© Metropolitan Museum of Art

Our founder, Leila Amineddoleh, worked as a cultural heritage law expert with the Manhattan DA’s Office in furtherance of the repatriation of a looted coffin from Egypt. Yesterday it was announced that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would return the exquisite coffin to Egypt. The prized golden-sheathed artifact was featured in an exhibition, “Nedjemankh and His Gilded Coffin,” that opened last year. The 1st BC century coffin was inscribed for Nedjemankh, a high-ranking priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef of Herakleopolis. The museum featured the coffin as the highlight of an exhibition, set to close on April 21. However, it was closed earlier this week after the museum agreed to repatriate the object after learning that it was looted from Egypt in 2011.

The museum purchased the item for $3.95 million from Parisian art dealer Christophe Kunicki in 2017. The coffin was accompanied by false provenance information suggesting that the item was legally exported. But in reality, the work was recently looted and smuggled out of the Middle Eastern country in contravention of its cultural heritage laws.

The museum publicly announced the high-profile repatriation and stated that it will review its acquisition program to prevent such occurrences in the future. In 2017, the Manhattan DA’s Office formed the nation’s first antiquities trafficking unit. Ms. Amineddoleh is proud to consult with the trafficking unit as a cultural heritage law expert. Led by Matthew Bogdanos, the unit has facilitated a number of repatriations from the Metropolitan Museum of Art within the past few years, including the return of an Etruscan vessel and a marble bull’s head from Lebanon.