Cleveland Museum of Art
Posted on 06/04/2024 10:52:20 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
While excavating an ancient Greek palace in eastern Libya in the 1930s, an archaeologist dug up a large earthen storage jar, looked inside and spotted something unexpected — a 2,200-year-old sculpture of a bearded man carved from basalt, a dark volcanic stone.
The two-foot-tall antiquity, most likely chiseled during ancient Egypt's Ptolemaic Dynasty, was a rare find. Known as a striding male figure, it is one of only 33 statues like it known to exist, Egyptologists say.
But it wasn't long before thieves got ahold of the bearded figure and took it on an illicit odyssey that brought it, in 1991, to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
On Wednesday, after curators had reviewed abundant proof that the item was stolen from Libya, including photos of it on display in the 1940s at a small museum near its discovery site, the museum agreed to transfer ownership to Libyan officials...
As for the striding male, his journey most likely began between 200 and 100 B.C., when he was carved as an icon during a long era of Greco-Roman rule over Egypt.
He remained in the region until just before World War II, when his storage jar was found...
The sculpture was placed in the nearby Ptolemais Museum, only to be stolen in the early 1940s when the region became a war zone between the Italians and the British. The statue reappeared in Switzerland in the early 1960s, researchers say, and was ultimately acquired by the art dealer Lawrence A. Fleischman.
Fleischman donated him to the Cleveland museum in 1991 as a 75th anniversary gift. He will remain there in a display case until Libyan officials pick him up.
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
Thanks for the link.
If it says Libya, Libya, Libya
On the label-a, label-a, label-a,
You must send-a it, send-a it, send-a it
To Tripoli’s table-a, table-a, table-a...
Kinda looks like Clinton
Good museum. The armor collection is fun.
I traced it to the home of a Russian general - one Kemidov - in a Cleveland suburb. He didn't know a thing about it. It was nothing but a black enameled figure to him.
It’s too bad the picture is so poor - it’s really a nice statue.
It will disappear in that failed state. Not that Cleveland isn’t a failure.
The Arabs who govern Libya (in theory are least) have absolutely zero to do with the culture/people who created this sculpture. They are just the latest squatters/conquerors of this area of Northern Africa. There is no reason to send the sculpture back to Libya, send it to Athens instead if your pantywaist bleeding hearts are so full of guilt for having this in Cleveland. Hell, send it to Rome, they ruled that area of Northern Africa longer than these Arabs have.
Museums always seem to get taken over by woke a-holes.
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