11 other sculptures of mother goddesses, the Tanesar Mother Goddess and her fellow mother goddesses were stolen one evening in the early 1960s, the statement said on Wednesday.