Stolen artefacts returned to Afghanistan by British Museum

The British Museum, helped by British police and the UK Border Force, has helped return hundreds of looted artefacts seized from smugglers to Afghanistan.

A total of 850 treasures have been repatriated, having been passed to the British Museum for safeguarding following their confiscation in Britain over the last two years.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, said the return of the pieces was "the outcome of the ongoing dialogue between our cultural institutions, with the support of the authorities, to identify and preserve items from the national collection of Afghanistan that had been illegally removed during years of conflict".

Among the artworks returned are a second-century sculpture of the Buddah, and delicate Bactrian Bronze Age cosmetic containers.

Last week, in a secret operation, the seized artefacts were dispatched on two military planes to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, which is keen to rebuild its holdings following the Afghan civil war, when 80 per cent of its exhibits were plundered or destroyed.

Many of the objects were seized at British airports by customs officials, or by the Art and Antiques Unit of the Metropolitan Police as they passed through Britain.

The seizures reflect a global smuggling trade exploiting decades of war Afghanistan. A number of the treasures are thought to have been destined for sale on the black market in Britain, while others are believed to have been in the UK in transit.

The British Museum houses one of the largest collections of antiquities in the world. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are objects of intense controversy and of calls for restitution to their countries of origin.

Sir John Simpson, the British Museum’s senior curator responsible for the pre-Islamic collections from Iran and Arabia, expressed his satisfaction at what he referred to as a “liberating moment for our colleagues in Kabul” and said that he hoped, “that anyone would do the same for us if we were unlucky to suffer major disaster”.

TheTelegraph